In Chap­ter 7 of 1984, Win­ston begins to reflect on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope with­in the pro­les, the mas­sive under­class that makes up about 85 per­cent of Oceania’s pop­u­la­tion. He con­sid­ers the poten­tial for rebel­lion against the Par­ty, see­ing the pro­les as pos­sess­ing the sheer num­bers need­ed to chal­lenge the regime. He feels that they could rise up with­out the need for secret meet­ings or con­spir­a­cies. Win­ston recalls a vivid mem­o­ry of a crowd of women in a mar­ket, upset over a short­age of cook­ing pots. Ini­tial­ly, he is thrilled by the thought that their anger could be a spark for rev­o­lu­tion, but this hope is quick­ly dashed when he real­izes their frus­tra­tion stems from triv­ial, every­day issues, not a deep polit­i­cal awak­en­ing. It becomes clear to him that, despite their poten­tial, the pro­les lack the nec­es­sary aware­ness to chal­lenge their oppres­sors.

Winston’s reflec­tions lead him to a sober­ing con­clu­sion: the pro­les are aware of their hard­ships but lack the polit­i­cal con­scious­ness required to unite against the Par­ty. The Par­ty strate­gi­cal­ly exploits this by keep­ing them une­d­u­cat­ed and focused on mere sur­vival, ensur­ing that they remain dis­tract­ed and dis­con­nect­ed from any rev­o­lu­tion­ary ideas. The Par­ty per­ceives the pro­les as infe­ri­or and unwor­thy of edu­ca­tion, which allows them to main­tain con­trol. While they are mon­i­tored by the Thought Police, they are large­ly left alone to live their lives, as long as they con­tin­ue to work and pro­duce for the Par­ty. Their lack of polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy and under­stand­ing of the broad­er pic­ture makes them easy to manip­u­late, ensur­ing that the Par­ty’s dom­i­nance remains unchal­lenged.

As Winston’s thoughts deep­en, he begins to reflect on the erased his­to­ry of the world before the Rev­o­lu­tion. He recalls a children’s text­book that described life before the Par­ty as a time of pover­ty, cap­i­tal­ist oppres­sion, and the exploita­tion of the work­ing class. This por­tray­al of the past—of “cru­el mas­ters” and “shame­less exploitation”—makes him ques­tion the verac­i­ty of the Party’s his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive. Win­ston won­ders how much of this his­to­ry has been fab­ri­cat­ed, manip­u­lat­ed to serve the Par­ty’s inter­ests. His own dai­ly expe­ri­ence seems to con­tra­dict the Party’s claims of progress and pros­per­i­ty, leav­ing him to doubt the real­i­ty that is being fed to him. The dis­con­nect between what he expe­ri­ences and what he is told fuels his grow­ing skep­ti­cism of the Party’s nar­ra­tive.

Win­ston’s inner con­flict deep­ens as he reflects on the purge of men like Jones, Aaron­son, and Rutherford—once Par­ty mem­bers who had been exe­cut­ed after con­fess­ing under duress. These men had been tried and found guilty of crimes against the Par­ty, but Win­ston remem­bers them as bro­ken, humil­i­at­ed fig­ures, for­ev­er changed by their con­fes­sions. He recalls see­ing them at the Chest­nut Tree Café, their spir­its crushed and their faces haunt­ed. The tele­screens that broad­cast­ed Par­ty pro­pa­gan­da also served as a con­stant reminder of the Par­ty’s con­trol over every aspect of life. These broad­casts pre­sent­ed fab­ri­cat­ed sta­tis­tics and false reports about the liv­ing con­di­tions of cit­i­zens, rein­forc­ing the Par­ty’s dis­tort­ed ver­sion of real­i­ty. Win­ston becomes acute­ly aware of how the Par­ty’s manip­u­la­tion of truth extends to his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives, turn­ing the very con­cept of objec­tive real­i­ty into some­thing flu­id and change­able.

In a moment of clar­i­ty, Win­ston con­fronts the ter­ri­fy­ing extent of the Par­ty’s con­trol over real­i­ty. He acknowl­edges the Party’s abil­i­ty to manip­u­late even the most basic truths, mak­ing him ques­tion every­thing he knows to be real. It is in this moment that he under­stands the impor­tance of objec­tive real­i­ty in a world ruled by decep­tion. Win­ston’s recog­ni­tion that “Free­dom is the free­dom to say that two plus two make four” sym­bol­izes his grow­ing under­stand­ing of the sig­nif­i­cance of truth in an era of lies. The Par­ty’s pow­er lies not only in con­trol­ling actions but in con­trol­ling the very foun­da­tion of real­i­ty, dic­tat­ing what can and can­not be believed. Win­ston’s inter­nal bat­tle to retain his grasp on truth becomes a cen­tral theme in his strug­gle against the Par­ty’s total­i­tar­i­an rule, one that seeks to erase all objec­tive real­i­ty in favor of a world shaped entire­ly by its will.