but the
essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous
upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable...

Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that
he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear
at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the
page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From
somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room
itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled
deeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss,
it was etemity. Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one
knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it at
a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:

Chapter III.

War is Peace.

The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an
event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the
twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the
British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers,
Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third,
Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused
fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places
arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war,
but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole
of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal
to the Bering S