From George Orwell's review of 'Workers Front' by Fenner Brockway, published in New English Weekly, 17 February 1938.
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It is a pity that he tends to use the expression 'working class' in a rather narrow and restricted sense, being, like nearly all socialist writers, too much dominated by the concept of a 'proletarian' as a manual labourer.
In all western countries there now exists a huge middle class whose interests are identical with those of the proletariat but which is quite unaware of this fact and usually sides with its capitalist enemy in moments of crisis. There is no doubt that this is partly due to the tactlessness of socialist propaganda.
Perhaps the best thing one can wish the socialist movement at this moment is that it should shed some of its 19th century phraseology.
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