Reactions
Randall Swingler, a communist poet, responded to the essay in an article "The Right to Free Expression" in Polemic 5. Swingler did not disagree that a writer must stand against the enemies of intellectual liberty nor with Orwell's case against the totalitarian cultural policies of the Soviet Union. His complaint was that it was impossible to reply to Orwell's essay because it was pitched at a level of "intellectual swashbucklery", persuasive generalisation and unsupported assertion. Orwell had a marginal column in which he responded to what he saw as a personal attack with sarcastic comments. After this exchange, Orwell was reported to be very angry indeed when approached by Swingler and refused to shake his hand, and took care to avoid running into him in pubs.
Christoper Sykes reviewed this and other Orwell essays and concluded "They contain much admirable sense, but they contain too some over-stated views, and some prophecies as doubtful as those of John Burnham".
Read more about this topic: The Prevention Of Literature
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