Reddit reviews Modern Classics a Life in Letters (Penguin Modern Classics)

It might be more salubrious to cite the personal correspondence of Orwell, and that of his closest associates.

>As to politics, I was only intermittently interested in the subject until about 1935, though I think I can say I was always more or less ‘left.’ In Wigan Pier I first tried to thrash out my ideas. I felt, as I still do, that there are huge deficiencies in the whole conception of Socialism, and I was still wondering whether there was any other way out. After having a fairly good look at British industrialism at its worst, ie. in the mining areas, I came to the conclusion that it is a duty to work for Socialism even if one is not emotionally drawn to it, because the continuance of present conditions is simply not tolerable, and no solution except some kind of collectivism is viable, because that is what the mass of the people want... I have been vaguely associated with Trotskyists and Anarchists, and more closely with the left wing of the Labour Party (the Bevan-Foot end of it). I was literary editor of Tribune, then Bevan’s paper, for about a year and a half (1943–5), and have written for it over a longer period than that. But I have never belonged to a political party, and I believe that even politically I am more valuable if I record what I believe to be true and refuse to toe a party line.
-Orwell in a letter to Richard Usborne, 26 August 1947

...


>The only thing I can be quite certain of is, that up to his last day George was a man of utter integrity; deeply kind,
and ready to sacrifice his last worldly possessions – he never had much – in the cause of democratic socialism. Part of his malaise was that he was not only a socialist but profoundly liberal. He hated regimentation wherever he found it, even in the socialist ranks.
-Letter from Jennie Lee to a Miss Margaret M. Goalby of Presteigne, 23 June 1950