George Orwell's essay on the atomic bomb anticipates Nineteen Eighty-Four

Lately I've been reading Orwell's collected work from 1945–1950, which was being deaccessioned from the library. It opens with a short but fascinating essay on “You and the Atom Bomb”, published 19 October 1945. It seems clear that Orwell's thinking about this development led directly to his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was written in late 1948. Orwell's initial focus is: The question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely: “How difficult are these things to manufacture?” This is important, he says, because: Ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. … A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak. Obviously, the atom bomb is in the first category. Then we come to the part that is clearly the road to Nineteen Eighty-Four: We have before us…