The Absurdity of Totalitarianism, Part II

I remembered my trip to China in January 1973 during the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. I became friendly with this woman assigned to be my interpreter. I wasn't very important, so I got this low-level person from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And obviously she was writing a report on me every day. She was a sweet but frightened middle-aged woman who had lost her husband during the Cultural Revolution. I asked her where she was staying. She said she was staying with friends. As it turned out, she was staying in this tiny room, which was more like a closet, in the basement of the hotel. I saw it because I insisted on seeing where she stayed--she wasn't supposed to show it. One day she invited me to go out for a walk, after indicating that the room was bugged. She spoke very slowly in her limping English: "Have... you... read... a... book...called... 19--" When I heard "19" there was a pain in my chest. I knew what she was going to say next: "84." "1984," I repeated, more upset than I wanted to let on. "Yes," she said, smiling. "China just like that."

Susan Sontag, in a July 2000 interview