So many people seem to want to name-check Orwell for anti-communist purposes without recognizing that the man himself fought for a revolutionary socialist militia in the Spanish Civil War. In other words, he put his actual life on the line for communism (in the non-Stalinist form he interpreted it as), and actually ultimately probably died from complications related to injuries he sustained in that conflict.
His writing changed after Spain. He saw the deliberate press distortions, and the Soviets installing listening equipment in the telephone exchanges. If anything, this gives him greater credibility. This is a review he wrote of /We/, which I dug up while thinking about your comment. http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/zamyatin/english/e_zamy
Nothing there in that review is inconsistent with the anti-Stalinist but revolutionary socialist views of the POUM militia he fought with in Spain.
Now, arguably "Emmanuel Goldstein" in 1984 is meant to be a kind of Trotsky figure (and his book within 1984), and the fact that Goldstein and his book are ultimately shown to be fake and created by the Party may be a kind of critique or renunciation of Trotskyism and similar currents. Hard to say.
