In my opinion, the number 101 was a part of an existentialist symbolism in the novel, that of course is not expected from anybody to understand neither the philosophical and psychological message of the novel itself.
Now Orwell himself meant to write this novel as a parody. It would be easy to digest, but there is a risk of that the simple proletarian will slide through on it.
The novel refers to it at some point. The party represents that tiny slice of the whole thing who tries to save the popultion from themselves.
After the room 101 the prisoner denies their friends and they believe that they have sinned against the Big Brother.
It is all about that by means of tortures they make the people understand that the population is condemned to death and to top it all we are our own executioners.
You know if you want to imagine the population in the future just think of a boot as it is treading a head. Thus the technique of 101 would have been essentially to make the population to serve the party.
This part has never been topical like that, but we shouldn't make that mistake which is to turn off to the world of the daily politics.
This is only a small part of the novel and numerous other messages are hidden in it. See for example the Ministry of Love.
This is the status of the final estrangement. There Orwell's future are already materialized. Do not think that you are a gift of God of the starving human species. The violence has been generalized not only to ourselves, but to our children too.
We reason this with a moral rhetoric. We cannot see clearly even those things that are in front of us not to mention those that a little farther away from them.
During our nurture we get the violence packed and wrapped in a box with the label of love. Whoever reached their 18th birthday those with the best chance will be light-headed just like us.
This is a rather succesful business, but there are some people who can't stand the pressure and go mad. We are a master hand for camouflaging the violence as love.
Am I narcissist? The whole society is. I was brought up like that. They said you will get on with things and achieve your goals like this. Then when the doctor sees me, it turns out that I have no problem at all, however I was surrounded by those who harmed me and I tried to protect myself.
Obviously this is only a novel, but it's written the way that takes us into the big mistakes of mankind. However most people don't learn from this and only a few are able to swing over this paranoid status.
So there are only a few of us who have been in the room 101 and those who survived they only hope that there will be more and more like them.
I didn't even mentioned what exactly happened in the room 101.
Image Source:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Room101