It is the 26th century now. All the past atrocities humans committed over the eons are no longer practiced. In fact, there are no wars. What's the use of war, when you do not have conflicts in the first place? All of the earth is now centralized and 'One State' rules over it. Humans are now building spaceships to conquer the neighboring star systems and further 'One State's reach. People no longer have names (convenient numbers instead), they no longer engage in activities that are inherently harmful to them. And they also do not read, fall in love, have a personal thought, or life for that matter. They forgot to dream. Rather, prohibited. One State is constantly keeping them under surveillance. For "the greater good" of course. A world of crippled utopia, I could say. One day, an engineer by the name D-503 starts to question himself and his surroundings.

The cover photo is from Penguin

Now, I'm quite sure you will find this plot familiar. That is because you've read either 1984 by George Orwell or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In case you haven't made the connection already, yes, both of these aforementioned books were influenced by "WE", the granddaddy of all dystopian novels.

This is why many people call out Orwell and accuse him of stealing from "We". But is that truly the case?

How 'WE' influenced '1984' and 'Brave New World'

Orwell's "Big Brother" was clearly influenced by Zamyatin's "One State" where each of these entities controls human life with the draconian laws. Actually, Orwell's version went ahead and created a menacing monster of a ruler by introducing state-sanctioned mass surveillance in a manner so severe, it terrorized the readers. The term 'Orwellian state' is a standard term now to indicate an oppressive state that controls and abdicates public freedom and spies on them.

And Aldous Huxley took the concept of human sexuality from "WE". His idea of "Everyone belongs to everyone" from 'Brave New World' is influenced by One State's enforced law that throws regular human sexuality out the window and fixes sexual partners periodically. The goal is here is to have sex. Love and compassion are out of the question.

Let me go back to the word I'm proposing, 'Influenced', not stolen. In both cases, the latter writers built upon and expanded the ideas they borrowed. However, all three books are quite distinct from one another.

In layman's terms, "1984" is based upon autocracy, totalitarian state and mass surveillance. "Brave New World" portrays a futuristic society where people have lost the traditional sense of morality, society, humanity and culture to the advancement of machines.
"WE", on the other hand, is more political than those two. It denies the existence of the ultimate revolution. Revolution is an ongoing process and the ultimate goal cannot ever be attained. It has to go on and bring about changes over time. You can guess why those Bolsheviks, determined on the finality of their revolution saw this book as a 'no go'. So, the book had to be published outside of Russia first.

All three books are highly allegorical and appeal to the moral sense of the common people. All of them tried to shake the people back into reality using harsh, unforgivable dystopian tales and they have succeeded mostly.

I loved reading 'WE'. However, out of these three books, I thought 1984 had a stronger impact on me. It had stronger and more intense storytelling. Brave New World and WE aren't that far behind and I won't be surprised if anyone wants to pick one over another.