Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [284]

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 284

Note

The contrast between the proles’ untapped brute force and the Party’s consciouness—rebellion reduced to ‘a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice’—while the proles’ power requires no conspiracy at all. The horse-shaking-off-flies simile gives the force a bodily inevitability.