50 years to '84

It is said that the title, 1984, came from the fact that it was written in 1948, and George Orwell needed a future year, so he reversed the digits. It was published in 1949, and I read it for the first time about half way between the date it was written and the title year, but it was not until 50 years later that I understood.
In 1984, the world is divided into 3: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. The narrator, Winston Smith, lives in Airstrip One, a part of Oceania, and his job is correcting the newspaper morgues and the history books. It seems Oceania allies with Eurasia against Eastasia for awhile, then allies with Eastasia against Eurasia. When Oceania is allied with Eurasia against Eastasia, Oceania has always been allied with Eurasia against Eastasia, and, likewise, when Oceania is allied with Eastasia against Eurasia, Oceania has always been so allied, so Smith must correct everything that was written that contradicts the current state of affairs. And they keep him very busy.
When I read 1984, I naturally thought that Eurasia was the USSR and Eastasia was the PRC, so 1984 didn't make any sense: it was the USSR and the PRC that had always been allied against Oceania, i.e., the US and its allies and neocolonies, Oceania would never ally with the USSR against the PRC or with the PRC against the USSR. For that matter, neither the USSR nor the PRC would ally with free and democratic Oceania against the other Communist dictatorship.
After 50 years, I realised that, in 1948, there was no PRC. Eastasia was a fictionalised Russian Empire/Soviet Empire. Eurasia was more like the Central Powers of WWI, the German Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Airstrip One (i.e., England) feared the Russian Empire threatened the Raj, the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire.
But then came Napoleon, and Airstrip One was allied with the Russian Empire against Napoleonic France. Then, in the Crimean War, Airstrip One was allied with France and the Ottomans against the Russian Empire. Next, during WWI, Airstrip One was allied with the Russian Empire against the Central Powers. After WWI, Airstrip One allied with Germany against Stalin's USSR, until WWII, when Oceania was allied with the USSR against the Axis. And after WWII, Oceania was allied with West Germany and the rest of Western Europe against the USSR.
Just as Orwell wrote, Winston Smith has been very busy fixing the history books. The fact that Oceania was allied with Eastasia during WWII has been altered: now, seeing that the Axis (which included the USSR after the German–Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939) had conquered the entire Eastern hemisphere, the US saw its duty to freedom and democracy and single-handedly freed Western Europe and Japan from the Axis, but was unable to defeat the USSR which held on to the rest of Europe and Asia, plus parts of Africa and Latin America. Or it did until 1990, when the USSR finally collapsed, since it could not compete with Oceania, only to have Russia and the PRC continue their quest for global domination, a quest that Oceania must fight with huge military expenditures, vastly more than Russia and the PRC put together, just to preserve our freedom and democracy that Russia and the PRC vehemently hate.
Eastasia had imposed brutal dictatorships and state sponsors of terror on the impoverished (because of Eastasian theft) Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria, but Oceania, making a huge sacrifice of its young soldiers and treasure, finally managed to liberate all but Syria, where it is making great progress toward the final liberation we hope will happen soon.
Sadly, the new Russian Empire obviously stole the 2016 election from St Hillary. St Obama told us so, and, since all his proof is classified Top Secret, no Oceania patriot would ever want to see any of it: after all, during the 8 years when Obama was our Big Brother, he could not tell a lie, so his word alone is irrefutable proof. Had it not been for Russian interference in the 2016 election, St Hillary had promised she would force regime change in Russia on Day 1, and everyone in Oceania deeply regrets that Russia prevented her election victory, since her Russian regime change would have meant we would have never had any worries about CoViD-19 (or anything else).