The answer can be found in Part I, Chapter 4
of 1984:
In the speech under review, Big Brother had
referred to an organization called the FFCC, praised it and singled out an official,
Withers, for special commendation. Now the organization no
longer existed and Withers was an “unperson.” No one
usually knew what happened to those declared as “unpersons,” public executions or trials
of political offenders were spectacles which happened only once every two years or so.
Usually such people just disappeared.
Now Winston had to rewrite Big
Brother’s speech without any reference to FFCC or Withers. He decides to invent a
totally new person as the subject of the speech and names this imaginary character
Comrade Oglivy. Of course,
Comrade Oglivy did not exist, but once Big Brother’s speech
about him was placed in the newspapers with a couple of faked photographs his existence
would become indisputable fact. Winston writes the speech in which Big Brother pays
glowing tribute to the heroic life and glorious death of
Comrade Oglivy who is held up as an example for all
citizens to follow.
The fate
of these two foreshadows what will happen to Winston and Julia: by the end of the novel
they too will become unpersons. The Party will falsify their past written records so
that it appears--on paper--that they never existed.
The
"mutability of the past" shows that the Party is a well-oiled machine of censorship and
disinformation. Since they control all newspaper and language in the Ministry of Truth,
the Outer Party and Proles believe their propaganda. Winston's job, after all, is to
erase names and pictures of party dissidents. The Party's ability to change history and
language enables them to torture and dis-inform, and it strengthens their control over
the masses, making it nearly impossible to organize and rebel.
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