Rereading Nineteen Eighty Four – Part III Chap 4 (3)

Winston’s mind  grows more active and he sets to work re-educating himself.

He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had taken the decision.

From the moment when he was inside the Ministry of Love — and yes, even during those minutes when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen told them what to do — he grasped the pointlessness in attempting to go against the power of the Party.

He knew now that for seven years the Thought police had watched him. There was no act, no word they had not noticed. Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had carefully replaced.

They had played sound-tracks to him, shown him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself.

He had to accept the Party was in the right. It must be so; how could the immortal, collective brain be mistaken? By what external standard could you check its judgements? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.

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It is important to note how Winston becomes his own captor.  How he tries to teach himself to accept, embrace the mental slavery.   Mental slavery is why so many people ‘enslave’ themselves.