Quote 4
"Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, and every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day-by-day and minute-by-minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence after the event – years after it." (2.5.14, Winston to Julia)
Winston feels confident that, despite the Party’s control of information–and thus, the past–he alone had possession of evidence to prove the Party’s wrong. (At least in his memory.)
Quote 5
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," repeated Winston obediently.
"Who controls the present controls the past," said O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. "Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?" (3.2.39-40)
To O’Brien’s dismay, Winston continues to deny that the mutability of the past leads to control of the present. However, the prolonged torture has been gnawing away at Winston’s belief in an independent, external reality.
Quote 6
O'Brien smiled faintly. "You are no metaphysician, Winston," he said. "Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?"
"No."
"Then where does the past exist, if at all?"
"In records. It is written down."
"In records. And- ?"
"In the mind. In human memories."
"In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?"
"But how can you stop people remembering things?" cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. "It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory?
You have not controlled mine!" (3.2.42-49)
Facing extreme torture, Winston vehemently refuses to give up the view that an independent external reality exists, even in a world where the Party controls all records. Winston’s fierce belief in the immutability of memory is the last straw he holds on to.