Winston copies the history textbook

Winston takes out a children's history textbook borrowed from Mrs Parsons and copies a passage into his diary. The passage describes the 'old days' before the Revolution, with capitalists in top hats, children working twelve hours a day, and wretched poverty. It claims that the capitalists owned everything and everyone else was their slave. Winston wonders how much of it is lies. He cannot prove whether life was better before the Revolution, because no outside records exist. The past has been erased, the erasure forgotten, and the lie has become truth.