valst In fact, Orwell was "inspired" to write 1984 by the Tehran Conference, when Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin shared spheres of influence. That is why in 1984 there were three countries.
I first read Nineteen Eighty Four in 1962 (high school reading assignment), and I'm aware of the Orwell's division of the world:
At the time Orwell wrote, two areas of authoritarian domination were obvious -- Communist China and the Soviet Union. Both, at the time, were repressive regimes, authoritarian and thought controlling. The Soviet Union was in the midst of dominating Europe (reference Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech) and it was, I believe, commonly feared that Communist China follow suit in Asia.
Orwell's third choice, Oceana, was not as obvious.
Our teacher pointed out to us in 1962 that Orwell selected the United States as the central and dominant power of one of the three freedom-crushing empires, and asked us to think about that in context of George Washington's farewell address, Dwight Eisenhower's address about the dangers of the rising military-industrial complex, and other warnings in our country's history about authoritarian rule.
Most of us didn't get it, having been raised in the 1950's, during which the United States was portrayed as the bastion of freedom. We were kids, living in the shadow of our fathers and uncles, who had endured the Great Depression and (as the story was told to us at the time) won World War II. We were taught to believe in our country's essential goodness, and most of us were naive enough to believe that had always been the case and would never change.
In later years, though, I've come to a deeper appreciation of Orwell's choice.
In the post-war world, the United States became the dominant military and economic power (however temporary that may prove to be) in the world, and authoritarians gravitate toward, and always misuse, power. It should come as no surprise that authoritarians drool at the prospect of seizing power in the United States, and Orwell's choice becomes understandable.
Although I'd probably use the word "predictive" rather than "prophetic" to describe Orwell's selection, I now realize that US history is replete with examples of authoritarians of one stripe or another attempting to seize power from the people. So far, the attempts have all failed, but the drums of authoritarianism are again pounding loudly in our country, and the outcome is not certain.