In Orwell's novel 1984, there is no difference between perpetual war and perpetual peace. For members of the inner party, perpetual war - which is everlasting by definition - does not allow for any changes in society. The inner party changes or alters historical records of the past for a particular reason: people often make decisions about their present based upon incidents from the past. By controlling the past, and the records and narratives related to it, the inner-party can control the way people thinking about the past, they can control how people think about the current day and the future.
