He would understand only too well
Via UK Telegraph:

When the George Orwell Memorial Trust proposed a statue of the writer for outside the BBC’s new headquarters it expected an enthusiastic response. ... According to Baroness Bakewell, who is backing the campaign, Mark Thompson, the Corporation’s outgoing director general, said the statue could not be erected on BBC premises because Orwell was “too Left-wing”.

Orwell worked as a BBC journalist, producing radio programmes at Broadcasting House during the Second World War...

Yup, Georgie would immediately understand purges, show trials, and icepicks.

This is one of Orwell's BIG POINTS, and it's one that most people miss. What makes Leninism especially evil is the constant CHANGE of orthodoxy.

All cultures and governments lie. All cultures and governments have an Approved Set Of Ideas. All cultures and governments punish people who oppose the Approved Set. This is not problematic, because people who grow up inside a certain culture or government naturally learn the limits.

Lenin's special invention is Total Confusion And Uncertainty. It's not just "2 + 2 = 5". That's a normal and tolerable lie. Under Lenin, "2 + 2 = Whatever we say it is RIGHT NOW, AT THIS MILLISECOND." Only a few people with an unerring sense of Status can keep their balance on the shifting sands of fashion; most folks just surrender, lay down and let the Master do what he wants.

And that's the goal.

= = = = =

More specifically, I'm trying to figure out why Thompson would consider Orwell "too left-wing". When Orwell was alive, most British Commies rejected him as "too right-wing". Why this particular switch?

Orwell thought a good socialist regime should serve the poor and punish the rich, but should NOT embrace thought control. The Commies of his time were Marxists, who agreed with Orwell on serving the poor but hated him for opposing thought control. Modern Gramscian/Randian Commies (the entire ruling class of the Anglosphere) have switched on the poor/rich point. They believe in enriching the rich and starving the poor, but they still love thought control. (Of course they have new names for thought control and total censorship. One "side" calls it Individual Liberty, and the other "side" calls it Human Rights.)

So a Gramscian/Randian must hate Orwell on both points. He was bad because he respected the poor, and he was bad because he disliked tyranny.

I'm not sure why this counts as "left-wing" in Thompson's mind, though. Presumably the poor/rich aspect is visible to him but the thought-control aspect is invisible. Orwell would understand that also.
  ¶ 3:50 AM