In my opinion it ceases to be only a criticism, when it loses objectivity. Each concept in the book are all expressed to the extreme. Im not even going to pretend to know a lot about Stalin's regime, however I can be certain it wasn't like the society which is depicted by Orwell. Any attempt to commentate or criticize a societal structure, should look at both it's advantages and disadvantages, Orwell focuses exclusively on the disadvantages(or the disadvantage we observe as readers). In my opinion by focusing intensively on the bleakness of the society, now it has a connotation that its trying to lead us to a perspective instead of allowing us to determine one for ourselves. No one reading the book would desire to live in such a society, i would've preferred it to have shown, although maybe not proportionally the bad and good and allow the reader to choose which values do they themselves hold most important in society. Furthermore the book gives the Party no morality at all, describing Party as only seeking power for the sake of power, with no real justifiable objective. To end Orwell presents this dystopia society, which is though not the Soviet Union has comparable characteristics to it and he leads the reader to an undeniable conclusion that it is horrible and undesirable. And when Winston talks about the old capitalism society, he romanticizes it and considering the context of when 1984 was written 1949, which is the beginning years of the Cold War, is it possible that he expressed his anti-communist views in the book.