In The Road to Wigan Pier from 1936 Orwell writes: "In the end I worked out an anarchist theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and that people can be trusted to behave decently if only you will let them alone."
doesn't sound like a socialist to me.
Here this will help. The book you quoted is a strong Defense of Socialism by Orwell.
http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/opinion/essays/storgaard1.html4.3. The Road to Wigan Pier
In his description of socialism Orwell begins by giving a picture of the world he is living in:
"We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive. For enormous blocks of the working class the conditions of life are such as I have described in the opening chapters of this book, and there is no chance of those conditions showing any fundamental improvement." [RWP p. 149]
Anyone who thinks about it will, according to Orwell, realise that socialism is the solution to the problems. This is so obvious that Orwell sometimes wonders why socialism has not been established yet. The question must therefore be why socialism is on the retreat instead of on the advance. Not only are people not socialists, in certain cases they are even directly hostile towards socialism. Orwell will try to play the devil’s advocate and argue like a person, who is positive towards socialism and who is sensible enough to realise that socialism can work, but who always withdraws whenever socialism is mentioned. (It is obvious that Orwell is also expressing his own views).
First of all, people are not so much against socialism as they are against the socialists. The typical socialist is not, as imagined by the old ladies, a wild-looking worker in dirty trousers and with a hoarse voice. On the contrary, socialists are middle-class people. Furthermore, it is a fact that while they talk about the classless society, middle-class socialists cling to their class status. This is among other things reflected in socialist literature, which is far removed from the working class in language and expression.
You should always remember, Orwell says, that a worker, if he is a real worker, is seldom or never a socialist in the full logically consistent sense of the word. The worker's idea of socialism is very different from that of the schooled socialist higher in the social hierarchy. To the worker socialism means little more than better wages, shorter working hours and no one to boss you around.
"Often, in my opinion, he is a truer Socialist than the orthodox Marxist, because he does remember, what the other so often forgets, that Socialism means justice and common decency." [RWP p. 154]
Regarding the revolution, for many socialists it is not a question of the masses liberating themselves and the socialists joining the movement. To them the revolution is some reforms that "we", the clever ones, impose on "them", the lower classes. Orwell knows that it is not fair to judge a political theory from its followers. The problem, however, is that most people do (including Orwell himself) and that is why socialism is on the retreat.
There are people who are against socialism for ideological reasons, Orwell continues. They are against socialism, not because "it can't be done" but precisely because it can be done. You have to realise that socialism is connected to mechanisation. Socialism arose from the industrialisation and socialism will lead to mechanisation simply because some of its demand are irreconcilable with a more primitive way of life. But no sensible person is happy with the machine. Of course anyone can see that the machine is here to stay, but it is unfortunate that socialism is associated with increased mechanisation, not just as a means but as an end in itself, almost like a religion. It is okay that we let machines do all the hard and dreary work, but Orwell believes that human beings like to work with something manually. You may call that work or not, but if machines were to do everything, what should people do? Orwell believes that
"[t]he sensitive person's hostility to the machine is in one sense unrealistic, because of the obvious fact that the machine has come to stay. But as an attitude of mind there is a great deal to be said for it. The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously." [RWP p. 178]
And because the thought normally goes "Socialism - progress - machinery - Russia - tractor - hygiene - machinery - progress", it is usually the same person who is against the machine who is also hostile to socialism.
When you present these arguments to the socialists, Orwell says, you are told that no one really wants to abolish the machine and return to a primitive agrarian society, which would be the equivalent to hard work. Certainly not anyone who has tried hard work. Furthermore, you are met with the old argument that socialism will come anyway, whether people like it or not, because of the comfortable concept of "historical necessity". But historical necessity, or rather the belief in it, has not been able to do anything about Hitler, Orwell says.
Fascism in Germany and Italy was the threatening background of Orwell's analysis. He saw it spread, also in England. It was not necessarily Mosley [Note 7] and his "pimpled followers", Orwell was thinking of, but the fascist attitude of mind in people who should know better.
"If you present Socialism in a bad and misleading light - if you let people imagine that it does not mean much more than pouring European civilization down the sink at the command of Marxist prigs - you risk driving the intellectual into Fascism. You frighten him into a sort of angry defensive attitude in which he simply refuses to listen to the Socialist case." [RWP p. 186]
To fight fascism you have to understand it, which means that you have to admit that it has its positive sides. In practical terms it is nothing but tyranny. But with a bit of thought anyone can see that the average fascist is often a well-meaning person who e.g. is worried about the situation of the unemployed. More importantly, fascism gets its strength from the good and bad sides of conservatism. Anyone who is for tradition and discipline will find fascism attractive. And if you are tired of certain aspects of socialist propaganda, it is very easy to see fascism as the last defence of everything that is good in European civilisation.
"We have got to admit that if Fascism is everywhere advancing, this is largely the fault of the Socialists themselves. Partly it is due to the mistaken communist tactic of sabotaging democracy, i.e. sawing off the branch you are sitting on; but still more to the fact that Socialists have, so to speak, presented their case wrong side foremost. They have never made it sufficiently clear that the essential aims of Socialism are justice and liberty." [RWP p. 188]
