What do you understandd by George Orwell's observation, 'Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past'? To what extent do you think it is true?

What do you understandd by George Orwell's observation, 'Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past'?  To what extent do you think it is true?

R://
George Orwell is basically saying what everybody knows: whoever is in charge of public information, is in charge of history, and whoever controls history controls what is to come.
this means that whoever controls information about the past, history books, school texts, movies, television, any record of the past, can use it to shape history into whatever they need it to be. As an example, China has only very few public records of the past, and they are government controlled so that the Chinese people shall never question any of it. this allows the government to act as they please, and still be able to justify their actions with new historical information, made by them. if they can control the way the Chinese see their past, they can control what the Chinese see in their future, which gives them control over them, entirely. i don't agree with Orwell completely, i believe that it gives them a very powerful tool, however if anybody would truly wish to rebel and not be controlled by their past, nor their future, it could be done. this means that if the desire to live without these restrictions mentioned by Orwell was strong enough, it could be done, and people could live without a defined and standardised historical past.