I agree that gradual reform is superior to revolution but not more possible, simply because we humans have a romantic fascination with violence, and thus the idea of a violent revolution has a lot easier to gather support than gradual reforms, that said gradual reforms have accomplished more even with it's more limited support, just look at the accomplishments of social democracy compared to communist revolutions. The later has had a lot more resources and people backing it, but has achieved somewhere between nothing and making things worse, whilst the gradual reformists of the social democratic movement has actually done a lot with much less resources.
The state that Orwell was constantly warning against was the soviet union, and the reformer was Mikhail Gorbachev. Granted his attempts at reform caused the entire thing to come down, but I just said a reformer showed up not that he succeeded.
