As other answers have noted, the quote about controlling the past appears in various places in the novel: in part 1, chapters 2 and 3; in part 3, chapter 2; and in Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism. The quote is as follows:
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
The number of repetitions of this slogan show its importance to the state. It is also important to Winston, who at about thirty-nine years old, is one of the few Party members with memories of the time before the Party took over. His job, too, involves endlessly revising the past to suit the needs of the present moment.
Winston knows from his childhood memories that the Party lies about the past to inflate its own importance. For example, he remembers airplanes:
Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. It was not true, for example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood.
To Orwell, being able to remember a concrete reality anchors a person in a verifiable reality in which the present can be accurately evaluated against the past. In Oceania, however, that anchor has been torn away. Therefore, people are what we would call today perpetually "gaslighted": they are constantly told their memories, a chief basis of selfhood, security, and identity, are wrong. For instance, as Winston knows, the Party will say it has increased chocolate rations when in reality it has cut them. This allows it to assert life is constantly getting better when in fact, it is constantly getting worse.
Controlling one's own memories, especially through being able to retrieve memories and rely on memories, is essential to keeping one's humanity, Orwell argues, a humanity that is under constant assault from the Party.
In part 1, chapter 3, Winston describes his job at the Ministry of Truth, which is ironically named because his daily task is to recreate the "truth," which is central to this quote. The Party wants to be seen as an all-powerful force, so they hire people like Winston to simply alter any part of history that doesn't fit that narrative. Winston thus changes facts in news articles from history, wipes people from existence, and even generates people who have never existed—all for the glory of the Party's image. In this way, the Party is able to alter their society's perceptions and continually mislead the populace.
The slogan of the Party supports Winston's role in reimagining historical events: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Winston realizes, of course, that history itself hasn't changed. Instead, the Party uses their position to create "an unending series of victories over memory."
When Winston is captured and tortured, he is required to repeat this slogan back to O'Brien , who is intent on forcing Winston to submit to the power of the Party. Winston dares to question...
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the veracity of the statement, and O'Brien is quick to reiterate the doublespeak which characterizes so many of the Party's tenets. He tells Winston that reality only exists in the "human mind," and the only "mind" that matters is the "mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal." The truth exists only as the Party allows it and defines it. Therefore, they control the past because they have the power to rewrite it continually to fit their own purposes.
It is in Part One, Chapter Three of 1984 that you can find the following quote about controlling the past:
"Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."
To illustrate the meaning of this quote, Winston uses the example that Oceania is at war with Eurasia. While the Party claims that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, Winston can clearly remember a time, four years ago, when Oceania and Eurasia were in alliance. This knowledge, however, exists only in his "own consciousness" because the Party has rewritten history so that this alliance never happened.
It is this manipulation of the truth, or "reality control" as Winston calls it, that contributes to the Party's everlasting and totalitarian power. It can make people believe whatever it tells them because it rewrites history accordingly.
It is also worth looking at the text from Emmanuel Goldstein's book which appears in the last chapter of Part Two. In the following quote, Goldstein further explains the Party's control of the past:
"The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it."
George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, is in many ways intended to satirize the Soviet Union, and especially the way that, during the Stalinist regime in power during 1949 when 1984 was published, Soviet revisionist historians rewrote history to support their version of Marxist-Leninist ideology, expunging from history books anything not flattering to their regime or belief system.
In the same way, the Ministry of Truth, at which Winston Smith works, is tasked with constantly revising or destroying all records of the past which might discredit the Party or Big Brother. For example, Oceania is alternately allied with Eastasia and Eurasia. Whenever the alliances change, all books and newspapers are edited to make it appear that the current ally was always, in fact, an ally, and to eliminate any evidence of shifts in allegiance.
Winston first explains how and why this system works in Part I Chapter 3, saying:
...if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' ... 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'.
It is repeated in Part 3 Chapter 2 by O'Brien, after Winston has been captured and during the process in which he is being tortured and brainwashed into complete submission to the Party.
From Chapter 2 of the online source linked below:
O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.
'There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,' he said. 'Repeat it, if you please.'
'"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,"' repeated Winston obediently.
This quote also appears in Chapter 3 (from the same source).
Further Reading