Historians estimate that around twenty million perished under Stalin’s totalitarian socialist regime (Keller). Around 18-45 million died in China’s Great Leap Forward under Mao Zedong’s similarly structured dictatorship (SimpleHistory). Many more perished during his Cultural Revolution (Lowndes). Though similar to fascism in terms of death toll and suffering, communism is somehow interpreted as an egalitarian utopia, which is far from the truth. In Animal Farm, George Orwell presents a fascinating allegory of the rise of the Soviet Union and the dangers of communism. Through a simple fable, Orwell provides a detailed study of how absolute power corrupts and how dictatorships don’t ever work even if they have a populist basis. Any system that puts too much power into the hands of a few people is doomed to fail. Stalin leveraged Marx’s “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” to seize absolute power (Daugherty). Animal Farm’s central idea is that of a failed socialist utopia like the Soviet Union, with egalitarian socialist ideals, corrupted and twisted into something unrecognizable by power-hungry elites. Both Old Major and Karl Marx saw a fundamentally unjust system with flagrant exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoise and challenged the status quo, inciting many revolutions. Karl Marx believed that all of society’s production is carried out by the proletariat, but the bourgeoise steals the fruit of their hard labor and reaps all the benefits, or “for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work” (Marx, 21). Old Major endorses the same beliefs in the relationship between animals and humans, when he says “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself” (Orwell, 4). Karl Marx was against any divisions amongst the proletariat, including classism, nations, or religion, because he believed these differences would be further exploited by the bourgeoise. Old Major’s commandments are similarly structured stating that animals should never have any of the habits of the humans and should always be equal and united. In his speech, Old Major says “No animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal” (Orwell, 5). Both imagined a classless society free of private property, in which everyone received equal shares of the products that labor creates. They saw this as the ultimate and inevitable end result of society. The similarities between Old Major and Karl Marx also spill over to Napoleon and Stalin. While Stalin rose to power through lies, manipulation, and elimination of everyone who stood in his way (starting with Trotsky (Stuart)), Napoleon blazes a similar trail in Animal Farm with Snowball paying the price. Squealer is Napoleon’s mouthpiece, just like how all of the media in the Soviet Union were Stalin’s. Both Napoleon and Stalin controlled the flow of information and relied on propaganda to push their rhetoric, as propaganda is a key component of any authoritarian regime (McGregor). When the pigs stole all the milk and apples on the farm, Squealer justified it to the gullible animals by saying that “Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig” (Orwell, 15). This is a partial truth, as it’s necessary for the well-being of any animal. Though all animals are considered equal, Squealer also says that “We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples” (Orwell, 15). So, Squealer is using propaganda and fear to convince the other animals. Napoleon’s army of dogs is based on the Soviet secret police, who relied on fear to suppress all dissent and to establish a totalitarian regime that controlled every aspect of life in their society (Stuart). Napoleon and Stalin share many similarities, but Animal Farm is not an exact replica of the Soviet Union. Though Stalin collaborated with the capitalists in World War II, similar to how Napoleon makes friends with the farmers in Animal Farm, he never reverted Russia back to a tsardom or abandoned the communist rhetoric, while Napoleon completely strays from everything the ideology of animalism once stood for. The animal farm ends as a total failure because they never manage to build the windmill to industrialize the farm and their living standards never improve, but the Soviet Union rose to being a superpower that challenged the United States for many decades during the Cold War before it finally fell (SimpleHistory2, Stuart). Stalin’s collaboration with the allies was a temporary measure, and he later betrayed them, establishing socialist dictatorships in the territories he seized from Germany (SimpleHistory2). On the other hand, Napoleon colludes with the humans and even invites them to the farm for a game of poker to show his solidarity, causing some friction when “Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously” (Orwell, 60). The animal farm is permanently renamed to its pre-revolutionary name, signaling the abandoning of all founding principles. Napoleon announces in his speech that “the name ‘Animal Farm’ has been abolished. Henceforward the farm is to be known as ‘The Manor Farm’—which is its correct and original name” (Orwell, 59). All commandments are erased except for that of “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” George Orwell captures the giddy rise and inevitable corruption of utopian socialist ideals in a way that can be understood by everyone in a cute but gritty allegory. It’s horrifying to see the transformation of what starts out
Animal Farm
Animal Farm, Reviewed by Ashlyn, 11
Animal Farm is a fictional book by a man named George Orwell, based on the events that happened during the Russian Revolution. The book starts off with the animals on Manor Farm, where they get tortured and starved by Mr. Jones, the owner. One night, a boar named Old Major tells all the animals that they must revolt against mankind and take over the farm. A few days later, Old Major dies, and the animals successfully rebel. They rename the farm to Animal Farm to celebrate their victory. Since the pigs are the cleverest animals, they take over, ruling over the others. However, soon, the power that the pigs have begins to corrupt them. The first way that power corrupts the pigs is that they end up going against the ten commandments that they created themselves. First, they kill other animals. The ten commandments clearly state how the animals cannot kill each other, but the pigs bypass this and kill some of the other animals for betraying them and not following the rules that they had created. The pigs also begin to act like humans more by walking on two legs and sleeping on beds, which is also against the ten commandments. How do the pigs not get punished for doing such things? The pigs do not get punished because they constantly change the ten commandments so that they can have their way, which is not right. The second way that power corrupts the pigs is that they take advantage of the animals’ lack of intelligence and education so that they can get their way. Throughout the story, the pigs constantly change the ten commandments so that they can break the rules without being noticed or punished for it. However, since the animals cannot read or write very well, they do not notice this happening. Another instance is Boxer’s death. When Boxer was about to die, the pigs told the animals that they would take him to the hospital so that he could live and heal. However, they instead send him into the truck that will take him to the horse slaughterer, where he gets killed. Since the animals cannot read things very well, they do not notice the logo on the truck that takes Boxer away. Benjamin the donkey is the only one who notices. He tells all the animals what is actually happening, but the pigs manage to deceive the animals once again by telling them that the truck used to be used to slaughter horses, but is now an ambulance. The last example is when the pigs tell the animals that the cows’ milk would be mixed with apples for the pigs to eat. The pigs say that they are doing this to benefit their health, but they are actually eating it because it is better than all the food that the others eat. The third way that power corrupts the pigs is that they start to become more and more human-like. A good example of this is how they changed and tweaked the ten commandments so that they could do things like sleep in beds, walk on their legs, wear clothes, and also interact with humans. The pigs say that they are allowed to sleep in beds without the blankets, as an excuse for sleeping in beds. The pigs say that they are talking to the humans for trading and business purposes as an excuse for interacting with the humans. Towards the end, the pigs get rid of all of the ten commandments and replace it with one commandment, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” to make up for the fact that they are now wearing clothes and also walking on two legs. The most significant example is the ending of Animal Farm. The book ends with the pigs holding a ceremony to celebrate with the humans and then changing the name of the farm back to “Manor Farm.” After that, the pigs and the humans play a game of cards together. As Clover, the old horse, looks at the pigs and the humans, the book states that she could not tell the difference between them. This signifies that the pigs have become so much like the humans that there is no difference between the two anymore. After the pigs gain a lot of power, it starts to slowly corrupt them. They start to go against and break their own rules and commandments; they take advantage of the animal’s lack of intelligence and knowledge to manipulate them and use them like slaves; and finally, they turn into humans, acting like them and also changing the ten commandments so that they can get away with everything. Animal Farm does not have a very happy ending, as the pigs stay as the “rulers” of Animal Farm, continuing to use the animals and trick them. The main lesson of this story is that power can corrupt the people who have it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I would recommend that you read it if you have not already. Animal Farm by George Orwell. Signet Books, 1945. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!