Recently I realized that it had been as many as twenty years since I read Animal Farm, as I can remember reading it in early high school (1999, 2000 perhaps). A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, and I don’t simply mean time: I’m much more familiar with the politics and history that Orwell references here than I was in those pre-9/11 days. For those who don’t know, Animal Farm is a satirical fable that essentially tells the story of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union in microsmic faction, set on a failing farm in England. Complaining of ill treatment and barely adequate food and shelter, the animals strike out against the owner Mr. Jones in anger, and are successful in driving him away from the farm. Inspired by the dreams of the late Old Major, a boar who denounced human domination of animals and called for revolution, the animals then begin trying to set up their own commune, to be called “Animal Farm”. Here, all animals would be equal: no creature would have too little, and no creature would have too much. And…..enter the human condition. We soon witness a elite forming, with its own intelligentsia to supply The Science and its private forces to bully those capable of thinking for themselves, or who step out of line with the edicts of the increasingly small elite. At first, that elite is the pigs, especially Napoleon and Snowball, but as they vy for influence Snowball disappears and Napoleon begins growing as a tyrant. The other animals are slightly confused because the rules keep changing to favor what Napoleon is doing: wasn’t there one an edict about no animals sleeping in beds? But now the commandment-wall specifies bed with sheets. And wasn’t alcohol forbidden? Now it’s merely forbidden “in excess”, though only the pigs seem to have access to it. As the pigs and their cronies gain power, so too do they rot with vice: small things like keeping the milk and apples for themselves morphs into the pigs — and Napoleon, in particular — becoming worse masters than Old Mr. Jones ever was, but now keeping the farm’s residents mollified with kant and dogma. Having read works like Homage to Catalonia, and Simon Schama’s Citizens which documented the French revolution eating its own children, I could very clearly see Orwell’s targets here and was impressed by the depth of his allusions. Nearly a century after publication, this work has not lost any of its bite — nor has 1984, a similar critique. Unfortunately, this story and elements of it continue to play out: we saw the witch-hunt culture of fear in East Germany and Mao’s “cultural revolution”, for instance, and authorities continue to disregard or creatively interpret law and history as suits their interests.

Related:
1984, George Orwell
My Disillusionment in Russia, Emma Goldman