Upon the expulsion of Snowball, Napoleon’s first decision was to eradicate the Sunday Morning Meetings. “They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In the future all questions relating to the work of the farm would be settled by a special committee of the pigs and, presided over by himself.” (Orwell) This is also very much like the Command Economy that Stalin had made, in which the government made all economic decisions. Stalin’s next decision was to build the windmill that he had been so opposed to when proposed by Snowball. Trotsky had proposed a Five-Year Plan for the industrialization of Russia, and Stalin was opposed to it. After Trotsky was gone, Stalin had no economic ideas of his own; “In a word, he put into practice the dictatorship of industry for which Trotsky had called five years earlier.” (Ovseyenko) The windmills, hence, represent the Five-Year plans, or Russia’s Industry.
As Trotsky gained more power, it was imperative for him to eliminate any who might challenge it, and also to keep a bodyguard around him to prevent any harm from coming to him; maintaining this in mind, he assigned a secret police to assassinate people who were against him and to keep him safe, Napoleon needed his personal army also, and this was the dogs’ actual purpose. “When they had finished confessing their crimes, the dogs promptly tore their throats out....” (Orwell) Napoleon then asked if anyone else had any crimes to confess, and they were executed immediately.
Pinchfield, one of the farms bordering Animal Farm, symbolizes Germany. Stalin made the Non- Aggressive Pact with Hitler, to keep Germany from attacking Russia during World War II. Germany attacked Russia; nonetheless, breaking the pact and forcing Russia join the Allies. Napoleon had made a deal to sell a pile of lumber to Fredrick of Pinchfield; Napoleon had trusted him, but in turn Fredrick had given him fake bank notes and was coming to attack them. He, like Hitler, had ignored the deal, swindled Napoleon and attacked Animal Farm.
Squealer the pig was very persuasive and “.... could turn black into white.” (Orwell) He communicated to all the other animals what Napoleon had said, and always convinced them that it was right. He is a symbol of Stalin’s propaganda machine, the Pravda. The people had no other source of information, and Stalin needed to manipulate the media. He took control of the publication, making it work for his needs, so the people were oblivious to what was actually occurring.
The proletariat were the easiest to convince and were most attached to Stalin, being that the system would benefit them most and were not educated. Examples of this are the horses Boxer and Clover. They were faithful, hard working and never doubted the system. We can also see how important the unskilled labour class was in order for everything to work well also. “Nothing could have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength was equal to that of all the rest of the animals put together.” (Orwell) Mollie, on the other hand, represents the middle class workers, who got paid more. They were unsatisfied that they were getting paid less and they wanted their “sugar.” Muriel represents the minority of the working educated class; they could make decisions and think for themselves. Muriel was not spirited enough to incite another rebellion against the corruption that was happening.
At the end of the book, the pigs become indiscernible from the humans. Orwell has made humans represent the people who exploit those weaker than them. The pigs had become corrupters of their own. “ Somehow it seemed as thought the farm had grown richer without making the animals richer themselves- except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.” (Orwell) Manor Farm is the tyrannical nation; Animal Farm is the Communist or Animalist one. When Napoleon states that the name of the farm is once again Manor, he is affirmatively stating that the totalitarianism is installed once more.
Animal Farm ends with the animals being exploited by the pigs; it is a dark ending, but it is brutally true. The idea of Socialism, or Animalism, is good as ideal. Human nature will not allow the leaders, who are always necessary, to be fair. Orwell did an excellent job of weaving the history of Stalinist Russia with the fairy idea of speaking and thinking animals.
I mean that it is never going to possible where everyone will want to be equal because people end up wanting more power and control. George Orwell's book told me that there couldn’t be a perfect world because there are people who want to and have to be better than others. It can make you angry the way the animals were treated, the fact that they were not smart enough to defend themselves. Other than that the book was pretty good and it makes you think hard about communism, propaganda and so on
Before I read Animal Farm, I had heard A great deal about it. And was pleased that we would be doing it in English. It gave a fairly clear definition of socialism, communism, and the like…
I feel I can now speak with some sort of literacy on the subject with out fear of feeling like an idiot.
