When writing Animal Farm, George Orwell carefully chose names that were both realistic and suggestive of the original person’s or group’s personalities or roles in the allegory. It is undeniable that Major represents Marx. He is the epitome of a dominant military character. Mollie represents the White Russians. She implies foolishness and her obsession with pride and luxury is an example of the animal revolution. Moses’ very name suggests his association with the Church, he brings about divine law to man. It always seems the Squealer acted as a newsman on the farm, “Squealer was sent around to explain the new arrangement to others” (pg 32, Orwell); “…issued his order through one of the other pigs, usually squealer (pg 66, Orwell). Squealer is like a living version of the communists Newspaper, Pravda. Pilkington represents the Churchill of England. He is the capitalist exploiter and he is the gentleman who enjoys sports on Foxwood, which suggests craftiness of the Tory landed gentry. (pg 108, Meyers) Frederick is the owner of Pinchfield farm. He parallels to Frederick the Great who was the founder of the Prussian military and Hitler’s hero. Frederick is the ruthless man, who does things none other than for himself. He performs hard bargains and steals land from other farms for himself and he conducts cruelties on his own people. The cruelties are related to the most touching part in the story; when Boxer is taken to the slaughter house. The knacker’s van symbolized the horrible gas vans used by Einsatzgruppen for mobile extermination. “They are taking you to your death,” screams Clover struggling to keep the same pace as the van. The sound of Boxer’s banging hoofs, “grew fainter and died away.” (pg 104, Orwell)
In Animal Farm, one apparent theme that corresponds to Soviet history is that ‘revolutions become dictatorships’. The most significant leaders are, Napoleon who represents Stalin, and Snowball who portrays Trotsky. Both Napoleon and Stalin turned revolutions into dictatorships (Bonapartism was the successor to Thermidor). They both changed “a national popular ‘revolution from below’ into a foreign conqueror’s ‘revolution from above,” (Meyers, 108). Stalin and Napoleon powerfully forced their ideals onto other countries. The Napoleon had the reputation of getting his own way but at the same time he is not much of a talker. At first he has little control over animal farm but soon he gradually increases his power and privileges, “he was superb at conversing support for himself,” while concurrently tightening the control over other animals. Napoleon never outright presents any of his original plans. Instead, he criticizes snowballs’ and eventually implements the plans and claims them as his own, which displays the hypocrisy in the future dictator’s personality. Napoleon’s injustice to Snowball does not stop with the theft of his ideals. Napoleon continues to blame Snowball for his failures, he accuses him of associating and plotting with enemies, drives him into exile and then states his death sentence. Napoleon also takes “credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune” (110, Meyers). Most notably he replaces the ideals of major: “the Animals were required to file past the skull (Lenin’s Tomb) in a reverent manner,” with a more elaborate one of his own.
The very name Snowball refers to Trotsky’s white hair and the fact that he cowered in the presence of Stalin opposition. Unlike Napoleon, Snowball’s personality contained eloquence and vivaciousness and the ability to speak and write. He was energetic and intelligent. Deutscher writes of Trotsky in 1921, besides running on the army and serving on the Politbureau:
“He was busy with a host of other assignments each of which would have a full-time job for any man of less vitality and ability. He led, for instance, the Society of the Goddess … He was at this time Russia’s chief intellectual inspirer and leading critic. He frequently addresses audiences”
Orwell writes of a similar description of Snowball in a seemingly comical yet in a real manner: (pg 29, Orwell)
Snowball also busied himself with organizing the other animals into what he called Animal Committees …He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tail League for the Cows, The Wild Comrades Re-Education committee ….and various others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing.
Two of the most important battles between Trotsky and Stalin are displayed through the fable. Trotsky’s parallel Snowball “conjured up pictures of fantastic machines which would do their work for them while they grazed at their ease in the fields ….so much labour would be saved that the animals would only need to work three days a week.” (pg 44, Orwell) Trotsky fought for the manufacture over the agriculture and the need for industrialization among the nation. His ideas for the expansion of the socialistic economy were eventually adopted by Stalin in his five year plan of 1928. Stalin’s plan called for the ‘drastic’ and ‘comprehensive’ collectivization of the state’s economy. Like Stalin, Napoleon wanted the collectivization, “he argued that the great need of the moment was to increase food production, and that if they wasted time on the windmill they would starve to death.” (pg 45, Orwell)
The greatest political and ideological conflict that existed between Trotsky and Stalin is that Trotsky defended his idea of “Permanent Revolution” against Stalin’s theory of “Socialism in one country.” It is most profoundly described by Orwell, in a simply but concise description.
“According to Napoleon, what the animals must do was to procure firearms and train themselves in the use of them. According to Snowball, they must send out more and more pigeons and stir up rebellion among the animals on the other farms. Then one argued that if they could not defend themselves they were bound to be conquered, the other argued that if rebellions happened everywhere they would have no need to defend themselves.” (pg 45, Orwell)
A Historian, Isaac Deutscher relays the problem that coexists between Trotsky-Snowball and Stalin-Napoleon: “Two rival quasi-Messianic beliefs seemed pitted against one another: Trotskyism with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the Proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia’s socialist destiny.” Stalin further exhibited this property of glorification in 1927 at the Congress party when after his instigation, “pleas for the opposition were drowned in the continual, hysterically intolerant uproar from the floor.” (Isaac Deutsher) When one reads the allegory, it is particularly well-noted that sheep are known to initiate into “four legs good, two legs bad” at very crucial parts in Snowballs speeches. Stalin’s conflicts reached crucial point in 1927 when Britain broke Stalin’s hope of trade unions when he broke diplomatic relations and the Russian ambassador to Poland was assassinated. Stalin expelled Trotsky from the party before he could blame Stalin for the political malfunctions and remove him from the power of the Nation. Orwell brilliantly illustrated this point, at which Trotsky is defeated: “By the time that he, Snowball, had finished speaking, there was no doubt that as to the way the vote would go. But as this moment the Dog under Napoleons rule drove Snowball off the farm and into exile.” (pg 46, Orwell)
George Orwell allegorized the three main Russian political events they are: the results of Stalin’s forced collectivization (1929-33), the Great Purge Trials (1936-1938) and the diplomacy with Germany that ended when Hitler invaded in 1931. After Snowball was exiled, Napoleon still decided to build the wild mill and the animals were “somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was going to be built after all,” (pg 51, Orwell) When the windmill is first wrecked it symbolizes the failure of the five-year plan. During the “Krondstadt Rebellion” the destructive mannerisms of the hens, where they thwarted Napoleon’s wishes and flew up to the roofs and allowed their eggs to smash, are exactly the methods used by the Muzhiks in 1929 to protest their farms collectivization. The Muzhiks, like the hens, smashed their own provisions. They murdered their cattle and burnt their crops. Orwell wrote that years of food shortage and hardship in the ‘1933 Ukraine famine’ in which 3 million people starved to death was the cause of the protest. During this time it was known the people turned to cannibalism throughout this time of crisis. Orwell referred to this when he wrote: “It was being put about that all the animals were dying of famine and disease …. And had resorted to cannibalism.” (pg 65, Orwell)
The Great Purge Trials were the most dramatic and emotional events of the era. It is believed that Stalin’s motive for these purges was that he wanted an ‘unrestricted personal’ dictatorship. In the Trial of Karl Radek (a friend of Trotsky’s) the prosecution said that Trotsky “ was organizing and directing sabotage in the Soviet Union, catastrophes in coal mines, factories, and on the railways, moss poisonings of Soviet workers, and repeated attempts on the lives of Stalin and other members of the Politbureau.” As Orwell never fails to miss a significant detail of Soviet history, he writes of Napoleon’s words after the destruction of the windmill: “thinking of our plans …this traitor has crept here undercover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year… A rumor went round that Snowball had after all contrived to introduce poison into Napoleon’s food.” (pg 92, Orwell) During a significant Purge in Animal Farm, two sheep “confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower of Napoleon, by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he was suffering from a cough.” (pg 87, Orwell) This was very similar to the trial of Bukharin, when Gorky’s secretary confessed, “I arranged long walks for Alexie Maximovich, I was always arranging bonfires. The smoke of the bonfire naturally affected Gorky’s weak lungs.” (Meyers, pg 112) Historians believe that more than nine million people were arrested during the Purges and the number of people executed is estimated to be three million. In animal farm, the guilty animals are “slain on the spot” and after all the executions “there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood.” (pg 100, Orwell)
Lastly, one of the things that Stalin was known for was his sense of deceiving diplomacy. After securing his power within Russia, he turned his attention to creating chaos in Europe and attempted to “play off” democracies against Hitler. Deutscher describes Stalin’s actions, “He still kept his front doors open for the British and the French and confined the contact with the Germans to the back stairs… It is still impossible to say confidently to which part of the game Stalin then attached the greatest importance: to the plot acted on the stage or to the subtle counter-plot.” (Meyers, 113) Likewise, the Animals were amazed when found out the Napoleon’s friendship with Pilkington was really a secret relationship with Frederick. Although, Napoleon received a consequence when the Bank nsotes from Frederick, which symbolize the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, were forgeries. Frederick also attacks animal farm without warning and destroys the windmill.
Animal Farm is a brilliantly allegorized political tale and the significance of the story becomes much clearer when compared to the actual political history. It tells the story of Russian history but at the same time it can be compared to other countries in their struggle for power. The struggle is not restricted to governments but people as well. Animal Farm is just simply about power in different political ideals and what it does to those that yield it. Lord Acton once said in a letter that: “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, good men are always bad men. George Orwell did an excellent job in portraying this reality through the animals of Animal Farm.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Orwell, George; Animal Farm (Great Britain: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1945
Meyers, Jeffrey; A reader’s guide to George Orwell (London: Thomas & Hudson, 1975)
