A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Wed Nov 27 15:04:41 PST 2002


By Paul Flewers, who writes for, "Revolutionary History, " http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/supplem/Machajsk.html +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Animal Farm: Revolutionary Betrayal or Consummation?

THE Second World War entered a new phase after the German assault upon the

Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. One immediate result was that the Soviet Union

rapidly changed in people's perception from being a near-ally of Nazi

Germany into a staunch and respected ally of Britain and, after December

1941, the USA as well. The rehabilitation of Stalin and the Soviet Union was

not so much a return to the fellow-travelling days of the late 1930s, but

part of the wartime ideology in Britain. It went much further, with the

British government being obliged to give official approval to the Soviet

Union, an endorsement which was simultaneously fulsome and uneasy.

Whilst respect for the Soviet Union in its fight against Nazi Germany was to

some extent a refracted form of British patriotism - one account says that

'criticism of the USSR became tantamount to treason' - it could not avoid

being conflated with the idea of the perceived superiority of a planned

economy, and even with the idea of socialism. Only a tiny handful of people

at various obscure points across the political spectrum refrained from

joining in the Stalin-worship, and Orwell was one of them.

It was almost typical of Orwell that at the peak of British respect for the

Soviet Union he should write a novel that was a sharp polemic against

Britain's wartime ally. Needless to say, he had considerable problems

getting Animal Farm published, and even when it was released by Secker and

Warburg, it was shorn of its polemical foreword, thus helping to rob it of

its contemporary relevance.

The unpublished foreword to Animal Farm showed Orwell's great concern about

'the prevailing orthodoxy' of the 'uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia',

which he considered was encouraging extremely unwelcome and ominous

tendencies amongst British intellectuals. He flailed out at the 'veiled

censorship' operating in their circles:

'At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is

assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is

not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is "not done"

to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was "not done" to mention

trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing

orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely

unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the

popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.'

He said that from the early 1930s, the bulk of British intellectuals had

consistently accepted the Soviet viewpoint 'with complete disregard to

historical truth or intellectual decency'. One could not obtain 'intelligent

criticism or even, in some cases, plain honesty' from writers and

journalists who were 'under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions'.

Moreover, 'throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet regime from the

left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty'. Most of all, he decried

the trend amongst intellectuals towards restricting the expression of

oppositional ideas that were seen as 'objectively' aiding an enemy, a

process leading towards the destruction of 'all independence of thought',

and to a 'totalitarian outlook'.

Although Orwell was aware that the tendency towards self-censorship went a

lot further than the intelligentsia, he laid the blame for it mainly on the

left-wing intellectuals who refused to criticise the Soviet regime when it

committed acts that would be roundly condemned if perpetuated by another.

For Orwell, the 'willingness to criticise Russia and Stalin' was 'the test

of intellectual honesty'. His message to pro-Stalin intellectuals was

brutal:

'Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't

imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking

propagandist of the Soviet regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly

return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.'

Orwell also sensed amongst the pro-Stalin intellectuals a decided tendency

towards power worship that was no different to that expressed by those who

sided with Hitler or Mussolini, and this 'cult of power' was 'mixed up with

a love of cruelty and wickedness for their own sakes'.

As for the novel itself, Animal Farm is obviously based upon the experience

of the Soviet Union, from the Russian Revolution, through the emergence and

victory of Stalinism, to the wartime years. Some of the characters are

eponymous. The taciturn, devious and ambitious Napoleon is clearly Stalin,

and the more inventive and vivacious Snowball is an equally obvious Trotsky,

although he 'was not considered to have the same depth of character' as

Napoleon, which is an odd characterisation. There is, however, no porcine

Lenin, as Major (Marx) dies just before the animals take over the farm,

although the displaying of Major's skull is reminiscent of the rituals

around the embalmed Bolshevik leader. The pigs as a whole represent the

Bolshevik party, the thuggish dogs are the secret police, and the other

animals mainly represent the Soviet working class and peasantry.

Although Orwell's sympathies are clearly with the animals, his overall view

of them is not particularly complimentary. The pigs, the most intelligent

and the only literate creatures, move immediately into a commanding position

because of their superior intelligence, and become an increasingly ruthless

ruling élite. The sheep are the most stupid, unable to command even the

basics of the animalist credo, and are merely able mindlessly to bleat

slogans at official command. Boxer, the big carthorse, is practically

illiterate, and represses his occasional worries that things aren't right

with his mantras of 'I will work harder', and 'Napoleon is always right'.

Even though the animals attempt unsuccessfully to prevent the exhausted

Boxer from being taken to the knackers, they willingly believe the pigs'

tale that he died at the vet. Not surprisingly, many commentators, both

friendly and hostile, have accused Orwell of having a low opinion of the

working class.

It is not surprising that Animal Farm was and continues to be championed by

conservatives for their own purposes. The moral of this book appears to be

that revolutions merely lead to the emergence of new and possibly more

oppressive élites. At the end of the book, a by-now bipedal and clothed

Napoleon shows a delegation of humans around the farm. He tells them that

the old revolutionary symbols and rituals have been abolished. It is clear

that the other animals know their place. Having greatly cheered his

visitors, they sit down to celebrate, only to come near to blows when they

find themselves cheating at cards. The animals peering through the windows

see that the pigs and men have become interchangeable, 'it was impossible to

say which was which'.

The main problem with Animal Farm is that there is no analysis of how a

ruling élite came into existence. The development of the pigs from a

leadership into a ruling élite is just given; it is as if any leadership

will inevitably become a ruling élite once it seizes power. Orwell attempted

to reassure the American libertarian Dwight MacDonald, saying that he was

referring to a revolution led by 'unconsciously power-hungry people', and

insisting that the moral of the book was: 'You can't have a revolution

unless you make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent

dictatorship.' But that's not how the book is usually interpreted, and

MacDonald's qualms would not have arisen were it otherwise.

Stanley Plastrik, an American socialist, even wondered if Orwell had

renounced socialism:

'Is not the anti-socialist or liberal reader entitled to draw the conclusion

that the tale is meant as a parable on the utopian character of the

socialist cause? We believe so, although Orwell has not had the political

conviction or courage to make this clear, perhaps reflecting the very

uncertainty reigning in his head.'

Of course, using different sorts of animals to represent social strata

ensures that there will be insurmountable barriers from the very start. A

cat or dog, let alone a goose or duck, cannot become a pig. Unlike social

strata, these are immutable categories. But notwithstanding the imagery, it

is Orwell's inability to explain the rise of a post-revolutionary élite

which led to his book being used by conservatives. Although Orwell was

worried about this, Animal Farm became popular with conservatives precisely

because it sees the pigs' ascendancy into a ruling élite as an ineluctable

process. If it did not, it could not be used as a pro-capitalist work.

Animal Farm did not represent any renunciation on the part of Orwell of the

cause of socialism. Rather, it was intended to show the need for a

libertarian brand of socialism. His opposition to both capitalism and

totalitarian collectivism remained constant. Reviewing Hayek's

anti-socialist tract The Road to Serfdom, Orwell noted:

'Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war.

Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship and war. There is

no way out of this unless a planned economy can be somehow combined with the

freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and

wrong is restored to politics.'

This predicament was to be the axis around which Orwell's future writings

would revolve.



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