‘Every line I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism,’ reads the preface to George Orwell’s satire, Animal Farm. The rest of that line, which reads ‘And for Democratic Socialism as I understand it,’ was omitted from the 1956 edition of the book. Orwell has been called a traitor to the socialists, while at the same time becoming a sort of hero to the right wing. Animal Farm is not only a parody of Stalinist Russia, it also demonstrates that Russia wasn’t truly a Social Democracy.
Orwell criticizes Marx while maintaining his own beliefs in Democratic Socialism. These beliefs are apparent in what Old Major calls Animalism. Animalism originates in a speech by Old Major, Farmer Jones’ prize boar. Old Major is to Animalism what Marx and Lenin are to Communism. Old Major is able to gather the animals in the barn, to give his talk.
Both Marx and Lenin would have thought this difficult because they believed that that the proletariat would always be more concerned with work and survival than revolution or radical change. Once the animals are gathered, Old Major recounts a dream he had the previous night. He tries to explain to the animals, their place in life and how they can get out of it. This is what Marx tried to do in his writing. In The Communist Manifesto and A Contribution to the Political Economy Marx wrote about the proletariat’s appreciation of social position and the corrupt ways of Capitalism. ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, wrote Marx, ‘But on the contrary, the social being that determines their consciousness.’ Marx is saying that there is no inherent reason workers should be oppressed, and they don’t see the injustice in it, because it is all they know.
The Essay on Animal Farm George Orwell
Animal Farm George Orwell 128 Pages George Orwell, the pen name of Eric Blair, was born in Bengal in 1903. He was educated at Eton School in England, and then served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He returned to Europe and became a writer of novels and essays. Much of his work was political, and although he had a hatred of Communism, he was a socialist. Orwell died at the age of forty- ...
This is what Old Major says to the animals in the barn: Why do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There comrades is the answer to all of our problems: It is summed up in a single word, man. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He sets the animals to work, he gives them the bare minimum that will keep them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Only get rid of man, and the produce of our labour would be our own.
That is my message to you, comrades, Rebellion! Old Major becomes like a god to the animals. He has nothing to do with religion, though. It is Moses, the tame raven, the animal who slept through Old Major’s speech, that represents religion. Moses never works, he only tells stories of a wonderful country called Sugarland Mountain, where all animals go when they die. Moses is a tool of the state, and this is how Marx viewed religion.
Moses is Jones’s pe cial pet. He tells lies and stories to the animals, and he gives them something to look forward to. After the speech Moses disappears only to reappear after the revolution takes place, when Napoleon uses him the same way Jones did.
