Two of my top ten books of all time were written by George Orwell. Both Animal Farm and 1984 rank as classics of all time. Animal Farm is the fairy tale about animals who revolt on the farm and run it for themselves for a time. But slowly and gradually the pigs take over and eventually the pig leader Napoleon is indistinguishable from the humans running the surrounding farms. For the clueless, it’s a thinly veiled allegory about the rise of communism in the Soviet Union. What many forget though, is that Orwell did not condemn communism in this book. The story is about power and totalitarianism and how they usurped the ideals of Marx. In the end, the animals have replaced their masters with new masters under a slightly different name. The old masters (humans as a symbol of capitalism) receive no praise in the book. In addition, the story should bring about some sympathy for the citizens of such totalitarian states, for this shows how subtly the transition occurs (well, as subtle as can happen in 120 pages at least). Each gradual step is small enough that it can be explained away and it’s only when the animals are used to the change that the next change is introduced. So while the story immediately correlates to communism, it does caution folks under other systems to be wary of the same sort of gradual change to totalitarianism.
Title: Animal farm : a fairy story
Author: George Orwell (Eric Blair)
Imprint / publisher: Signet Classic / New American Library / NAL Penguin
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 128 p.
ISBN-10: 0-451-52230-3
Subject: Totalitarianism — Fiction
Subject: Domestic animals — Fiction
LC classification: PR6029.R8
