Transcription
In Animal Farm, we can see how Orwell's exploration of the danger of naivety, Revolution and tyranny, the corruption of political ideals, social stratification, and language in power reflects aspects of the world as it was when Orwell wrote the novel.
Before we dive into the turbulent world of revolutionary Russia, let's get to know our author. Did you know that George was only his pseudonym or pen name? Our author was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 and assumed the name George Orwell in 1933. He did that for his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, which he wrote after living among the impoverished classes of Europe. Having embraced socialist ideals, Orwell needed a new literary identity. George Orwell is a combination of the first name of England's reigning monarch at the time and the name of a picturesque river in Suffolk. Another fun fact is that Orwell was born in India, not England.
Hey team, just a reminder: if you like this video, please hit the Subscribe button and ring the notification bell. It really helps the channel out, and our next upload could be on something taught in your next class. Thanks, and back to the video.
His father was an Englishman who served in the Indian civil service, and his mother was the daughter of a French teak merchant. They were lower middle class but with upper-class pretensions. The family returned to England when Orwell was only a baby, then packed him off to boarding school as soon as he was old enough. Young Orwell had a hard time at school and became withdrawn and sullen, but things looked up when he won a scholarship to prestigious Eton College in 1917. Coincidentally, 1917 was also the year the Russian Revolution began. It's this major historical event and its aftermath that Orwell allegorized in Animal Farm nearly three decades later.
Remember, an allegory is a narrative whose plot, characters, or setting are used to symbolize or represent real-world issues or events, and it doesn't get realer than the Russian Revolution. But the message behind Animal Farm goes beyond critiquing one chapter in human history. Orwell embeds a broader warning about the danger of naivety and ignorance among the masses. If you enjoyed our series on Orwell's 1984, you'll know that "your ignorance is their strength." Helpfully, Orwell expressed his moral in Animal Farm to be that revolutions only affect radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job. In other words, if you need a revolution to overthrow a useless government, so be it, but make sure you stay sharp to the schemes of greedy tyrants disguised as revolutionaries because once they dig into positions of power and authority, the new order will be just as bad as, or worse than, the old.
Let's call it the milk and apples principle. The turning point in Animal Farm should have been when the animals discovered that the pigs had kept all the milk and apples for themselves. The pigs did not yet have the ability to enforce their whims, so the animals could have reclaimed the milk and apples and redistributed them, but they didn't. They trusted their Porky comrades and let it slide. The animals weren't the vigilant, critical thinkers Orwell wants us to be. Remember, everybody deserves milk and apples, especially those who helped produce them.
But getting back to Russia, let's find out how the revolution went down. As we go, see if you can pick up on the parallels with Animal Farm, especially when Joseph Stalin enters the chat. World War I was in its final stages, and the Russian people were angry. What began as a riot in St. Petersburg over food scarcity led to the overthrow of Russia's 500-year-old monarchy. The Tsar abdicated, or stepped down, in March 1917, and after a messy six months, the Bolshevik party took power in September. Then there was the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized government buildings, the murder of the Tsar and his entire family at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries, and a nasty civil war between the Bolshevik Red Army and the counterrevolutionary White Army. Oh, and let's not forget the Red Terror. This was a four-year period of brutal repression carried out by the Bolsheviks and their secret police known as the Cheka. It's estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 people were shot during the Red Terror, but no one knows for sure. Thus, in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR, was finally born. The Bolsheviks had established the world's first socialist sovereign state after five exhausting years of revolution and bloodshed. The Communist Party promised peace, land, and bread, and leadership informed by the teachings of Karl Marx.
Wait, what's communism again, and who's Karl Marx? Communism is an ideology that opposes capitalism, which is the dominant economic system in the West. Communism advocates for a classless society where the means of production, like land, livestock, and machinery, are owned collectively, and private ownership of property is restricted. The broad aim of Communism is to eliminate greed, promote equality, and create a socialist society where everyone has what they need. The German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx is often cited as the father of Communism. He co-authored The Communist Manifesto, a revolutionary pamphlet published in 1848. This influential text outlines the historical evils of capitalism, calls for its global overthrow, and heralds its replacement with a new communist system.
So, by 1922, the Communist Party had a centralized government operating out of Moscow, and Vladimir Lenin was its leader. Just before he died in 1924, Lenin warned about Joseph Stalin's growing influence in the Communist Party. He considered Stalin rude, power-hungry, and tyrannical and called for him to be sacked. Lenin also foresaw divisions in the party due to tensions between Stalin and Leon Trotsky, and as soon as Lenin croaked, the power struggle began. And just like Napoleon the boar, Stalin emerged victorious. One of the first things Stalin did was suppress Lenin's warning about him. "Don't need that negativity." His next mission was to drive out Trotsky. This wasn't easy because Trotsky had a strong following and a rock-solid reputation as a comrade. Ultimately, Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky and had him expelled from the Communist Party in 1927. Trotsky was then permanently exiled from the USSR in 1929, just like Snowball.
Thus, with Trotsky out of the way, Stalin established himself as the undisputed, lifelong leader of the USSR. However, by the early 1930s, dissent was growing. Remember the hens' rebellion in chapter 7 of Animal Farm? Well, things like that started happening around the USSR. Workers and farmers were disgruntled with Stalin's policies and desperately tried to resist. Then a terrible famine hit, which was made worse by official grain seizures and the forced collectivization of agriculture. Millions starved to death, but that was hushed up. The lives of peasants were far less important to Stalin than his goal of Soviet industrialization and promoting the perception that he was doing a stellar job. So, Stalin's vice grip on power tightened.
In the mid-1930s, remember the Red Terror? Well, that was a warmup for the purges that happened under Stalin. As he became increasingly paranoid about assassination and counterrevolution, Stalin beefed up his personal security and gave special powers to the secret police. This led to the Great Purge, a terrifying pageant of mass arrests, show trials, ethnic cleansing, torture, and executions. It's estimated that over 1 million people lost their lives during this time. Think Napoleon, his highly trained dogs, terrified victims, and piles of corpses.
Thus, the Revolution was betrayed, and Stalin dug in as the head of a totalitarian state. Remember, totalitarianism is when a centralized government tries to completely dominate its citizens. All aspects of life are controlled by the government, surveillance is constant, and resistance is not tolerated. The kind of control Stalin exerted over the Communist Party, and the party exerted over the people, probably wasn't what Karl Marx or even Vladimir Lenin had in mind. Just as Napoleon incrementally eroded Old Major's vision and rewrote the rules of Animalism, so Stalin recast the revolution in his favor.
In his 1936 book, The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky called for another Russian Revolution in the true spirit of Marx's teachings. Stalin's dictatorship needed to be chucked out and replaced with a proper socialist democracy. Of course, this made Trotsky Public Enemy Number One, even though he was already living in exile, and it was only a matter of time before he was assassinated by an ax-wielding Soviet agent.
There were also rumors of a new upper class forming in the Soviet Union. Remember how Napoleon and his gang took over the farmhouse and wallowed in the luxuries formerly enjoyed by Mr. Jones? Well, it was a similar situation with elite Soviet bureaucrats. This affluent group were known as the nomenclatura, and they had access to goodies that the common people could only dream of. Except this time, the people had no chance of rising up against such inequality as they had under the Tsar because the Soviet secret police were ever ready to crush any ruckus, and the working classes and peasants were generally kept in the dark about the inner workings of the regime.
Under Stalin, the Soviet propaganda machine had gone into overdrive. Remember, propaganda is information used to promote certain political ideas and influence people's opinions. Of course, this information can be biased or totally false. It's a way of using language to gain power, and it can be deployed in subtle ways. In the USSR, all forms of information were censored and spun to paint Stalin and the Communist Party in the most positive light. Remember sneaky Squealer, Minimus the poet, and the ever-changing Seven Commandments on the barn wall? Likewise, the Soviet government used all available media to broadcast propaganda and bolster its image. There was radio, TV, film, theater, newspapers, journals, meetings, and lectures, all geared towards projecting a glorious image of Stalin and the Communist Party. There were huge posters of Stalin everywhere. Heck, there were even propaganda trains and steamboats. It was a well-oiled and very effective machine. What resulted was popular devotion to the state, a cult of personality for Stalin, and violent hatred towards traitors and enemies of the regime.
So, what was Orwell doing through all this? Well, after tramping through the slums of England and France in the early 1930s, he volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War. As you do, driven by his socialist ideals, Orwell took up arms against General Franco's nationalist army. That's how much Orwell hated fascists and dictators. For that, he was shot in the neck and had to flee from Soviet-sponsored hit squads. He then documented the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the devastating effects of World War II. Orwell wrote Animal Farm as the war was drawing to a close in 1944, but publication was delayed. Why? Because the CIA feared that Animal Farm would really upset Stalin, which it did. Animal Farm was banned in the USSR from 1945 until the Soviet Union finally collapsed in the late 1980s.
Well done, team. In this lesson, we've linked aspects of George Orwell's context to his portrayal of the danger of naivety, Revolution and tyranny, the corruption of political ideals, social stratification, and language and power in Animal Farm. Hopefully, this lesson has revolutionized your understanding of this iconic text. We hope you enjoyed this Schooling Online production. For more easy lessons, check out our other videos.