Spotlight on Books: WFM’S All Time Best: “Animal Farm” by George Orwell

I am on a mini-roll and am pleased to share another selection for my All Time Best Books Series. I have adopted a two pronged criteria. It must be a literary piece of unquestioned excellence that materially influenced my world view. It has been unintentional but my first three selections reveal an eerie pattern- a fascination with POWER- how it is obtained, used and abused. The Power Broker by Robert Caro brilliantly portrayed the ascension of Robert Moses in modern New York- how he accumulated power systematically by mastering the bureaucracy and how he ruthlessly executed his vision through a combination of driving ambition and fierce intellect. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam is the classic narrative on how brilliant individuals at the pinnacle of power squandered their mandate because of hubris and groupthink. Today, I recognise Animal Farm by George Orwell. I read this book as a high school teenager and its lessons have been engrained in my memory for over 50 years. It is the most accessible and user friendly work on the horrible consequences that arise when societies fall under the spell of autocratic leaders. It is also a primer on how dictators amass and achieve power and the methods they employ to maintain it. Totalitarian systems are shown to be the most dangerous and extreme form of governmental power. They destroy everything in sight, undermine customs and norms and egregiously subvert the rule of law. Perhaps most important, Orwell explains the conditions which allow tyrants to consolidate control. He teaches that authoritarians depend on citizen complacency and self delusion when organising and building their regimes. It is strong stuff and we are blessed because it is expressed in simple, concise and understandable prose. The message is universal and has stood the test of time. Ultra relevant today.

George Orwell is a fascinating individual and a mesmerising writer. Sadly, he died in 1950 at the age of 47. A short life, but one defined by a prodigious literary output. He was multi talented and was comfortable in a wide variety of formats- a novelist, an essayist and a critic. A quirky personal history with some unusual U-turns. He was born in India during the British Raj. He was a product of the British Imperial system. He actually served in the Imperial Police in Burma. He quickly became a stinging critic of British colonialist venture. He deplored the means and methods for maintaining the Empire and was openly critical of the nasty racial attitudes that drove the colonial project. He then lived a life of abject poverty in Paris and London boarding houses. His experiences led to his 1933 book Down and Out in Paris and London. It is an interesting read, but pales in comparison to his later works. He then travelled to Spain as an idealistic socialist supporter of the Republican Spanish government battling the rightist Army rebellion led by Francisco Franco. He observed the anti Democratic behaviour of the Communist elements in the pro government coalition and developed more balanced views on the abuse of power. Basically, he concluded the left at its worst had the same tyrannical impulses as the far right. He became a vigorous anti-communist and an outspoken foe of all totalitarian governments. He continued to describe himself as a democratic socialist, but his main ideological calling card was his vigorous anti fascist AND anti communist views. He wrote Homage to Catalonia and refined these themes in Animal Farm and 1984. Obviously, 1984 is a classic, but I enjoyed Animal Farm more. 1984 is too dystopian and depressing for my sensitive temperament.

Orwell wrote Animal Farm in 1945. It is short- novella length. It is allegorical- a fable or fairy tale story. At first glance, almost child like. BUT- so powerful! The primary characters are animals who revolt against a despotic human farmer. The animals initially are united in their goal of building a fair society based on the principal of equality for all- the elimination of any privileged classes. The plot has hilarious, laugh at loud moments, but is unrelentingly penetrating. The revolutionary animal leaders proceed to betray their founding principles at every turn and become as autocratic and brutal as the human farmer they deposed. It is a not so subtle condemnation of Stalin and Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union. It totally destroys the moral pretensions of the Soviet regime. The reader is captured by the dark humour and the devastating if simple portrayal of a monstrous totalitarian regime. Each animal character represents a real Soviet era leader or institution. The “Old Mayor” is Lenin. “Napoleon” is Stalin. “Snowball” is Trotsky. “Squealer” is Pravda. “Boxer” is the proletariat. “Benjamin” is the intelligentsia. “Moses” is the Russian Orthodox church. “Mr Jones,” the human farmer is Czar Nicholas. “Pilkington” and “Frederick” are England and Germany.

Orwell chronicles the corruption of revolutionary ideals, the manipulation of political language and symbols for political control, the dangers of blind loyalty to the leader- all leading to a totalitarian state and a complete betrayal of the working class. He definitely has a target audience. He is aggressively calling out the left wing apologists in the West who ignored the scale of Soviet crimes or made a conscious choice, “To refuse to acknowledge what is in front of one’s nose.” He had seen how Stalin relied on misinformation to demonise his opponents. He mimicked the Soviet “Show Trials” of the 1930’s through Napoleon’s consolidation of power over the farm. He disparages the disastrous “Five Year Plans” and parodies the Stalinist induced famine and Holdover in Ukraine. He forces any fair minded reader to accept the complete disconnect between revolutionary rhetoric and the brutal reality of Stalin’s Soviet Union. He excoriates leftist progressives for giving Stalin a free pass at he same time they are attacking Fascism and Nazism. Orwell saw no difference between these ideological and party movements. They are all real world manifestations of the totalitarian impulse and both silos should be condemned as threats to freedom and liberty. My inescapable conclusion was that Animal Farm maybe a “Fairy Tale” or Fable but ultimately it is a sophisticated, ferocious and biting political masterpiece. I loved it then and enjoyed it recently with a re-read.

The greatness of the book is the universality of the message. The process of revolutionary fervour degrading into dictatorships applies to societies beyond the Soviet Union and Russia. Think China, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. The ability of Napoleon in the book to manipulate language and control communication with citizenry thru blatant falsehoods and ridiculous propaganda resonates in our era of “fake news” and “alternative facts.” The book’s endless repeating of simple, if meaningless slogans is a key feature of political communication and campaigns today. Tyrants creating a regime structure where “some animals are more equal than others” is depressingly accurate in the modern world. Orwell’s artful indictment was proven right when the Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed in the 80’s and 90’s. The opening of the archives and the disclosures and books that followed confirmed the overwhelming corruption, inequality and hypocrisy at the core of those regimes. "Touché" Mr Orwell.

The other major insight is Orwell’s powerful criticism of intellectual and political leaders, elites and influencers who willfully become apologists for autocratic regimes. The dictators are bad, but the callowness and stupidity of people who should know better and stand up for the right thing is equally indefensible. Too many partisans excuse human rights abuses committed by regimes whom they ideologically favour. On the left, there were numerous apologists for the Stalin regime. They ignored the famine, winked at the obviously unfair show trials, ignored the reports of massive deportations and the Siberian gulag and the hundreds of thousands murdered in the Great Terror. British intellectuals, American journalists, Frenchman of the John Paul Sartre variety all continued to praise Soviet Communism despite the overwhelming evidence of its barbarity and soullessness. Orwell personally experienced the chill surrounding any anti Soviet arguments when his first three publishers refused to publish Animal Farm. The Chinese Revolution and Mao inspired the same willful blindness. Millions died in China from regime policies and abuses while American college professors urged their students to read Mao’s Little Red Book. Finally, who can forget the worship of Castro and the embrace of Chavez by adoring journalists and starstruck Hollywood celebrities. Embarrassing- even shameful behaviour.

Unfortunately, the far right insisted on staying competitive in the love for dictators sweepstakes. Elements of the British aristocracy, including King Edward were sympathetic to Hitler and the Nazis and many other supported the Oliver Mosely “Black Shirt” movement in Great Britain. American capitalists like Henry Ford and Thomas Watson loved doing business with the Nazis and were comfortable ignoring the Anti Jewish laws because they were wildly anti-semitic themselves. Let’s not forget American superhero Charles Lindbergh, his America First movement and his flirtation with the Nazis. During the Cold War, America and the West were in bed with Franco, Marcos, the Shah of Iran, Batista, Somoza- all systematic human rights abusers. Freedom loving Margaret Thatcher loved Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean despot who “disappeared” his more democratically inclined opponents. Contemporary representatives of the right, including Marie Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson compliment Putin’s “strong leadership” and “traditional values", seemingly experiencing major brain cramps when processing his record of killing political adversaries and invading other countries. American conservatives are praising Orban in Hungary, Law and Justice in Poland and the AFD in Germany. Equally shameful. Perhaps it is time for the erudite JD Vance to pull his old copy of Animal Farm off his study shelves.

Orwell would remind us to be cautious when listening to leaders who frame those who disagree with them politically as “Enemies of the People.” Democracy is in retreat globally as measured by Freedom House. It is not helpful when the world’s most powerful country and most admired democracy chooses to go “Orwellian” and side with authoritarians and tyrants over its traditional liberal democratic allies. I hope Animal Farm isn’t a target of the book bans and library removals becoming so popular in the MAGA era.

Animal Farm should inspire those who love democracy and freedom. Equal opportunity and adherence to the rule of law are principles worth defending. Human rights are not an inconvenient obstacle to an autocrat’s vision- they are core components of an enlightened society. Selective blindness should not be validated. It is a recipe for decline and defeat.

I also recommend 1984 and urge you to purchase one of the available editions Orwell’s complete essays. They are absolutely brilliant and witty. The man had a big heart, a great mind, a wicked pen and a run of bad luck health wise.