Understanding The Problem With Communism in Animal Farm, a Novel by George Orwell

Animal farm is a book about animals on a farm who revolt against their human master Mr. Jones. The animals are inspired to revolt because of Old Major; He is a dying pig that acknowledges that the animals are currently enslaved to Mr. Jones, and because of this he explains that they need to free themselves. When he dies the animals have a revolution and take over the farm then promptly rename it “Animal Farm”. They also create a concept called Animalism in which they have seven commandments they follow. The pigs of the farm take the lead since they are the most active and the smartest. As the story goes on Snowball, one of the 3 leading pigs, tries to make a committee for his ideas about improving quality of life but the other two pigs aren’t so keen on the Idea. Napoleon, one of the other two pigs, trains dogs that were born after the revolution to follow his orders. Napoleon uses them to make Snowball run away and to enforce his rule over the other animals. Napoleon and Squealer, the third pig, take more and more control as time on the farm passes. They change the rules of Animalism to fit their needs and to make it easier to enslave the other animals without them knowing. Eventually, the pigs walk on two legs and can’t be told apart from humans.

Animal Farm is widely considered a classic novel, and I can understand why it’s been given this designation. It portrays Russia’s history of leaders in a simplistic easy to understand way. At the time of its publication, Animal Farm’s recent events included a few Russian revolutions and the descent of Russia’s society into an oppressed and enslaved working class. The book enlightens the population on the state of Russia in an easy-to-understand way. This may be why so many people liked it; being able to understand communism would make it easier to hate it and reject it like most countries, especially America, did. The success of Animal Farm also probably had something to do with its recent World War and the Holocaust. The world saw firsthand what one man can accomplish by manipulating his country and making his population murder and kill people through political domination. In Animal Farm we see the pigs take control and abuse their power by changing the rules of Animalism and killing animals that disagreed with them. With the recent events around the world, it was not difficult for people to relate to what they were reading and to understand what Orwell was trying to show about communism.

I have made my point about Animal Farm being easy to understand and it is clear that George Orwell has swayed many people against Communism. Soon after its publication, Animal Farm was banned in Russia and later in more countries. This does not come as a shock. It is not necessarily the fact that Russia’s Communism is displayed in the book as the reason for it being banned, but because of the negative connotation, George Orwell gives it. He makes it clear that the other animals are being manipulated and that the leaders are abusing their power. Orwell makes a big point at the end of the book about the revolutionists becoming the oppressive leaders that they sought to destroy. Obviously, Russia does not want their society to be portrayed in this way so it makes sense for them to ban the book.

America on the other hand promoted the book and encouraged it to be read in our high schools. This makes sense because of America’s relationship with Russia at the time, this also adds to why Animal Farm became a classic. I agree that it is important for people to read this book because, as I thoroughly stated earlier in my essay, the book is written in an understandable transparent way. It alludes to key points in Russia’s history leading up to its abusive rule. Orwell criticizes Communism and even though most Americans hated Communism already I find it incredibly important to know why something is bad. This made it easy for people to at least understand the problem with Communism and I think that future people would lose that understanding if this book was banned.

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