Animal Farm

[Nanatsu Yoru]

I just read it, and I thought it was pretty clever. What are the general opinions of it here on RevLeft?

[Proukunin]

I was written by George Orwell. Who served in the Spanish Civil War for the communists. Ive personally never read it, but it was an assigned reader when I was in high school and I know little about it. Isnt it a take on Totalitarianism in general?

[JerryBiscoTrey]

I was written by George Orwell. Who served in the Spanish Civil War for the communists. Ive personally never read it, but it was an assigned reader when I was in high school and I know little about it. Isnt it a take on Totalitarianism in general?

It was an attack against Stalinism and the USSR. Pretty dumb book in my opinion and written by a man who had never set foot in the USSR

[Lunatic Concept]

It uses the animals to act as a metaphor for the different groups that took part in and were affected by the revolution, and uses this to show the degeneration of the farm from utopia to brutal stalinist dictatorship. Its a good read, and at about 120 pages, why not read it?

[Rooster]

I was written by George Orwell. Who served in the Spanish Civil War for the communists. Ive personally never read it, but it was an assigned reader when I was in high school and I know little about it. Isnt it a take on Totalitarianism in general?

Orwell fought for the POUM, not the Russian backed communist party.

Animal Farm a thinly disguised attack against Stalin. It's not surprising that most Stalinists have a distaste for it. It is a good read though. Like all of Orwell's stuff.

[Property Is Robbery]

Any Stalinist on this site will put the book down as well as Orwell. Personally I like it although it is very simple. I didn't think it was an attack against the USSR, just Stalin and his policies.

[Rooster]

Any Stalinist on this site will put the book down as well as Orwell. Personally I like it although it is very simple. I didn't think it was an attack against the USSR, just Stalin and his policies.

It's simple because it's supposed to a parody of a children's story. More or less.

Orwell states in one of the prefaces of Animal Farm something along the lines that he was against what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of real socialist values.

[Chairman Wow]

I quite liked it... Regardless of the presumed allegory.

[Proukunin]

Orwell fought for the POUM, not the Russian backed communist party.

Animal Farm a thinly disguised attack against Stalin. It's not surprising that most Stalinists have a distaste for it. It is a good read though. Like all of Orwell's stuff.

I figured that's why Stalinists didnt like it. I knew he fought for the POUM, but they were still a communist party.

[Rooster]

I figured that's why Stalinists didnt like it. I knew he fought for the POUM, but they were still a communist party.

Well, they have been broadly along the same lines in the civil war, but if you read Homage to Catalonia, you'll get a better picture. The book itself is a riveting account of the Spanish civil war and I highly, highly recommend it. It also gives a political side note at the end. The POUM were a Trotskyist organisation, more or less, with links to the Independent Labour er Party(?) in the UK. I'm not sure what they were called, to be honest. It's been a while since I've looked into it. But they were all nearly rounded up by the Stalin backed communists or denied the meagre arms and munitions. Orwell himself was almost arrested, he says, and there's general dislike for the communists by Orwell and the POUM members. Anyway, Orwell himself was against both Trotsky and Stalin and thought the infighting between them was one of the reasons why the Spanish civil war was won by Franco.

I'm sure someone else will give you a more indepth picture if you asked. My memory isn't the best and it's late in the day for me.

[praxis1966]

It uses the animals to act as a metaphor for the different groups that took part in and were affected by the revolution, and uses this to show the degeneration of the farm from utopia to brutal stalinist dictatorship. Its a good read, and at about 120 pages, why not read it?

I'm definitely no Stalinist, but I hated it. The metaphoric symbolism is about as wafer thin and low brow as that of an Andrew Lloyd Webber opera. It's just piss poor literature IMO. Anyway, why the umpteen millionth thread on this novel? Why not just necro one of the other dozens? Search function, people, search function.

[Fawkes]

I haven't read it in years, but if I did read it again, I feel I would be inclined to agree with praxis. I'm all for ripping on Stalin, it's not exactly hard to do and he's well deserving of it, but I generally like my metaphors slightly more veiled.

[mosfeld]

George Orwell: Anti-communist Propagandist, Champion of Trotskyism and State Informer is a very good read concerning George Orwell.

The American Party of Labor also wrote a very good piece called Trotskyism: A History of Betrayal, which dedicates a section to George Orwell.

George Orwell's List

To this day, it is still a practice of students in imperialist countries to be forced to read the mediocre novels of another Trotskyite, George Orwell, whom of course is always widely read and praised by Trotskyites not on the basis of art, but on the sheer basis of crude anti-communism. His writings Animal Farm and 1984 are still taken as an absolute dogma regarding the Soviet Union. The two fictional novels are taken as a realistic portrayal of what life under communism was truly like. This is in spite of Orwell admitting himself: “I have never visited Russia and my knowledge of it consists only of what can be learned by reading books and newspapers” (Orwell 366). The anti-Soviet and anti-communist streak of ultra-leftists with Trotskyite leanings such Orwell continues here unabated. After fighting in the Spanish Civil War with P.O.U.M. faction, Orwell fled Spain and submitted names of people he thought were to be communist sympathizers to the British Intelligence service and gave names of people he thought could be trusted to write anti-communist propaganda.

Timothy Garton Ash, a writer for The New York Review of Books, was given access to the archives of the British Foreign Office and was allowed to see the original list. He wrote that “[t]here are 135 names in all…” (Ash). Of the list of his former comrades he betrayed to the British imperialists, ash notes that they were “especially important to anticommunist leftists like Orwell who were convinced, as he himself wrote, ‘that the destruction of the Soviet myth [is] essential if we want to revive the Socialist movement’” (Ash). This list was assembled at the request of the British government.

“[O]n March 29, Celia came to visit him in Glouces-tershire; but she also came with a mission. She was working for this new department of the Foreign Office, trying to counter the assault waves of communist propaganda emanating from Stalin’s recently founded Comin- form. Could he help? As she recorded in her official memorandum of their meeting, Orwell ‘expressed his whole-hearted and enthusiastic approval of our aims’” (Ash). This was the same “Celia,” a British agent, whom “Robert Conquest, the veteran chronicler of Soviet terror, […] shared an office with Celia Kirwan and himself fell ‘madly in love’ with her” (Ash).

Notably, Ash reported that George Orwell felt the need to ethnically identify his communist and pro-Soviet comrades for the benefit of their enemies. “One aspect of the notebook that shocks our contemporary sensibility is his ethnic labeling of people, especially the eight variations of ‘Jewish?’ (Charlie Chaplin), ‘Polish Jew,’ ‘English Jew,’ or ‘Jewess’” (Ash). Fittingly enough, one of the benefits Orwell received for writing and submitting the list was promotion of his work by both the British government and the CIA:

“In Orwell’s case, [British Intelligence department IRD] supported Burmese, Chinese, and Arabic editions of his Animal Farm, commissioned a rather crude strip-cartoon version of the same book (giving the pig Major a Lenin beard, and the pig Napoleon a Stalin moustache, in case simple-minded readers didn’t get the point), and organized showings in ‘backward’ areas of the British Commonwealth of a CIA-financed—and politically distorted—animated film of Animal Farm” (Ash).

[Princess Luna]

i never got what the fuck is up with Stalinists always calling Trotskyists "Trotskyites"

[Imposter Marxist]

Reguardless of the book's message or intentions, which can be debated, there is no doubt that it was used as a brutal attack on Communism, Socialism, and the Left in general.

[Rooster]

By the bye, Orwell was never claimed to be, and took an active dislike, to that whole "Trotskyite" thing. There's a hint of paranoia in those articles.

Reguardless of the book's message or intentions, which can be debated, there is no doubt that it was used as a brutal attack on Communism, Socialism, and the Left in general.

I think it's pretty clear to what Orwell thought and the ideas of the book were really simple. Orwell thought that Stalin was the one that was attacking socialism. So I don't think it can be debated. What can be debated is why you and he differ in opinion.

[Fawkes]

Reguardless of the book's message or intentions, which can be debated, there is no doubt that it was used as a brutal attack on Communism, Socialism, and the Left in general.

Yeah, that is true, but if you're holding that against the book itself (which maybe you're not), that's pretty stupid, things get misconstrued and twisted all the time, it doesn't reflect on the actual book itself.

[Robespierre Richard]

Yeah, that is true, but if you're holding that against the book itself (which maybe you're not), that's pretty stupid, things get misconstrued and twisted all the time, it doesn't reflect on the actual book itself.

A book is not without its author.

[Sixiang]

I am a "Stalinist", as some like to call it, and I liked this book. I actually enjoy Orwell's writings quite a bit and have read a lot of his books. I would not say that Animal Farm is his best by any means. I read it in junior high, found it clever and enjoyable, put it aside, and moved on. I will say this, if it wasn't for that book, I may never have moved on to leftism and (ironically) to support Stalin. Animal Farm was the first book I ever read by a socialist that dealt with Soviet history, and it got me curious about Soviet history. My interest in Animal Farm caused me to read 1984, which caused me to question all the leaders and established ideas in my life. 1984 caused me to read The Road to Wigan Pier, which caused me to be more interested in socialism and to read The Communist Manifesto. It all spirals out from there for me with reading more of Marx and Engels' works. 7 months or so later, I started to consider myself a communist and I joined revleft. It's interesting how a "Trotskyist" work's influence on me could ultimately lead me to become a "Stalinist" 4 or 5 years later.

To be honest, when I read it originally, and then re-read it a year ago, I simply found the whole idea of this "fairy tale" scenario with talking animals taking over a farm and engaging in bloody warfare and conflict with humans to be clever, funny, and interesting.

By the bye, Orwell was never claimed to be, and took an active dislike, to that whole "Trotskyite" thing.

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, he considered himself more of a social dem than a Trotskyist per say. I know he supported the British Labour Party for years.

[psgchisolm]

I am a "Stalinist", as some like to call it, and I liked this book. I actually enjoy Orwell's writings quite a bit and have read a lot of his books. I would not say that Animal Farm is his best by any means. I read it in junior high, found it clever and enjoyable, put it aside, and moved on. I will say this, if it wasn't for that book, I may never have moved on to leftism and (ironically) to support Stalin. Animal Farm was the first book I ever read by a socialist that dealt with Soviet history, and it got me curious about Soviet history. My interest in Animal Farm caused me to read 1984, which caused me to question all the leaders and established ideas in my life. 1984 caused me to read The Road to Wigan Pier, which caused me to be more interested in socialism and to read The Communist Manifesto. It all spirals out from there for me with reading more of Marx and Engels' works. 7 months or so later, I started to consider myself a communist and I joined revleft. It's interesting how a "Trotskyist" work's influence on me could ultimately lead me to become a "Stalinist" 4 or 5 years later.

To be honest, when I read it originally, and then re-read it a year ago, I simply found the whole idea of this "fairy tale" scenario with talking animals taking over a farm and engaging in bloody warfare and conflict with humans to be clever, funny, and interesting.


Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, he considered himself more of a social dem than a Trotskyist per say. I know he supported the British Labour Party for years.

Wikipedia has him labeled as a Democratic Soc. If I remember correctly he hated all forms of Totalitarianism.