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Who here has read Animal Farm?
Its basically an attempt to explain why Communism won't work.
Do you think it could actually be interpreted on a leftist level? My friends and I were talking about it earlier today... how its basically a pathetic allegory of the situation in Russia, but there are different ways to look at it.
Don't get me wrong, I still think the book, and the author, both suck.
I don't see how anyone could come away from reading Orwell's propaganda and feeling a leftist vibe. It exagerates Stalin's authoritarianism and downplays Trotsky's authoritarianism. Of course Trotsky would have wanted to organize the "animals" into organizations... organizations run by military command under his approval.
"We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are inconsistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Freedom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties."
--Lenin
Socialist Party (Debs Tendency)
I just remember coming away from it thinking "wow, that was a waste of time." I think Orwell had his misconceptions, he was probably just thinking "hmmm now THIS is how im going to say Communism is bad!"
I vehemently disagree. Animal Farm is a literary masterpiece, but this is a political forum, so I will discuss it politically. Animal Farm, on the surface, criticizes revolutionary communism. However, it also glorifies Trotsky, leaving the door open to suggest that he could've made it work. It is anti-stalinist, which I have nothing against being.
Orwell was a democratic socialist who admired anarchism in spain. He was hardly an anti-communist. Anti-revolutionary, I wouldn't even go that far. Anti-stalinist is the label I would give him.
I am doing a 20 page essay for English on Animal Farm, Hamlet, and The Wars, so I am a bit biased, obviously.
By glorifying Trotsky it glorifies a man who could have been a far worse tyrant than Stalin.
"We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are inconsistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Freedom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties."
--Lenin
Socialist Party (Debs Tendency)
Orwell's dislike of Stalinism came from direct experience from fighting in Spain. That caused him to veer towards the reformist path. Nonetheless Animal Farm remains an excellent work both as a political critique and simply read. I highly recommend it.
Which is something that we'll never know and so not worth discussing. Certainly not in this thread.
March at the head of the ideas of your century and those ideas will follow and sustain you. March behind them and they will drag you along. March against them and they will overthrow you.
Napoleon III
For the last time, Orwell was anti-totallitarian, not anti-leftist. The guy fought for the anarchists during the spanish civil war for Christ's sake.
Animal Farm is primerily a critism of Stalinist Communism not Communism in general.
I really can't see how people so often struggle to get this. I reckomend everyone who thinks Animal Farm or 1984 is capatalist propaganda should go out and read Homage to Catalonia or Down and Out in Paris and London, it might eventually get the message across that George Orwell was a leftist!
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
John Lennon: Working Class Hero
Orwell was a Democratic Socialist?
In my discussion with my friends, they too brought up that it wasnt anti-communist but anti-Stalinist, and I didnt know if I agreed or not. I read it in the vein that it was criticizing communism in general, implying that Communism would always cause a totalitarian/Stalinist dictatorship. This was the misconception I thought Orwell had, but I should probably do more research on him before I throw him into the category of your typical anti-Communist.
He said he was, at least, according to some sources.
He I belive betrayed a group of communist to the british state.
We are monopolists in the field of politics. We can't stand any competition. We can tolerate no rivals. The working class, to make the revolution can do it only through one party and one program. This is the lesson of the Russian Revolution. That is the lesson of all history since the October Revolution.” -James P. Cannon.
http://www.themilitant.com/
Orwell was no leftist. He was a snitch, a racist, and an anti-Semite. He wasn't worth a hair on Paul Robeson's head.
read more: st. george's list by alex cockburn
"I learned during [the fight against the colonial war in Algeria] that political conviction is not a question of numbers, of majority. Because at the beginning of the Algerian war, we were really very few against the war. It was a lesson for me; you have to do something when you think it's a necessity, when it's right, without caring about the numbers." - Alain Badiou
I've always thought that Animal Farm is a masterpiece.
Obviously, as an allegory of the Russian Revolution, it has to be overwhelmingly negative. Having said that, I still think it depicts Communism (the ideal) in a favourable light: even though corruption and tyranny destroy the revolution, there is still the glorious moment of victory when the Jones' are driven off the farm. And initially, all seems to be working well.
Orwell's warning is against authoritarianism - the exploitation of the workers by tyrants, and the betrayal of the revolution by greedy, power-hungry thugs. Aren't these concepts subscribed to by most leftists?
> home for christmas,
> no smegging internet access,
> don't start the revolution without me, comrades! :P
Get a copie that comes with a short passage about Orwell. It is a masterpeaice that has unfortunatly just been used in schools etc to potray communism as always becoming totalitarian.
orwell was an anarchist by the way
It goes one for the student who refuses to submit and two for the teacher who is under-paid as shit, and three for the strikes who give young bloods life and four for the years you spent stifled inside.
Infoshop
I wasn't aware anarchist had lowered themselves to pulling shit out of their ass to present as fact.
-- George Orwell
"We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are inconsistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Freedom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties."
--Lenin
Socialist Party (Debs Tendency)
i haven't read it, in a while. I think this now, and i was too stupid to know at the time but i think it was about communism. you have the animals, and they revolt against their "Oppresors" and they are now in control. they appoint the leaders the pigs. they are fine at first, then i believe wasn't it that they started developing rules, and it soon became what they hated in the first place. the pigs became a dictatorship like so many once communist states. the animals revolted and killed the pigs, but again they needed a leader once more i think thus creating a cycle. please tell me if im wrong
My Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.00
Just Imagine, I, a Premier, a Soviet Representative...just now I was told I could not go to Disneyland. I cannot find words to explain this to my people"
-Nikita Kruschev
A pig makes a speech (Lenin) and tells the animals to rise up, he then dies, they rise up and form a new system with two pigs in joint leadership (Trotsky and Starlen) and a serise of rules are put up. Then a series of events happening from russian history e.g. WW2, industrialisation and the trotsky pig is exiled and the rules start to change, in the end the rules end up as everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
Thats a quick reveiw I might have missed some stuff.
...and Karl Marx thought that homosexuality was a product of bourgeois decadance, does that mean he wasn't a leftist either...
He may have fought for an anarchist party in the Spanish Civil War, but that was more by fluke than anything else, as has already been pointed out he was more of a democratic socialist than anything else...
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
John Lennon: Working Class Hero
Considering that he turned reformist rather than anarchist when confronted by the authoritarianism of the CPs I doubt that.
March at the head of the ideas of your century and those ideas will follow and sustain you. March behind them and they will drag you along. March against them and they will overthrow you.
Napoleon III
[QUOTE=Comrade Corinna,Dec 13 2005, 07:35 AM]
I think that this is by far one of the stupidest comments ever made about Orwell or any of his books. I realize that everyone here would like to be the best and biggest leftist/communist there is, but trashing a great piece of literature and its writer are not exactly the brightest way to go about this. In fact, that is probably one of the most superficial ways to go about this. You want to be a communist, you do it on your own accord, not by grabbing a book you have read and making a lame comment about it.
Orwell is a great writer. That is not up to question. He is witty, and very brilliant, and that is all there is to it. Whether you agree with his political stances or not is completely irrelevant. Having an intelligent debate on his writerly skills is one thing, but to say stupid statements like he "sucks" is totally another. I am not saying that we should accept all known writers as brilliant and that is that. But not one person who has criticized him here has mentioned a valid reason that relates to his writing at all. Diego Armando, you are just as bad as Comrade Corinna.
As far as his stances are concerned, I happen to agree with Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor and polemi-super-cised completely. We should not be fighting Orwell because he rejects totalitarianism. I would think that that is not something any of us support, nor is it a communist ideology.
Well fats, to the best of my knowledge, you cannot be a racist. Racist is an adjective, not a noun. As far as Orwell being a "snitch", I am not sure I understand. He was a thief? Or do you mean he told on his friends? I do not think that he is either, nor do I think you understood the word when you wrote it. Either way, I do not see what that has to do with either his political stances or his literature. I am not even going to go into the "anti-Semite" comment, because I truly think that it is moronic. I am an Arab, and as such, a Semite and he does not offend me. If you meant to say anti-Jewish, then I'd like to see how, and I would also like you to somehow relate this to his literature in some relevent way. If you cannot do this, then maybe you should not have mentioned it. I think that that term has become far too popular in recent years. It must be the word of the year. And it is abused. Like the word "Nazi", it is a taboo, and it is used as a label for anyone that people want to discredit. Which is a cheap way to go about a debate.
One quotation by a person who obviously does not care for Orwell at all does not prove anything. The statements Orwell is quoted for could very well have been taken out of context. He remains a great writer. This does not mean that there are not other great writers.
In the end, I think it is important for us to realize that a writers personal life/choices have absolutely nothing to do with the value of their work. Hitler's favorite composer was Wagner, who is a known Nazi by belief. Does that make his music any worse? I do not think so. I do not think it touches on his music at all. Mozart was a womanizer and an asshole to his family. Again, he is still a great musician. Salvadore Dali was a COCKY sonofa*****, quoted for saying something along the lines of "I thank my god every morning that he gave the world Salvadore Dali". Dali's art is still brilliant. Hemmingway was a known bullfighter. Dostoyevsky a religious, conservative bastard. Virginia Woolf a suicidal nutcase, as was Sylvia Plath. Woody Allen married his step-daughter. All of these people are still phenomenal artists. I think you get my point. Which is mainly that this thread has very little basis. Everone is entitled to his/her opinion's on literature, but you just look like a moron when you say them without backing them up with something substancial.
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
