"Animal Farm" is a satirical story-parable by George Orwell published in 1945. The story depicts the evolution of a society of animals that drove from the barnyard of its previous owner, the cruel Mr. Jones, from unlimited freedom to the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.
In the story, Orwell showed the degeneration of revolutionary principles and programs, that is, a gradual transition from the ideas of universal equality and building a utopia to dictatorship and totalitarianism. "The Animal Farm" is a parable, an allegory for the 1917 revolution and subsequent events in Russia.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"
Orwell wrote the story from November 1943 to February 1944. An obvious satire on the Soviet Union, then Britain's ally in the anti-Hitler coalition, was published after the victory over Germany - in August 1945. The first publication in the USSR occurred during the "perestroika" in the journal "Rodnik".
Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, following the experience of the Spanish Civil War, which he described in the book "In Memory of Catalonia." In the preface to the publication of Animal Farm (1947), he explained that, having escaped the communist purges in Spain, he realized "how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries." This prompted Orwell to begin to expose and vigorously condemn what he saw as a Stalinist distortion of socialist ideals. "In Memory of Catalonia" sold poorly and after reading Arthur Koestler's bestseller "Blinding Darkness" about the Moscow trials, Orwell decided that fiction was the best way to describe totalitarianism.
In 2013, the Guardian surveyed who Orwell portrayed in his dystopias. 89% of the British said: this is about us, the present, we see all his dark fantasies today with our own eyes.
Animalism (or animalism) is a neophilosophical system, according to which, according to the plan, the newly formed animal society of the Farmyard should live. A parody of communism.
Seven commandments
The basis of bestiality was formed by the seven commandments invented by pigs, and inscribed by them with paint on the end of a large barn:
One who walks on two legs is an enemy.
The one who walks on four (as well as the one with wings) is a friend.
The animal does not wear clothes.
The animal does not sleep in bed.
The animal does not drink alcohol.
An animal will not kill another animal.
All animals are equal.
But it turned out that many species of animals of the Animal Yard, due to their narrow mindset, are not able to remember all seven commandments, which is why it was decided specifically for them to reduce the situation of bestiality to a single maxim: “four legs is good, two legs are bad!”. Later, the pigs, having ceased to observe the commandments, but did not cease to propagate them among other animals, secretly corrected them, so as not to be accused of violating them. The written (here - in bold) commandments began to be passed off as primordial:
The animal does not sleep in bed under the sheets.
The animal does not drink alcohol until it feels insensible.
An animal will not kill another animal for no reason.
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
The last commandment in a modified form was discovered by animals later than others and the only one of all. The rest were erased. When the pigs began to walk on two legs, the maxim later changed to: “four legs are good, two legs are better!”.
You can buy «Animal Farm» at Politics and Prose.
This article was sponsored by Alex Stroker.
Comments