Pensiero rivoluzionario nel primo dopoguerra del XX secolo

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Their reaction is understandable, but the description of the inevitable and immediate violence foreshadows the fate of the

rebellion: reactionary cruelty, the search for the scapegoat, and the perversion of the ideals of the revolution.

Nevertheless, the animals are too overjoyed with their sudden success.

Snowball, one of the pig leaders (the other is Napoleon), with the assistance of Squealer, the pigs' public-relations "man",

crosses out the name "Manor Farm" and climbs a ladder and writes these words on the end wall of the big barn:

The Seven Commandments:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

Thus the ideals of the revolution are spelled out in writing and yet these same ideals are perverted almost immediately. With the

task of harvesting the hay presenting itself to the animals, Snowball cries, "... to the hayfield! Let us make it a point of honour to

get in the harvest more quickly than Jones and his men could do". All the animals proceed directly to the hayfield, but the pigs,

rather than working, direct and supervise the others.

"With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership".

The pigs' managerial role foreshadow the perversion of the Seventh Commandment.

In this period of bliss, there are brewing far more horrible situations for the animals of Animal Farm. While Snowball is

organizing "The Egg Production Committee" for the hens and the "Clean Tails League" for the cows, Napoleon, the sinister pig

tyrant, is carefully educating a few puppies for his own evil purposes. Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick, the owners of the farms

adjoining Animal Farm, spread rumors of cannibalism, torture with red-hot horseshoes, and polygamy.

On the other hand, there are rumors of a "wonderful farm, where the human beings had been turned out and the animals

managed their own affairs" - in short, a paradise.

Neither set of rumors is true - for is not the social situations of conflicting ideologies that Orwell concerns himself with, but the

misrepresentation, the falsification, and the distortion of fact which leads unfortunately to disaster and misery.

The way fact is distorted and misrepresented is graphically portrayed in the rivalry between Snowball and Napoleon over the

construction of a windmill. During a meeting, Snowball has almost swayed the animals to his side, that is, for the construction of

the windmill, when suddenly nine huge dogs, the product of Napoleon's evil efforts, chase Snowball off the farm. Snowball

becomes the scapegoat in Napoleon's plans, and everything that comes to harm Napoleon's regime will be blamed on

Snowball. The remainder of Animal Farm is a chronicle of the consolidation of Napoleon's power through clever politics,

propaganda, and terror. On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the animals hear that Napoleon wants the windmill to

be built after all:

"The evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmil l.

On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the

incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon's papers... He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a

maneuver to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence".

The animals are not sure of Squealer's explanation but a few of Napoleon's dogs growl so threateningly that the animals accept

it without question. This developing state of tyranny and oppression will ultimately transform the "unalterable" Seven

Commandments into Napoleon's own laws. 16

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The windmill soon becomes the means by which Napoleon exerts control. He uses it to direct the animals' attention away from

the growing shortages and inadequacies on the farm, and the animals ignorantly concentrate all their efforts on building the

windmill. The symbolic nature of the windmill is itself important - it suggests an empty concentration, a meaningless, unheroic

effort, for the idea is literally misguided.

It is about this time that the rest of the animals notice that the pigs have taken residence in the farmhouse, and contrary to what

they believe has been ruled against, the pigs have begun to sleep in beds. Clover the horse is doubtful, but she reads the

Fourth Commandment on the barn wall, and concludes that she was mistaken after all: "No animal shall sleep in a bed with

sheets." Beginning with this small but significant change in the unalterable Laws of Animalism, there will be an even greater and

more profound change - the blatant alteration of history.

Half-finished, the windmill is suddenly destroyed, at the hands, so says Napoleon, of the traitor, Snowball. Work on the windmill

resumes, this time with less rations for the animals. Almost "sure" of Snowball's secret collaboration with some of the animals,

Napoleon calls together the entire population of the farm.

"Napoleon stood sternly surveying his audience; then he uttered a high-pitched whimper. Immediately the dogs bounded

forward, seized four of the pigs by the ear and dragged them squealing with pain and terror, to Napoleon's feet... When they had

finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any ot her

animal had anything to confess."

Before long, there is a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air is heavy with the smell of blood. Even so, the

terror and senseless death are both shattering experiences, but they are at least comprehensible; far more terrifying is the overt

alteration of consciousness which follows the slaughter, the blatant misrepresentation of the past, which goes unchallenged.

Lacking the right words to express her thoughts after the slaughter, Clover begins to sing Beasts of England, the patriotic s ong

of the Rebellion. Squealer stops her and tells her that Beasts of England is of no use anymore, because the better society

portrayed in the song has already been achieved. The irony in this statement is almost absurd, yet the animals have failed to

grasp its meaning.

Rebuilt completely, the windmill is once again destroyed, this time by Frederick and his followers who try to retake Animal Farm,

but are defeated, inflicting many casualties on both sides. To celebrate their victory, the pigs get drunk off a case of whis key

found in the cellar of the farmhouse. A few days later, the animals realize that they have remembered another Commandment

incorrectly. It now read: "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess." With so little opposition to this outright alteration of fact,

nothing stands in the way of the pigs.

Boxer, the strongest and hardest-working animal, falls ill. Though the van in which the dying Boxer is taken away has the words

"Horse Slaughterer" painted on the sides, Squealer assures the other animals that the veterinary surgeon had just recently

bought it, and did not have time to paint the old name out. Boxer, devoting his unceasing labor to the pigs, outlives his

usefulness, and is rewarded by being sent to the glue factory.

Years pass, and most of the animals involved in the Rebellion have been forgotten. The only Commandment left on the barn

wall is this:

All Animals are Equal

But some animals are more equal than others.

The name "Animal Farm" is changed back to "Manor Farm." A deputation of neighboring farmers meet the pigs and tours the

farm. Toasting each other's prosperity, Pig and Human alike proceed to play a game of cards. Suddenly:

"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to

say which was which."

This scene illustrates the essential horror of the human condition - there have been, are, and always will be pigs in every

society, and they will always grab for power. It is the "human nature" of the animals that defeats them. 17

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Allusions to history, geography and current science

The ousting of the humans after the farmers forget to feed the animals is an allusion to the Russian Revolution of 1917 that led

to the removal of the Czar after a series of social upheavals and wars and ultimately resulted in famine and poverty.

The refusal of the Humans to refer to Animal Farm by its new name (still calling it Manor Farm) may be indicative of the

diplomatic limbo in which the Soviets existed following their early history.

Mr. Jones' last ditch effort to re-take the farm (The Battle of the Cowshed) is analogous to the Russian Civil War in which the

western capitalist governments sent soldiers to try to remove the Bolsheviks from power.

Napoleon's removal of Snowball is like Stalin’s removal of Leon Trotsky from power in 1927 and his subsequent expulsion and

murder.

Squealer constantly changing the commandments may refer to the constant line of adjustments to the Communist theory by the

people in power. Also, his lies to animals of past events they cannot remember refers to the revision of history texts to glorify

Stalin during his regime.

After Old Major dies, his skull is placed on display on a tree stump. Similarly, Lenin's embalmed body was put on display in

Lenin's Tomb in Red Square postmortem, where it still remains. It should also be noted that the tomb of Karl Marx is adorned by

an extremely huge bust of his likeness which lends more credibility to Old Major being a closer reference to Karl Marx than to

Lenin. Marx's tomb is located in Highgate Cemetery, London.

When Napoleon steals Snowball’s idea for a windmill, the windmill can be considered a symbol of the Soviet Five-Year Plans, a

concept developed by Trotsky and adopted by Stalin, who, after banning Trotsky from the Soviet Union, claimed them to be his

idea. The failure of the windmill to generate the expected creature comforts and subsequent search for saboteurs is probably a

reference to accusations and a show trial against British engineers who were working on electrification projects in the USSR.

Moses the raven leaving the farm for a while and then returning is similar to the Russian Orthodox Church going underground

and then being brought back to give the workers hope.

Boxer's motto, "Napoleon is always right" is strikingly similar to "Mussolini is always right," a chant used to hail Benito Mussolini

during his rule of Italy from 1922 to 1943.

During the rise of Napoleon, he ordered the collection of all the hens' eggs. In an act of defiance, the hens destroyed their eggs

rather than give them to Napoleon. During Stalin's collectivization period in the early 1930s, many Ukrainian peasants burned

their crops and farms rather than handing them over to the government.

Napoleon's mass executions, of which many were unfair for the alleged crimes, is similar to Stalin executing his political

enemies for various crimes after they were tortured and forced to falsify confessions. —

The four pigs that defy Napoleon's will are comparable with the purged party members during the Great Purge Bukharin,

Rykov, Zinoviev, Kamenev and many others.

Napoleon replaces the farm anthem "Beasts of England" with an inane composition by the pig poet Minimus ("Animal Farm,

Animal Farm / Never through me / Shall thou come to harm"). In 1943, Stalin replaced the old national anthem "the

Internationale" with "the Hymn of the Soviet Union." The old Internationale glorified the revolution and "the people." The original

version of the Hymn of the Soviet Union glorified Stalin so heavily that after his death in 1953, entire sections of the anth em had