I read this book as a teenager and my overwhelming recollection is a feeling of anger and injustice at the lot of the ordinary, unintelligent animals at the hands of first the humans and then, more gratuitously because they purport to be helping them, the pigs. This feeling of indignation is best represented by the treatment of Boxer. When I re-read the book these feelings remained but what I found new, or at least failed to recall from my last reading, was a grim sense of inevitability about the pigs’ corruption once they get into power and the descent into brutal exploitation of the weaker members of the their society. The animals could never break free from the humans and establish their own order without the intelligence of the pigs. Old Major gives the philosophical underpinnings of their revolution in his excellent rallying speech at the book’s beginning. Beyond that, the animals would never have been able to defend the farm from the first attack of the humans if it were not for the pigs learning about military strategy from the books they find in the farmhouse (Chp 4, pp24-9). As such, when Squealer argues that the pigs deserve their special treatment and dispensations in order to prevent the return of the humans; there is some truth to it. For example:
“‘Comrades!’ he cried. ‘You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,’ cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, ‘surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?’” (p23)
To me, this seems to indicate that those with superior intelligence or abilities must necessarily lead and sustain the revolution but that once they have achieved this aim they will naturally see themselves as more deserving than their fellow animals. This sense of entitlement leads to a corruption of equality, the inauguration of special privileges and the establishment of a ruling class. ‘All animals are equal but some are more equal than others’ (Chp 10). Once in power, Orwell seems to be saying, everyone becomes a despot, it’s just the natural order of things. This message seems to be repeated at the book’s conclusion when Orwell writes, ‘Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be, much better or much worse - hunger, hardship and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.’ (p86). This looks like an admission that inequality and exploitation are the inevitable outcomes of leadership or even of the functioning of life in the world as we know it. Self-interest trumps any communal spirit and the strong manipulate and mistreat the weak to their own ends. The book seems to be saying leadership necessarily leads to corruption and the creation of an elite, which then exploits and suppresses the working class. I was reminded of this quote from the character Mark Staithes in Aldous Huxley’s, Eyeless in Gaza:
“What did the French peons get out of their revolution? Or our friends, the Russians, for that matter? A few years of pleasant intoxication. Then the same old treadmill. Gilded, perhaps; repainted. But in essentials the old machine.”
Perhaps I’m simply more jaded and cynical than I was as a teenager but this bleak conclusion was the overriding impression the book left upon me.
As a treatise against communism, or perhaps just its Russian manifestation, the book has clearly identifiable themes and equivalents that are apparent even to someone as ignorant about Soviet era communism as I am. Old Major as Marx, Napoleon as Stalin, Boxer as some version of Stakhanov, Snowball as Trotsky and Squealer as a wily head of propaganda who’s name I don’t know! There are also events and themes that obviously ape Communist Russia; mismanagement of large projects and misallocation of resources leads to hunger and famine (p50), Napoleon’s use of young puppies to create an indoctrinated secret police (p22), the re-writing of Snowball’s place in the farm’s history and its battles (p54, p65, p78), Napoleon’s adoption of more and more grandiose titles (p61), the creation of a bureaucracy to justify and cement the elites position (p86), variable and contradictory foreign policies (p66), wildly positive official statistics (p61) and Squealer’s repeated sophistry in explaining away the pigs’ abrogation of the original rules (p23, p37, p44, p46, p83). Another facet of Communism that I thought was well portrayed was how the birth of Napoleon’s children definitively establishment of a ruling class (p76). I’ve always thought that the strength of family ties and the desire to see one’s children succeed or be comfortable must always undermine a Communist philosophy. You could also argue that self-interest performs the same role; both seem to be too powerful and fundamental to be restrained for any substantial period of time. Beyond these more obvious representations there were some that I was less sure about. For example, who do the wild animals in the following quote represent?
“The attempt to tame the wild creatures, for instance , broke down almost immediately. They continued to behave very much as before, and when treated with generosity simply took advantage of it” (Snowball, p20)
Is it simply a representation of true human nature or does it refer to efforts at Communist foreign policy and diplomacy towards non-Communist countries? I also wondered if the windmill represented nuclear power specifically or just a brighter, less laborious future facilitated by technology more generally? Moses the raven seems to clearly represent religion with his talk of a promised ‘Sugarland’ above the clouds but I was less clear what his reappearance later on symbolised (p78)? I presume that anyone preaching religion in Stalinist Russia wouldn’t have lasted long but perhaps he represents those missionaries brave enough to try!
The sale of Boxer to the slaughter house after he can no longer work and the pigs’ spending of the proceeds on a banquet is the most heart-rending and repugnant episode in the book. Here, Orwell seems to be displaying Russian Communism as evil and not just making the more general point about the strong exploiting the weak that I started this essay with. Alternatively, he may be making the point that while power in a democracy is limited, thus limiting the extent of corruption amongst the elites, that in a Communist system the absolute nature of the leader’s power results in absolute corruption! Beyond this, I wondered what Orwell would make of the rich, powerful families that fund and control so much of politics in many democracies.
If there was anything that I would criticise in this book it would be these two very minor points. First, on p16 the disappearance of the milk is the first hint of greed and selfishness on the part of the pigs. However, on p18 it also says ‘nobody stole’ but, to my mind, the pigs appropriation of the milk should be seen as theft. Equally, on p51, the farm begins to sell eggs to make up for short falls elsewhere but if all the eggs up to this point had hatched chicks then wouldn’t the farm be absolutely overrun with chickens?!
These very minor considerations aside, I really loved this book and thought it was powerful, pithy and provocative!
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