Animal Farm - Episode #2 - Meet the characters of Animal Farm and dive into lots of political allegory!

Hi, this is Christy Shriver.

This is Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is the second episode in the series where we look at George Orwell and his political ideology through the classic and beloved novella and allegory Animal Farm.  Last week, we discussed the life and times of Orwell himself, and we looked, albeit very briefly at the first couple of chapters of the book itself highlighting really the deceptively lighthearted tone of the first couple of chapters where a wise old boar expounds the beauties of Animalism – a dream world where everyone is treated fairly and properly; Where everyone feels respect and attains  a life of leisure, but most importantly where the blame for all the cruelties of life is clearly identified and on whom it should fall- and the answer to that is man.  Man is the source of all evil and to get rid of man is to get rid of tyranny, cruelty and evil.  We ended with the animals roaring in applause as they are lost in the Utopian dream.

And singing, although I don’t think we brought that out- what would be their theme song or national anthem- Beasts of England, which according to Orwell, is a “stirring tune something between ‘Clementine’ and ‘la Cucaracha’”. I still can’t figure out how you can mosh those two together- but I’m sure coming through the bleats of talking pigs, horses, chickens and even rats- it’s all the same.  Today we are going to look at at this book pretty much solely as a straightforward thinly disguised discussion of Russian politics and as a criticism of the Russian revolution.  It’s written in the third person that keeps us at a safe distance.  We are NOT ever going to feel like we’re on the farm with these animals- this story is about another world- and on one letter- a very very specific time and place in human history.  And to understand it we must begin with a discussion of Russian history.  I know it feels like we’re going super heaving on history- since we got into the Spanish Revolution and colonialism last week, but when you understand the series of events as they unfolded in Russia, then the story makes total sense.  I think it is a HUGE mistake to avoid a discussion of Russian history when studying this book, although I know this is a common practice in some places. 

In this book, from a historical perspective, it’s unavoidable to see the extremely obvious connection.   It’s Orwell’s obvious purpose to NOt hide who each character was or that he was even talking about Russia. It was the Russians who called everyone “comrade” – and I think everyone who grew up during the cold war ever, thinks about Russia when they hear that word comrade- I don’t know if it’s used besides when talking about communist people from Russia.  So, when old Major begins by saying “All animals are comrades”- the secret it out- the code word has been uttered- this farm is Russia. 

To me, it’s like when someone says, “I’m not going to tell you who’s fault it is, but his name rhymes with Harry and starts with a G. 

Exactly, so, let’s get a little familiar with the country of Russia and its incredibly diverse and interesting past.  Christy, I know you lived there are one point in your life, what can you tell us.

Well, let me correct you on that.  I never lived in Russia.  When I was in college, I was an exchange student to Kazakhstan, which today is an independent country, but during the Soviet era was a Soviet republic.  What that means, is that although it had a totally different cultural heritage until 1991, it was a part of the same country as Russia.  Russia was a republic and Kazakhstan was a republic- they were both republics in the country that existed from 1922-1991, and is basically what Animal Farm is about.  When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, I was in college.  In 1992, I signed up to be a part of an exchange to the former Soviet Union.  I had always been enamoured, like everyone else of my generation, with everything Soviet- we watched a LOT of James Bond movies.  I went over there with a group of six students to a University named Kazhgyu Grad to study Russian language and culture.  We thought we were pretty cool getting one of the first looks back behind the “iron curtain” as everyone called it back then.  The Soviet Union to us had been a mysterious place and even a scary place.  And the story of how it was created is the story Orwell tells.  Perhaps in another episode, if it fits into the discussion,  I’ll tell you what it was like when we got there- and as everyone in the West quickly discovered after the wall came down, it was never the dream old Major described or the Russian people envisioned when they threw out the Czars and brought in the communists.  I was totally unprepared for what we saw.  But anyway, Let’s tell the story.

Ok- Well, Until the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was an empire- which means it’s a monarchy- like the other European countries.  It’s head was called the Czar, which by the way is a derivative of the word “Caesar”- meaning their leader had total control over the country.  Russia had a czar starting in 1547, and when the Czars were good, the country developed some amazing cultural landmarks that have lasted until this day.  The most famous being Peter the Great who is most well known for building the beautiful city Petersburg and Catherine the Great, who revistalized Russia and made it one of the strongest powers in Europe.  Her reign has been called the Golden Age of Russia.

During the 20th century monarchy was under assault everywhere and the result was, in some cases, constitutional monarchy were democracy was broadened. But in most cases the antithesis to monarchy was fascism, communism, totalitarianism. Each regarded themselves as the only “isms” that could wipe out the old monarchical order and let the people rule. And, radical revolution was the only it could all be accomplished.

Well, may I inject, women make fabulous monarchs, as the British Monarchy can also attest to.

I assumed, you’d inject on that note.  And, I’d say no one would disagree with you, Catherine reigned from 1762 until 1796.  From her reign onward, to Russia’s credit, they did try to move into the new era of more political representation, like other countries all over the world, albeit somewhat slowly.  But as Russia moved into the 20th century, things got problematic.  Peasants were getting poorer and poorer, and the first world war did not help.  The emperors of this period, as accurately portrayed by Orwell through Mr. and Mrs. Jones were increasingly selfish and uninterested in the lives of the working people.  Many people were going without food and living in extremely harsh conditions, and as you know from living in that part of the world, when the weather is as cold as it is in Russia, suffering is magnified.   One major problem is that the Russian nobility took way too long to abolish serfdom- serfdom is when peasants would own nothing and work the land for rich people who owned it- in a sense the nobility owned them.  No one anywhere else in Europe was living like that, and even though Russia abolished serfdom in the 1860s, everyone continued to view Russia as really backward and underdeveloped- including the Russian peasants who as soon as they could leave those farms, moved to the city where they were living in horribly overcrowded tenant houses.  From here we went into first the Crimean War, then ultimately World War 1 where the Russians suffered more death than any other country in the world at any other point in human history.  They were devastated by the war, by no food after the war and no fuel to be warm.  Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, the Czarina was of German descent.  So, as you can see- Orwell’s metaphor of forgetting to feed the animals and getting drunk- is, if anything, an understatement as to how bad living in Russia was under the reign of Czar Nicholas II.

I’m glad you introduced the idea of metaphor, because that’s, of course, what an allegory is, it’s when everything is a metaphor of something else, or of even more than one thing, as we’ll see- this is a somewhat discussion of what happened in Russia, it’s not exact- he’s making bigger points that are way bigger than Russia, but we have to at least start with what happened.  Mr. Jones or the Czars are negligent and selfish and they get run off the farm.  Now let’s move on to the other characters- the first one we introduced last week was the old porker, old Major- and of course, he appears to be a mix of two historical characters- Karl Marx and Vladimor Lenin- who are these two guys and how do they interject themselves into this story.

Well- it starts with a German man named Karl Marx who wrote a book…..talk about Marx

-Germany undergoing unification struggles and feudalism

• Industrialization crushing the lower class
• Marx proposes that only labor gives value to anything made by industry
• Believed England was actually rips for his worldview
• Class struggle brought on by capitalism
• Marx ultimately viewed the Soviet Union as state capitalism that was just as bad as industrial capitalism

Len was a Russian who read the book and decided this was the way to go and adapted the ideas to the Russian Revolution.  However, and those who read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar knew this- you can start a revolution, but you can never control one and towards the end of Karl Marx’s life even he said he was not a Marxist- meaning he didn’t want to be associated with everything that his ideas had morphed into.

But what happened in Russia is this…..it was February 23 1918, peasants were out in the cold begging for bread and protesting.  Soldiers were called out to stop the protests (after they had gone on for a few days)- shots were fired, people were killed.  Things progressed, it wasn’t too long that Nicholas 11 abdicated the throne, but this didn’t fix anything really.  By November, Lenin had staged a bloodless coup and taken over the government.  It’s called today the October Revolution.  He made himself the head of government, but there would be a council of peasants, soldiers and workers (called Soviets).  This was the world’s first communist state, and Lenin was its leader.  The problem was, being the dictator of a communist state is a pretty competitive job, it turns out and others wanted it.  The country broke out into civil war, again confirming the idea, you can start a revolution, but you can’t control one. There was the white army (Mensheviks) and there was the red army (Bolsheviks) .  Lenin’s army was the Red Bolshevists one and it won.  However, the country was just as wrecked and he couldn’t feed it.  Ironically neither could socialism- so he made a concession to his ideals that farmers could sell their wheat on the open market.  By 1922, he had suffered a stroke and his health was horrible, although his fame was legendary.  Some say, but who knows, that he was trying to steer the country away from a totalitaraian regime, but the general secretary, a man by the name of Josef Stalin was amassing power and total control. 

Well, that is a familiar name, and just like Old Major, Lenin would die.  Although, I will say, what came after turned out to be horrible- but by the time I got to Russian in 1992, the mythology of Lenin was already formed.  His likeness was everywhere and it appeared that he was beloved, and maybe he was.  I don’t know.  He was in every classroom, every post office, every sporting arena, everywhere everywhere everywhere.  His statue was everywhere- all over the entire Soviet Union.  If you ever go to Moscow, and it’s one of those places that’s hard to get to but worth going to see, there’s a square in the middle of town called Red Square, and his body has been preserved an is on display in a mausoleum there to this day.  (so if you ever find yourself in Red Square in Russia, you must pay a visit to Old Major. 

And just like in the story- when Old Major Passes two other pigs (as Orwell thinks of them- you can tell from the get go where this is heading) take care.  Orwell says, “Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. 

Yes, and in real life this corresponds to Joseph Stalin, who is Napoleon- and a man by the name of Leon Trotksy.  And again, there was a power vacuum.  Both of these guys assumed they were the heir to Lenin.  Stalin was better at consolidating power, and basically ran off Trotsky- who ran all around the world to Central Asia, to Turkey to Britain but who finally ended up in Mexico.

Oh wow- that’s a nice spot.  He could have done a lot worse.

He was murdered with an ice axe to the skull by a Spanish communist.......

That’s one way of looking at it, but mostly he was thinking about the fact, that he wasn’t a totalitarian ruler like he thought he was going to be.  But that’s getting ahead of ourselves a little isn’t it?

Yes, on animal farm, Snowball doesn’t get the boot until the end of chapter 5 which we may or may not get to today, depending on how long this goes because- there’s a lot that goes on between the original dream by Old Major and Snowball getting run off..to what we now know is Mexico.  So, talk to us about the parallels between the seven commandments of animalism and communism.  Are there are important things we need to know or are just kind of silly?  I’m sure Stalin and Trotsky were drinking alcohol and wearing clothes. 

Well, obviously, some of this is Orwell being fun with animals.  We mentioned this last week that it was important that this book wasn’t so heavy- and making fun rules about clothes, sleeping in beds, walking on two legs, I feel like, if I were to guess, plays a part in making the book keep its light fairy tale feel. 

I think it’s also interesting to note that Orwell was a genuine animal lover.  He truly loved animals- and dispised animal cruelty- and I think that really has come through through his compassionate tone, thus really helping sell the allegory even more.

What we need to understand is this- animalism is analogous to communism- that means it’s supposed to be communism- so in the book, whenever you see them appealing to animalism and its ideals, you are supposed to know Orwell is talking about communism- and the main takeaway is this- the Marxists or Leninists or socialists, or communists= however you want to call it and there were a lot of different versions and names for this- but they truly truly believed they could make a world where every one could be equal.  Look at rule 7- All animals are equal.  That is the vision.  And, obfiously, those of us in America, are taught from our earliest days a similar value.  It’s in our declaration of independence- “All men are created equal”.  But what does this actually mean?  The Marxists, socialists, communists, etc.  believed that a government that controlled all the resources would be fair and distribute to everyone an equal share.  And obviously you can understand why this appealed to the Russians.  They had been living as serfs where they worked and all the fruit of their labor went to the lords and the nobility did nothing.  The idea that whoever was at the top was going to make everyone share equally seemed awesome- just like it did to the animals on animal farm.  But this is a heavy idea- even if  cloak it with six other fun rules.  Can you create a system that totally controls man’s evolutionary drive to try to push himself upward?  What we have seen through Trotsky and Stalin is that they a lot of desire inside of them to pursue control and power.  But no one was thinking like that in 1924. 

And that brings us to the other characters.

We have Boxer- And Boxer is us- regular people.  Although a lot of us would like to think, if we’d been in Russia, we’d been a beautiful princess or Lord or lady- like when we watched tv shows of the past, we always assume we’d be living in the rich castles, etc- that is highly unlikely- those people were very very few and those titles were inbred in just a few families- chances are almost every single person listening to this podcast would be- sadly- a peasant.  There is no upward mobility on Manor Farm- or on a farm at all.   And Boxer is a peasant.  He’s undereducated, but a really good guy.  In the story, Boxer is the strong, hard working horse.  He’s an honest person.  A hardworking guy/gal.  I use that term generically- not gender specifically- He truly believes in Animal Farm".  He sings the hymns of the republic.  He fights for the republic.  But he has two mantras. One is “Napoleon is always right".  The other is "I must work harder”.  And what we learn through the book is that this, although naively nice- is his problem.   his problem is he believes what he is told by the Media which on Animal Farm is posted on the side of the barn and has a name. And on Animal farm- just like in real life- the news is controlled by the group of elites- educated elites- and regular farm animals or people are told what to believe- and the the animals trust their elites and they believe the news that is propagated by them.

That’s right- the key character in this book is Squealer.  Stalin was a master crafter of the story. And this is really a key point Orwell was making.  In chapter 2, we’re for Snowball, by chapter 5, we’ve been told to hate him.  The animals are given a narrative and the animals believe the narrative, and just like in real life, when the narrative needs to change, excuses are given, and everyone just follows along.  You’ll see that on animal farm, the pigs are the educated elite- think of them as your Ivy league kids, if we were going to make the analogy compare to the United States (which we are not doing- but just so you get the point).  The pigs can read and write.  They are a unified group from the very beginning that set themselves apart as being better than everyone else- although no one really catches on to this because they claim to be like everyone else.   They have more education- and they use their education and their control over the media (on animal farm is barn wall) as a weapon to keep power over and over and over again.

And I want to point out, we see the elite keeping more than their fair share all the way from the very beginning- and Orwell illustrates it with the milk first and then the apples. The pigs milk the cows and keep the milk.  When the animals ask about it, they say, “nevermind the milk; the harvest is more important”.  In other words, just trust us and you just work.  And work everyone did…the harvest was hard and everyone worked as hard as possible….except the pigs.  Orwell says, “the pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others.  With their superior knowledge it was natural that the should assume the leadership.  So, we see the natural hierchy emerging, but its disguised.  They get to not work because they have natural leadership abilities..and so the rules begin to not apply to the pigs…and this will be go on forever.  here we see Orwell begin to use that wonderful technique called dramatic irony.

If you rememvber, irony means the opposite, and dramatic irony means the reader of the story knows that what is actually happening is the exact opposite of what the characters think is happening.  And this is supposed to make the reader mad.  By this point in the book, you love Boxer.  He’s so sweet and kind and honest and loyal and hardworking.  He’s doing WAY more than his fair share.  And the pigs are taking advantage of him…and that’s exactly what Orwell wants you to think.

And that’s his genius… and why this book was controversial.  When the book came out, we were touting Stalin as a World War 2 ally and a friend. Although the US military was well aware of the growing threat of the USSR’s plans to dominate eastern Europe after the war. - and Orwell is saying- you fool- he’s evil and a liar!!  I want to bring up a couple of other things about the comparisons to the Russian Revolution specifically- the first one is the character of Moses, the Raven.  This is a little humorous really.

Yes- once aain the church is going to be the brunt a funny not very veiled jab of criticism.  Moses, was, and I quote, “Mr. Jones’ pet”.  He was a spy and a tale-barer, but he was a clever talker.  He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Moutain to which all animals went when they died.  It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds.  Moses said, In sugarcandy mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges.  In the story, “the animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain.”

It appears Orwell was not a religious man.  And communists definitely were atheists in real life, as are the pigs on animal farm.  No thinking people believed in Sugarcandy mountain, and he makes heaven appear as silly as possible. 

True, although Moses finds a place on animal farm.  The other couple of characters to notice that we haven’t talked about are Mollie and Benjamin.  Mollie is silly and materialistic.  The old system with Mr. Jones was somewhat working for her- so clearly she’s the upper middle class. 

And then Benjamin is the world of academia.  Lots of smart people could possibly see what was going on, but were either powerless or disinterested in politics enough to let it go until it was too late.  Sadly, this is probably where a lot of people fall today- but we’ll get to that in a whole other episode.  Benjamin is never fooled for a minute by Squealer.  He does not buy propaganda.  He doesn’t fall for the psychological games of gaslighting and rewriting history thst Squealder does all the time, but he never really gets involved.  His curse is his apathy or his helplessness- however you want to define it.  He is going to just sit back and watch the whole thing do what its going to do.

Well, getting back to the story- life on the farm at first is very promising.  They have their first harvest.  Everyone gets their free education and learns to read (and I will give it to the Soviets, they did educate their people).  But, the deception by the pigs is what we’re supposed to be watching.  They get busted for drinking the milk and eating all the apples- and they justify it by saying, “you don’t think we like apples or milk.”  It’s not in a spirit of selfishness or privilege- it’s because we have to have it.  They say, we’re “brainworkers.”  Everything depends on on (read page 31).  They they use the the scare tactics- you dn’t want Mr. Jones to come back.

 I think that’s a very important point- and we don’t need to rush over it.  The idea of using fear as a strategy to get people to do exactly what you want.  If you don’t let us do what we want- something really bad is going to happen- or this person who we’ve told you to hate- is going to do bad things to you.  And you don’t want that do you?  And since the obvious answer is “We don’t want Mr. Jones” then everything else must be compromised to preserve that one thing.

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