This book by Eric Blair writing under the pseudonym of George Orwell is a departure from the usual non-fiction books reviewed at this web site. The book is even subtitled “A Fairy Story.” However, the story is based on the reality of the brutality of Stalin and the Soviet Union. Orwell had first-hand experience with the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky when he was serving as a foot soldier with Communist forces fighting the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded in the throat by a bullet during combat, but miraculously survived. He then narrowly escaped the Stalinist purge of his Trotsky infantry unit which resulted in execution or imprisonment of those who did not escape. A review of the book “Homage to Catalonia” was posted in May 2011 for those interested in the full story.

Russell Baker wrote a wonderful Preface for Animal Farm, and I intend to use that freely. Stalin had worked diligently to destroy every trace of Trotsky’s contribution to the Russian revolution, and that resulted in millions of people being executed or imprisoned in the Gulag where death was almost certain from the conditions of slave labor. The Stalinists drained the Spanish treasury of gold during this time, but weren’t satisfied with that. They insisted that their allies, including the Trotskyites and Anarchists helping them fight Franco’s Fascists, had to be vilified for supposed support of Franco. That led to the executions and imprisonment of thousands who had fought at the side of the Stalinists. Those actions paved the way for the eventual victory of Franco’s forces. Orwell was quite angry from what he had observed. He was alarmed that “decent people in the Western democracies had succumbed to a dangerously romantic view of the Russian revolution that blinded them to the Soviet reality.” He wrote Animal Farm to warn the world about the immorality of Stalinism.

Animal Farm was written during the World War II when it wasn’t popular to speak negatively about Stalin’s Soviet Union, the valued ally against Hitler. Orwell struggled to find a publisher for a story that portrayed the brutal truth, but Frederic Warburg finally made it available for sale in 1945. The story of the pigs Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky) was published. The book was a success, and it hasn’t stopped selling.

Probably the most remarkable part of the story is that Orwell, the lifelong Socialist, insisted on telling people the truth about Stalin’s Soviet Union when that truth was not welcome. There were people who understood the truth, but most of them were pessimistic that the world would realize in time to stop the march of Communism. What the pessimists failed to take into account was “…the stupidity and incompetence…among people who would run the totalitarian states.” The “…fearful efficiency of the totalitarian state turned out to be an absurd myth. As someone finally pointed out, making a simple telephone call in Moscow could sometimes take hours, if not days.”

The last paragraph of the Mr. Baker’s Preface contains the following passage about Orwell and fellow pessimists who were intent on warning the world about Stalin’s Communism. “They show us the edge of terror on which we lived for fifty years ago and help us understand why that generation was willing to spend so much treasure and take such daring risks to keep totalitarianisms at bay. And in Animal Farm Orwell left us a lesson about the human contribution to political terror that will always be…up-to-date…”

I don’t intend to do a detailed book report on Animal Farm. The book is 141 easy to read pages. I predict anyone who decides to buy the book or check it out from the library will become emotionally connected with the story, and that connection will be disturbing. The central story in my estimation is about the work horse Boxer, who adopts the dual mottos, “I will work harder,” and “Napoleon (Stalin) is always right.” Boxer was promised retirement in a special grazing field with “five pounds of corn a day, and, in winter, fifteen pounds of hay, with a carrot or possibly an apple on public holidays.” Boxer adhered to his mottos about working harder and that Napoleon always being right even when humans attempted to take the farm back by force. Boxer was injured in the defense of the farm, and was sold by Napoleon for slaughter. The proceeds from the sale were used to buy a case of whiskey for the pigs.

The signature line of the book describes the motto that replaced all previous mottos that the animals had followed at the beginning of their revolution.  The remaining motto began with the words “All Animals are Equal,” but added, “But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”

I recommend this book for those who wonder why powerful weapons and military forces were believed to be necessary to prevent the Soviets from imposing totalitarianism on the world during the Cold War.