Animal Farm

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the stages and characteristics of totalitarianism can be seen throughout the story. The first stage of the forming of a totalitarian government is establishing leadership. After the Revolution is complete almost immediately the pigs take over as the supreme leaders of Animal Farm. All of the animals generally accepted this because the pigs had led the revolution. Right away like in a totalitarian society the pigs looked for a scapegoat. The scapegoat the used was the human race. They blamed all the problems that they have had or will incur are fault of man.

The next step is organization. This can be seen in Animal Farm when Snowball and Napoleon assign certain animals certain jobs around the farm. Then the propaganda starts. Napoleon sends a little pig named Squealer around spreading word to the animals reinforcing the ideas of “Four legs good, two legs bad.” After Snowball leaves Squealer is made the total propaganda leader. He tells all the animals of how horrible and wrong Snowball was. He plants the ideas in the other animals of Snowball’s betrayal.

The last step in the revolutionary stage of totalitarianism is violence. The act of violence can be seen throughout the novel and is most prevalent during the Revolution and The Battle of Cowshed. However all through the novel there are signs of violence. For the most part the inflictors of said violence are the puppies, who can be compared to the KGB of revolutionary Russia.

The next characteristics found in Animal Farm are the consolidation of power. The first step in the consolidation of power is eliminating the opposition. This theme is vividly seen when Napoleon convinces the other animals that Snowball has bad intentions for the farm and the ideas of Animalism. After Snowball comes up with the idea for the Windmill, Napoleon realizes that Snowball could possibly influence the animals more then he and needs to get rid of him. After Snowball’s speech Napoleon releases the dogs on him chasing him out of the farm and tells Snowball never to return.

In order for Napoleon to have a monolithic society he must make sure that no one opposes his beliefs. Any animals disagreeing with his beliefs are taken care of by the dogs. So the animals on the farm decide to