Animal Farm: A Fairy Story...Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 7 – Preface For though you are not...

George Orwell

Animal Farm:A Fairy Story

1945

Text from gutenberg.net.auPrefaces from orwell.ru.Cover portrait from k-1.com/Orwell.

Title: Animal Farm: A Fairy StoryAuthor: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)Language: English

http://gutenberg.net.au/http://www.orwell.ru/home.htmlhttp://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/index.html

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Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Preface to the Ukrainian Edition . . . . . . . 18

Chapter I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Chapter IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Chapter V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Chapter VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Chapter IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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Preface: The Freedom of the Press

This book was first thought of, so far as the central ideagoes, in 1937, but was not written down until about theend of 1943. By the time when it came to be writtenit was obvious that there would be great difficulty ingetting it published (in spite of the present book shortagewhich ensures that anything describable as a book will“sell”), and in the event it was refused by four publishers.Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two hadbeen publishing anti-Russian books for years, and theother had no noticeable political colour. One publisheractually started by accepting the book, but after makingthe preliminary arrangements he decided to consult theMinistry of Information, who appear to have warned him,or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it.Here is an extract from his letter:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from animportant official in the Ministry of Informationwith regard to Animal Farm. I must confess thatthis expression of opinion has given me seriouslyto think. . . I can see now that it might be regardedas something which it was highly ill-advised topublish at the present time. If the fable wereaddressed generally to dictators and dictatorshipsat large then publication would be all right, butthe fable does follow, as I see now, so completelythe progress of the Russian Soviets and their twodictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 5 – Preface

exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing:it would be less offensive if the predominant castein the fable were not pigs∗. I think the choice ofpigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offenceto many people, and particularly to anyone who isa bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviouslyit is not desirable that a government department shouldhave any power of censorship (except security censorship,which no one objects to in war time) over books which arenot officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedomof thought and speech at this moment is not the directinterference of the MOI or any official body. If publishersand editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out ofprint, it is not because they are frightened of prosecutionbut because they are frightened of public opinion. In thiscountry intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writeror journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem tome to have had the discussion it deserves.

Any fairminded person with journalistic experiencewill admit that during this war official censorship has notbeen particularly irksome. We have not been subjected tothe kind of totalitarian “co-ordination” that it might havebeen reasonable to expect. The press has some justifiedgrievances, but on the whole the Government has be-haved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minorityopinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship inEngland is that it is largely voluntary.

∗It is not quite clear whether this suggested modification is Mr. . . ’sown idea, or originated with the Ministry of Information; but it seems tohave the official ring about it.


Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenientfacts kept dark, without the need for any official ban.Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will knowof instances of sensational items of news—things whichon their own merits would get the big headlines—beingkept right out of the British press, not because the Gov-ernment intervened but because of a general tacit agree-ment that “it wouldn’t do” to mention that particularfact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy tounderstand. The British press is extremely centralised,and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have everymotive to be dishonest on certain important topics. Butthe same kind of veiled censorship also operates in booksand periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. Atany given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideaswhich it is assumed that all right-thinking people willaccept without question. It is not exactly forbidden tosay this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to sayit, just as in mid-Victorian times it was “not done” tomention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone whochallenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silencedwith surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionableopinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in thepopular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

At this moment what is demanded by the prevailingorthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia.Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any seri-ous criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of factswhich the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden,is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide con-spiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough,against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance.


For though you are not allowed to criticise the Sovietgovernment, at least you are reasonably free to criticiseour own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin,but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate inbooks and periodicals. And throughout five years of war,during two or three of which we were fighting for nationalsurvival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advo-cating a compromise peace have been published withoutinterference. More, they have been published withoutexciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of theUSSR is not involved, the principle of free speech hasbeen reasonably well upheld. There are other forbiddentopics, and I shall mention some of them presently, butthe prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much themost serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous,and is not due to the action of any pressure group.

The servility with which the greater part of the En-glish intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russianpropaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astound-ing if it were not that they have behaved similarly onseveral earlier occasions. On one controversial issue af-ter another the Russian viewpoint has been acceptedwithout examination and then publicised with completedisregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. Toname only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioningTrotsky. This was about as accurate as commemoratingthe battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, butit evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. Inthe internal struggles in the various occupied countries,the British press has in almost all cases sided with thefaction favoured by the Russians and libelled the oppos-


ing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence inorder to do so. A particularly glaring case was that ofColonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader. TheRussians, who had their own Jugoslav protegé in Mar-shal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with theGermans. This accusation was promptly taken up bythe British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given nochance of answering it, and facts contradicting it weresimply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germansoffered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture ofTito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich.The British press “splashed” the reward for Tito, butonly one paper mentioned (in small print) the rewardfor Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating withthe Germans continued. Very similar things happenedduring the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions onthe Republican side which the Russians were determinedto crush were recklessly libelled in the English leftwingpress, and any statement in their defence even in letterform, was refused publication. At present, not only isserious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible,but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is keptsecret in some cases. For example, shortly before hisdeath Trotsky had written a biography of Stalin. Onemay assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book,but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher hadarranged to issue it and the book was in print—I believethe review copies had been sent out—when the USSRentered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn.Not a word about this has ever appeared in the Britishpress, though clearly the existence of such a book, andits suppression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.


It is important to distinguish between the kind of cen-sorship that the English literary intelligentsia voluntarilyimpose upon themselves, and the censorship that cansometimes be enforced by pressure groups. Notoriously,certain topics cannot be discussed because of “vestedinterests”. The best-known case is the patent medicineracket. Again, the Catholic Church has considerable in-fluence in the press and can silence criticism of itselfto some extent. A scandal involving a Catholic priest isalmost never given publicity, whereas an Anglican priestwho gets into trouble (e.g. the Rector of Stiffkey) is head-line news. It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholictendency to appear on the stage or in a film. Any actorcan tell you that a play or film which attacks or makesfun of the Catholic Church is liable to be boycotted inthe press and will probably be a failure. But this kind ofthing is harmless, or at least it is understandable. Anylarge organisation will look after its own interests as bestit can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to.One would no more expect the Daily Worker to publiciseunfavourable facts about the USSR than one would ex-pect the Catholic Herald to denounce the Pope. But thenevery thinking person knows the Daily Worker and theCatholic Herald for what they are. What is disquietingis that where the USSR and its policies are concernedone cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in manycases, plain honesty from Liberal writers and journalistswho are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions.Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy mustnot be seriously discussed. This rule has been almostuniversally observed since 1941, but it had operated, toa greater extent than is sometimes realised, for ten years


earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of theSoviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearingwith difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russianliterature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservativeangle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuatedby sordid motives. On the other side there was an equallyhuge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russianpropaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyonewho tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russianbooks, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored ormisrepresented by nearly me whole of the highbrow press.Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was“not done”. What you said might possibly be true, butit was “inopportune” and played into the hands of thisor that reactionary interest. This attitude was usuallydefended on the ground that the international situation,and the urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, de-manded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalisation.The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had de-veloped a nationalistic loyalty towards me USSR, and intheir hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on me wisdomof Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia andevents elsewhere were to be judged by different standards.The endless executions in me purges of 1936–8 were ap-plauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment,and it was considered equally proper to publicise famineswhen they happened in India and to conceal them whenthey happened in me Ukraine. And if this was true beforethe war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no betternow.


But now to come back to this book of mine. The reac-tion towards it of most English intellectuals will be quitesimple: “It oughtn’t to have been published”. Naturally,those reviewers who understand the art of denigrationwill not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones.They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgracefulwaste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviouslynot the whole of the story. One does not say that a book“ought not to have been published” merely because it isa bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed dailyand no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or mostof them, will object to this book because it traduces theirLeader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause ofprogress. If it did the opposite they would have nothingto say against it, even if its literary faults were ten timesas glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, theLeft Book Club over a period of four or five years showshow willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slip-shod writing, provided that it tells them what they wantto hear.

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is ev-ery opinion, however unpopular—however foolish, even—entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly anyEnglish intellectual will feel that he ought to say “Yes”.But give it a concrete shape, and ask, “How about anattack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?”, and theanswer more often than not will be “No”, In that casethe current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, andso the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when onedemands liberty of speech and of the press, one is notdemanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or atany rate there always will be, some degree of censorship,


so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, asRosa Luxembourg said, is “freedom for the other fellow”.The same principle is contained in the famous words ofVoltaire: “I detest what you say; I will defend to the deathyour right to say it”. If the intellectual liberty which with-out a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marksof western civilisation means anything at all, it meansthat everyone shall have the right to say and to printwhat he believes to be the truth, provided only that itdoes not harm the rest of the community in some quiteunmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and thewestern versions of Socialism have till recently takenthat principle for granted. Our Government, as I havealready pointed out, still makes some show of respectingit. The ordinary people in the street—partly, perhaps,because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to beintolerant about them—still vaguely hold that “I supposeeveryone’s got a right to their own opinion”. It is only, orat any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelli-gentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians ofliberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as wellas in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the rene-gade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claimthat “bourgeois liberty” is an illusion, there is now awidespread tendency to argue that one can only defenddemocracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democ-racy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemiesby no matter what means. And who are its enemies? Italways appears that they are not only those who attackit openly and consciously, but those who “objectively”endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other


words, defending democracy involves destroying all in-dependence of thought. This argument was used, forinstance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ar-dent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victimswere guilty of all the things they were accused of: butby holding heretical opinions they “objectively” harmedthe régime, and therefore it was quite right not only tomassacre them but to discredit them by false accusa-tions. The same argument was used to justify the quiteconscious lying that went on in the leftwing press aboutthe Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in theSpanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason foryelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was releasedin 1943.

These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitar-ian methods, the time may come when they will be usedagainst you instead of for you. Make a habit of impris-oning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the processwon’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed DailyWorker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a work-ingmen’s college in South London. The audience wereworking-class and lower-middle class intellectuals—thesame sort of audience that one used to meet at Left BookClub branches. The lecture had touched on the freedomof the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, severalquestioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think thatthe lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a greatmistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paperof doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in wartime. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, whichhas gone out of its way to libel me more than once. Butwhere had these people learned this essentially totalitar-


ian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it fromthe Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency aredeeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible,and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort.The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weakenthe instinct by means of which free peoples know what isor is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this.In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whetheror not he had committed any technical crime. We werefighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quis-ling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see thiswas a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitationagainst Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partlya rationalisation of other discontents. But how muchof the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought istraceable to the “anti-Fascism” of the past ten years andthe unscrupulousness it has entailed?

It is important to realise that the current Russomaniais only a symptom of the general weakening of the westernliberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitelyvetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the En-glish intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquietingin this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be thecurrent orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests ofthe USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not onlycensorship but the deliberate falsification of history. Toname one instance. At the death of John Reed, the authorof Ten Days that Shook the World—first-hand account ofthe early days of the Russian Revolution—the copyrightof the book passed into the hands of the British Com-munist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed


it. Some years later the British Communists, having de-stroyed the original edition of the book as completely asthey could, issued a garbled version from which they hadeliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the in-troduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia hadstill existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have beenexposed and denounced in every literary paper in thecountry. As it was there was little or no protest. To manyEnglish intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing todo. And this tolerance or plain dishonesty means muchmore than that admiration for Russia happens to be fash-ionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particularfashion will not last. For all I know, by the time thisbook is published my view of the Soviet régime may bethe generally-accepted one. But what use would that bein itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is notnecessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophonemind, whether or not one agrees with the record that isbeing played at the moment.

I am well acquainted with all the arguments againstfreedom of thought and speech—the arguments whichclaim that it cannot exist, and the arguments whichclaim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’tconvince me and that our civilisation over a period of fourhundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.For quite a decade past I have believed that the existingRussian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim theright to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies withthe USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had tochoose a text to justify myself, I should choose the linefrom Milton:


By the known rules of ancient liberty.

The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellec-tual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without whichour characteristic western culture could only doubtfullyexist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals arevisibly turning away. They have accepted the principlethat a book should be published or suppressed, praisedor damned, not on its merits but according to politicalexpediency. And others who do not actually hold thisview assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example ofthis is the failure of the numerous and vocal English paci-fists to raise their voices against the prevalent worshipof Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, allviolence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage ofthe war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace.But how many of them have ever suggested that war isalso evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparentlythe Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereasfor us to do so is a deadly sin. One can only explain thiscontradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire tokeep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patrio-tism is directed towards the USSR rather than towardsBritain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plentyof reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I knowby heart the arguments by which they justify themselves.But at least let us have no more nonsense about defend-ing liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything atall it means the right to tell people what they do not wantto hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe tothat doctrine and act on it. In our country—it is not thesame in all countries: it was not so in republican France,


and it is not so in the USA today—it is the liberals whofear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt onthe intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I havewritten this preface.

1945

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Preface to the Ukrainian Edition

I have been asked to write a preface to the Ukrainiantranslation of Animal Farm. I am aware that I write forreaders about whom I know nothing, but also that theytoo have probably never had the slightest opportunity toknow anything about me.

In this preface they will most likely expect me to saysomething of how Animal Farm originated but first Iwould like to say something about myself and the ex-periences by which I arrived at my political position.

I was born in India in 1903. My father was an officialin the English administration there, and my family wasone of those ordinary middle-class families of soldiers,clergymen, government officials, teachers, lawyers, doc-tors, etc. I was educated at Eton, the most costly andsnobbish of the English Public Schools†. But I had onlygot in there by means of a scholarship; otherwise myfather could not have afforded to send me to a school ofthis type.

†These are not public “national schools”, but something quite the op-posite: exclusive and expensive residential secondary schools, scatteredfar apart. Until recently they admitted almost no one but the sons ofrich aristocratic families. It was the dream of nouveau riche bankers ofthe nineteenth century to push their sons into a Public School. At suchschools the greatest stress is laid on sport, which forms, so to speak,a lordly, tough and gentlemanly outlook. Among these schools, Eton isparticularly famous. Wellington is reported to have said that the victoryof Waterloo was decided on the playing fields of Eton. It is not so verylong ago that an overwhelming majority of the people who in one way oranother ruled England came from the Public Schools.

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 19 – Preface Ukrainian

Shortly after I left school (I wasn’t quite twenty yearsold then) I went to Burma and joined the Indian ImperialPolice. This was an armed police, a sort of gendarmerievery similar to the Spanish Guardia Civil or the Garde Mo-bile in France. I stayed five years in the service. It did notsuit me and made me hate imperialism, although at thattime nationalist feelings in Burma were not very marked,and relations between the English and the Burmese werenot particularly unfriendly. When on leave in England in1927, I resigned from the service and decided to becomea writer: at first without any especial success. In 1928–9I lived in Paris and wrote short stories and novels that no-body would print (I have since destroyed them all). In thefollowing years I lived mostly from hand to mouth, andwent hungry on several occasions. It was only from 1934onwards that I was able to live on what I earned from mywriting. In the meantime I sometimes lived for monthson end amongst the poor and half-criminal elements whoinhabit the worst parts of the poorer quarters, or take tothe streets, begging and stealing. At that time I associ-ated with them through lack of money, but later their wayof life interested me very much for its own sake. I spentmany months (more systematically this time) studyingthe conditions of the miners in the north of England. Upto 1930 I did not on the whole look upon myself as aSocialist. In fact I had as yet no clearly defined polit-ical views. I became pro-Socialist more out of disgustwith the way the poorer section of the industrial workerswere oppressed and neglected than out of any theoreticaladmiration for a planned society.

In 1936 I got married. In almost the same week thecivil war broke out in Spain. My wife and I both wanted


to go to Spain and fight for the Spanish Government. Wewere ready in six months, as soon as I had finished thebook I was writing. In Spain I spent almost six monthson the Aragón front until, at Huesca, a Fascist snipershot me through the throat.

In the early stages of the war foreigners were on thewhole unaware of the inner struggles between the variouspolitical parties supporting the Government. Through aseries of accidents I joined not the International Brigadelike the majority of foreigners, but the POUM militia—i. e.the Spanish Trotskyists.

So in the middle of 1937, when the Communists gainedcontrol (or partial control) of the Spanish Governmentand began to hunt down the Trotskyists, we both foundourselves amongst the victims. We were very lucky to getout of Spain alive, and not even to have been arrestedonce. Many of our friends were shot, and others spent along time in prison or simply disappeared.

These man-hunts in Spain went on at the same timeas the great purges in the USSR and were a sort of sup-plement to them. In Spain as well as in Russia the natureof the accusations (namely, conspiracy with the Fascists)was the same and as far as Spain was concerned I hadevery reason to believe that the accusations were false. Toexperience all this was a valuable object lesson: it taughtme how easily totalitarian propaganda can control theopinion of enlightened people in democratic countries.

My wife and I both saw innocent people being throwninto prison merely because they were suspected of un-orthodoxy. Yet on our return to England we found nu-merous sensible and well-informed observers believingthe most fantastic accounts of conspiracy, treachery and


sabotage which the press reported from the Moscow tri-als.

And so I understood, more clearly than ever, the nega-tive influence of the Soviet myth upon the western Social-ist movement.

And here I must pause to describe my attitude to theSoviet régime.

I have never visited Russia and my knowledge of itconsists only of what can be learned by reading books andnewspapers. Even if I had the power, I would not wish tointerfere in Soviet domestic affairs: I would not condemnStalin and his associates merely for their barbaric andundemocratic methods. It is quite possible that, even withthe best intentions, they could not have acted otherwiseunder the conditions prevailing there.

But on the other hand it was of the utmost impor-tance to me that people in western Europe should seethe Soviet régime for what it really was. Since 1930 Ihad seen little evidence that the USSR was progressingtowards anything that one could truly call Socialism. Onthe contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transforma-tion into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers haveno more reason to give up their power than any otherruling class. Moreover, the workers and intelligentsia ina country like England cannot understand that the USSRof today is altogether different from what it was in 1917.It is partly that they do not want to understand (i. e. theywant to believe that, somewhere, a really Socialist countrydoes actually exist), and partly that, being accustomedto comparative freedom and moderation in public life,totalitarianism is completely incomprehensible to them.


Yet one must remember that England is not completelydemocratic. It is also a capitalist country with great classprivileges and (even now, after a war that has tendedto equalise everybody) with great differences in wealth.But nevertheless it is a country in which people havelived together for several hundred years without majorconflict, in which the laws are relatively just and officialnews and statistics can almost invariably be believed,and, last but not least, in which to hold and to voiceminority views does not involve any mortal danger. Insuch an atmosphere the man in the street has no realunderstanding of things like concentration camps, massdeportations, arrests without trial, press censorship, etc.Everything he reads about a country like the USSR isautomatically translated into English terms, and he quiteinnocently accepts the lies of totalitarian propaganda. Upto 1939, and even later, the majority of English peoplewere incapable of assessing the true nature of the Nazirégime in Germany, and now, with the Soviet régime, theyare still to a large extent under the same sort of illusion.

This has caused great harm to the Socialist movementin England, and had serious consequences for Englishforeign policy. Indeed, in my opinion, nothing has con-tributed so much to the corruption of the original idea ofSocialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist countryand that every act of its rulers must be excused, if notimitated.

And so for the past ten years I have been convincedthat the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential ifwe wanted a revival of the Socialist movement.

On my return from Spain I thought of exposing theSoviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by


almost anyone and which could be easily translated intoother languages. However, the actual details of the storydid not come to me for some time until one day (I wasthen living in a small village) I saw a little boy, perhapsten years old, driving a huge cart-horse along a narrowpath, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck methat if only such animals became aware of their strengthwe should have no power over them, and that men exploitanimals in much the same way as the rich exploit theproletariat.

I proceeded to analyse Marx’s theory from the animals?point of view. To them it was clear that the concept of aclass struggle between humans was pure illusion, sincewhenever it was necessary to exploit animals, all humansunited against them: the true struggle is between animalsand humans. From this point of departure, it was notdifficult to elaborate the story. I did not write it out till1943, for I was always engaged on other work whichgave me no time; and in the end I included some events,for example the Teheran Conference, which were takingplace while I was writing. Thus the main outlines of thestory were in my mind over a period of six years before itwas actually written.

I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does notspeak for itself, it is a failure. But I should like to empha-sise two points: first, that although the various episodesare taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolu-tion, they are dealt with schematically and their chrono-logical order is changed; this was necessary for the sym-metry of the story. The second point has been missedby most critics, possibly because I did not emphasise itsufficiently. A number of readers may finish the book


with the impression that it ends in the complete recon-ciliation of the pigs and the humans. That was not myintention; on the contrary I meant it to end on a loud noteof discord, for I wrote it immediately after the TeheranConference which everybody thought had established thebest possible relations between the USSR and the West. Ipersonally did not believe that such good relations wouldlast long; and, as events have shown, I wasn’t far wrong.

I don’t know what more I need add. If anyone is in-terested in personal details, I should add that I am awidower with a son almost three years old, that by pro-fession I am a writer, and that since the beginning of thewar I have worked mainly as a journalist.

The periodical to which I contribute most regularly isTribune, a socio-political weekly which represents, gen-erally speaking, the left wing of the Labour Party. Thefollowing of my books might most interest the ordinaryreader (should any reader of this translation find copiesof them): Burmese Days (a story about Burma), Homageto Catalonia (arising from my experiences in the Span-ish Civil War), and Critical Essays (essays mainly aboutcontemporary popular English literature and instructivemore from the sociological than from the literary point ofview).

1947

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Chapter I

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-housesfor the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut thepop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancingfrom side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked offhis boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass ofbeer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his wayup to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there wasa stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings.Word had gone round during the day that old Major, theprize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on theprevious night and wished to communicate it to the otheranimals. It had been agreed that they should all meetin the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out ofthe way. Old Major (so he was always called, though thename under which he had been exhibited was WillingdonBeauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyonewas quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hearwhat he had to say.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised plat-form, Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw,under a lantern which hung from a beam. He was twelveyears old and had lately grown rather stout, but he wasstill a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolentappearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had neverbeen cut. Before long the other animals began to arriveand make themselves comfortable after their different

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 26 – Chapter I

fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, andPincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the strawimmediately in front of the platform. The hens perchedthemselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered upto the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind thepigs and began to chew the cud. The two cart-horses,Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowlyand setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great carelest there should be some small animal concealed in thestraw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approachingmiddle life, who had never quite got her figure back afterher fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearlyeighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinaryhorses put together. A white stripe down his nose gavehim a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he wasnot of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally re-spected for his steadiness of character and tremendouspowers of work. After the horses came Muriel, the whitegoat, and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the oldestanimal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldomtalked, and when he did, it was usually to make somecynical remark—for instance, he would say that God hadgiven him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he wouldsooner have had no tail and no flies. Alone among theanimals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, hewould say that he saw nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless,without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; thetwo of them usually spent their Sundays together in thesmall paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by sideand never speaking.

The two horses had just lain down when a brood ofducklings, which had lost their mother, filed into the barn,


cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side to findsome place where they would not be trodden on. Clovermade a sort of wall round them with her great foreleg,and the ducklings nestled down inside it and promptlyfell asleep. At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, prettywhite mare who drew Mr. Jones’s trap, came mincingdaintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar. She took a placenear the front and began flirting her white mane, hopingto draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with.Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual,for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself inbetween Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedlythroughout Major’s speech without listening to a word ofwhat he was saying.

All the animals were now present except Moses, thetame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door.When Major saw that they had all made themselves com-fortable and were waiting attentively, he cleared his throatand began:

“Comrades, you have heard already about the strangedream that I had last night. But I will come to the dreamlater. I have something else to say first. I do not think,comrades, that I shall be with you for many monthslonger, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to yousuch wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long life,I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in mystall, and I think I may say that I understand the natureof life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It isabout this that I wish to speak to you.

“Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours?Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, andshort. We are born, we are given just so much food as


will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us whoare capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of ourstrength; and the very instant that our usefulness hascome to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty.No animal in England knows the meaning of happinessor leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England isfree. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that isthe plain truth.

“But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is itbecause this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afforda decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, athousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its cli-mate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundanceto an enormously greater number of animals than nowinhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozenhorses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep—and all of themliving in a comfort and a dignity that are now almostbeyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in thismiserable condition? Because nearly the whole of theproduce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings.There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It issummed up in a single word—Man. Man is the only realenemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and theroot cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.

“Man is the only creature that consumes without pro-ducing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he istoo weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enoughto catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. Hesets them to work, he gives back to them the bare mini-mum that will prevent them from starving, and the resthe keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dungfertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more


than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, howmany thousands of gallons of milk have you given duringthis last year? And what has happened to that milk whichshould have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every dropof it has gone down the throats of our enemies. Andyou hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year,and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens?The rest have all gone to market to bring in money forJones and his men. And you, Clover, where are thosefour foals you bore, who should have been the supportand pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at a yearold—you will never see one of them again. In return foryour four confinements and all your labour in the fields,what have you ever had except your bare rations and astall?

“And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowedto reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble,for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old andhave had over four hundred children. Such is the naturallife of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in theend. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me,every one of you will scream your lives out at the blockwithin a year. To that horror we all must come—cows,pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and thedogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day thatthose great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones willsell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boilyou down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when theygrow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round theirnecks and drowns them in the nearest pond.

“Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all theevils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human


beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of ourlabour would be our own. Almost overnight we couldbecome rich and free. What then must we do? Why,work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow ofthe human race! That is my message to you, comrades:Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, itmight be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, assurely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner orlater justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades,throughout the short remainder of your lives! And aboveall, pass on this message of mine to those who come afteryou, so that future generations shall carry on the struggleuntil it is victorious.

“And remember, comrades, your resolution must neverfalter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listenwhen they tell you that Man and the animals have acommon interest, that the prosperity of the one is theprosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves theinterests of no creature except himself. And among usanimals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeshipin the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals arecomrades.”

At this moment there was a tremendous uproar. WhileMajor was speaking four large rats had crept out of theirholes and were sitting on their hindquarters, listening tohim. The dogs had suddenly caught sight of them, andit was only by a swift dash for their holes that the ratssaved their lives. Major raised his trotter for silence.

“Comrades,” he said, “here is a point that must besettled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits—arethey our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to the


vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are ratscomrades?”

The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by anoverwhelming majority that rats were comrades. Therewere only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat,who was afterwards discovered to have voted on bothsides. Major continued:

“I have little more to say. I merely repeat, rememberalways your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways.Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goesupon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And rememberalso that in fighting against Man, we must not come toresemble him. Even when you have conquered him, donot adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house,or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, orsmoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. Allthe habits of Man are evil. And, above all, no animalmust ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong,clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must everkill any other animal. All animals are equal.

“And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dreamof last night. I cannot describe that dream to you. Itwas a dream of the earth as it will be when Man hasvanished. But it reminded me of something that I hadlong forgotten. Many years ago, when I was a little pig,my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song ofwhich they knew only the tune and the first three words.I had known that tune in my infancy, but it had longsince passed out of my mind. Last night, however, itcame back to me in my dream. And what is more, thewords of the song also came back—words, I am certain,which were sung by the animals of long ago and have


been lost to memory for generations. I will sing you thatsong now, comrades. I am old and my voice is hoarse,but when I have taught you the tune, you can sing itbetter for yourselves. It is called Beasts of England.”

Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing. As hehad said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough,and it was a stirring tune, something between Clementineand La Cucaracha. The words ran:

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,Beasts of every land and clime,Hearken to my joyful tidingsOf the golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,Tyrant Man shall be o’erthrown,And the fruitful fields of EnglandShall be trod by beasts alone.

Rings shall vanish from our noses,And the harness from our back,Bit and spur shall rust forever,Cruel whips no more shall crack.

Riches more than mind can picture,Wheat and barley, oats and hay,Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzelsShall be ours upon that day.

Bright will shine the fields of England,Purer shall its waters be,


Sweeter yet shall blow its breezesOn the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labour,Though we die before it break;Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,All must toil for freedom’s sake.

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,Beasts of every land and clime,Hearken well and spread my tidingsOf the golden future time.

The singing of this song threw the animals into thewildest excitement. Almost before Major had reachedthe end, they had begun singing it for themselves. Eventhe stupidest of them had already picked up the tuneand a few of the words, and as for the clever ones, suchas the pigs and dogs, they had the entire song by heartwithin a few minutes. And then, after a few preliminarytries, the whole farm burst out into Beasts of England intremendous unison. The cows lowed it, the dogs whinedit, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducksquacked it. They were so delighted with the song thatthey sang it right through five times in succession, andmight have continued singing it all night if they had notbeen interrupted.

Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, whosprang out of bed, sure that there was a fox in the yard.He seized the gun which always stood in a corner of hisbedroom, and let fly a charge of number 6 shot into thedarkness. The pellets buried themselves in the wall of


the barn and the meeting broke up hurriedly. Everyonefled to his own sleeping-place. The birds jumped on totheir perches, the animals settled down in the straw, andthe whole farm was asleep in a moment.

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Chapter II

Three nights later old Major died peacefully in his sleep.His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.

This was early in March. During the next three monthsthere was much secret activity. Major’s speech had givento the more intelligent animals on the farm a completelynew outlook on life. They did not know when the Re-bellion predicted by Major would take place, they hadno reason for thinking that it would be within their ownlifetime, but they saw clearly that it was their duty toprepare for it. The work of teaching and organising theothers fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generallyrecognised as being the cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars namedSnowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breedingup for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-lookingBerkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not muchof a talker, but with a reputation for getting his ownway. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon,quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not con-sidered to have the same depth of character. All the othermale pigs on the farm were porkers. The best knownamong them was a small fat pig named Squealer, withvery round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements,and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when hewas arguing some difficult point he had a way of skippingfrom side to side and whisking his tail which was some-

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 36 – Chapter II

how very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that hecould turn black into white.

These three had elaborated old Major’s teachings into acomplete system of thought, to which they gave the nameof Animalism. Several nights a week, after Mr. Joneswas asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn andexpounded the principles of Animalism to the others. Atthe beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy.Some of the animals talked of the duty of loyalty to Mr.Jones, whom they referred to as “Master,” or made ele-mentary remarks such as “Mr. Jones feeds us. If he weregone, we should starve to death.” Others asked suchquestions as “Why should we care what happens afterwe are dead?” or “If this Rebellion is to happen anyway,what difference does it make whether we work for it ornot?”, and the pigs had great difficulty in making themsee that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism. Thestupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the whitemare. The very first question she asked Snowball was:“Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion?”

“No,” said Snowball firmly. “We have no means ofmaking sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not needsugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want.”

“And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in mymane?” asked Mollie.

“Comrade,” said Snowball, “those ribbons that youare so devoted to are the badge of slavery. Can you notunderstand that liberty is worth more than ribbons?”

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract

the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, whowas Mr. Jones’s especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer,


but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know ofthe existence of a mysterious country called SugarcandyMountain, to which all animals went when they died. Itwas situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distancebeyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountainit was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in seasonall the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grewon the hedges. The animals hated Moses because hetold tales and did no work, but some of them believed inSugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue veryhard to persuade them that there was no such place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two cart-horses,Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in think-ing anything out for themselves, but having once acceptedthe pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything thatthey were told, and passed it on to the other animals bysimple arguments. They were unfailing in their atten-dance at the secret meetings in the barn, and led thesinging of Beasts of England, with which the meetingsalways ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achievedmuch earlier and more easily than anyone had expected.In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, hadbeen a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evildays. He had become much disheartened after losingmoney in a lawsuit, and had taken to drinking more thanwas good for him. For whole days at a time he wouldlounge in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, reading thenewspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding Moses oncrusts of bread soaked in beer. His men were idle and dis-honest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted


roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals wereunderfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting.On Midsummer’s Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Joneswent into Willingdon and got so drunk at the Red Lionthat he did not come back till midday on Sunday. Themen had milked the cows in the early morning and thenhad gone out rabbiting, without bothering to feed theanimals. When Mr. Jones got back he immediately wentto sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the News of theWorld over his face, so that when evening came, theanimals were still unfed. At last they could stand itno longer. One of the cows broke in the door of thestore-shed with her horn and all the animals began tohelp themselves from the bins. It was just then that Mr.Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four menwere in the store-shed with whips in their hands, lashingout in all directions. This was more than the hungryanimals could bear. With one accord, though nothingof the kind had been planned beforehand, they flungthemselves upon their tormentors. Jones and his mensuddenly found themselves being butted and kicked fromall sides. The situation was quite out of their control.They had never seen animals behave like this before, andthis sudden uprising of creatures whom they were used tothrashing and maltreating just as they chose, frightenedthem almost out of their wits. After only a moment ortwo they gave up trying to defend themselves and tookto their heels. A minute later all five of them were in fullflight down the cart-track that led to the main road, withthe animals pursuing them in triumph.


Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, sawwhat was happening, hurriedly flung a few possessionsinto a carpet bag, and slipped out of the farm by anotherway. Moses sprang off his perch and flapped after her,croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chasedJones and his men out on to the road and slammed thefive-barred gate behind them. And so, almost beforethey knew what was happening, the Rebellion had beensuccessfully carried through: Jones was expelled, andthe Manor Farm was theirs.

For the first few minutes the animals could hardlybelieve in their good fortune. Their first act was to gallopin a body right round the boundaries of the farm, asthough to make quite sure that no human being washiding anywhere upon it; then they raced back to thefarm buildings to wipe out the last traces of Jones’s hatedreign. The harness-room at the end of the stables wasbroken open; the bits, the nose-rings, the dog-chains,the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been usedto castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down thewell. The reins, the halters, the blinkers, the degradingnosebags, were thrown on to the rubbish fire which wasburning in the yard. So were the whips. All the animalscapered with joy when they saw the whips going up inflames. Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbonswith which the horses’ manes and tails had usually beendecorated on market days.

“Ribbons,” he said, “should be considered as clothes,which are the mark of a human being. All animals shouldgo naked.”


When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw hatwhich he wore in summer to keep the flies out of his ears,and flung it on to the fire with the rest.

In a very little while the animals had destroyed every-thing that reminded them of Mr. Jones. Napoleon thenled them back to the store-shed and served out a doubleration of corn to everybody, with two biscuits for eachdog. Then they sang Beasts of England from end to endseven times running, and after that they settled down forthe night and slept as they had never slept before.

But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly re-membering the glorious thing that had happened, theyall raced out into the pasture together. A little way downthe pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view ofmost of the farm. The animals rushed to the top of it andgazed round them in the clear morning light. Yes, it wastheirs—everything that they could see was theirs! In theecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round,they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of ex-citement. They rolled in the dew, they cropped mouthfulsof the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of theblack earth and snuffed its rich scent. Then they made atour of inspection of the whole farm and surveyed withspeechless admiration the ploughland, the hayfield, theorchard, the pool, the spinney. It was as though they hadnever seen these things before, and even now they couldhardly believe that it was all their own.

Then they filed back to the farm buildings and haltedin silence outside the door of the farmhouse. That wastheirs too, but they were frightened to go inside. Aftera moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon butted thedoor open with their shoulders and the animals entered


in single file, walking with the utmost care for fear of dis-turbing anything. They tiptoed from room to room, afraidto speak above a whisper and gazing with a kind of aweat the unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their feathermattresses, the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, theBrussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria overthe drawing-room mantelpiece. They were lust comingdown the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be miss-ing. Going back, the others found that she had remainedbehind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece ofblue ribbon from Mrs. Jones’s dressing-table, and washolding it against her shoulder and admiring herself inthe glass in a very foolish manner. The others reproachedher sharply, and they went outside. Some hams hangingin the kitchen were taken out for burial, and the barrel ofbeer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer’shoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched. Aunanimous resolution was passed on the spot that thefarmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All wereagreed that no animal must ever live there.

The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowballand Napoleon called them together again.

“Comrades,” said Snowball, “it is half-past six and wehave a long day before us. Today we begin the hay harvest.But there is another matter that must be attended tofirst.”

The pigs now revealed that during the past threemonths they had taught themselves to read and writefrom an old spelling book which had belonged to Mr.Jones’s children and which had been thrown on the rub-bish heap. Napoleon sent for pots of black and whitepaint and led the way down to the five-barred gate that


gave on to the main road. Then Snowball (for it wasSnowball who was best at writing) took a brush betweenthe two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR FARMfrom the top bar of the gate and in its place painted ANI-MAL FARM. This was to be the name of the farm from nowonwards. After this they went back to the farm buildings,where Snowball and Napoleon sent for a ladder whichthey caused to be set against the end wall of the bigbarn. They explained that by their studies of the pastthree months the pigs had succeeded in reducing theprinciples of Animalism to Seven Commandments. TheseSeven Commandments would now be inscribed on thewall; they would form an unalterable law by which all theanimals on Animal Farm must live for ever after. Withsome difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance him-self on a ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to work,with Squealer a few rungs below him holding the paint-pot. The Commandments were written on the tarred wallin great white letters that could be read thirty yards away.They ran thus:

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.


It was very neatly written, and except that “friend”was written “freind” and one of the “S’s” was the wrongway round, the spelling was correct all the way through.Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of the others. All theanimals nodded in complete agreement, and the clevererones at once began to learn the Commandments by heart.

“Now, comrades,” cried Snowball, throwing down thepaint-brush, “to the hayfield! Let us make it a point ofhonour to get in the harvest more quickly than Jones andhis men could do.”

But at this moment the three cows, who had seemeduneasy for some time past, set up a loud lowing. They hadnot been milked for twenty-four hours, and their udderswere almost bursting. After a little thought, the pigs sentfor buckets and milked the cows fairly successfully, theirtrotters being well adapted to this task. Soon there werefive buckets of frothing creamy milk at which many of theanimals looked with considerable interest.

“What is going to happen to all that milk?” said some-one.

“Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash,”said one of the hens.

“Never mind the milk, comrades!” cried Napoleon,placing himself in front of the buckets. “That will beattended to. The harvest is more important. ComradeSnowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few minutes.Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting.”

So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to beginthe harvest, and when they came back in the evening itwas noticed that the milk had disappeared.

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Chapter III

How they toiled and sweated to get the hay in! But theirefforts were rewarded, for the harvest was an even biggersuccess than they had hoped.

Sometimes the work was hard; the implements hadbeen designed for human beings and not for animals, andit was a great drawback that no animal was able to useany tool that involved standing on his hind legs. But thepigs were so clever that they could think of a way roundevery difficulty. As for the horses, they knew every inch ofthe field, and in fact understood the business of mowingand raking far better than Jones and his men had everdone. The pigs did not actually work, but directed andsupervised the others. With their superior knowledgeit was natural that they should assume the leadership.Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the cutteror the horse-rake (no bits or reins were needed in thesedays, of course) and tramp steadily round and round thefield with a pig walking behind and calling out “Gee up,comrade!” or “Whoa back, comrade!” as the case mightbe. And every animal down to the humblest worked atturning the hay and gathering it. Even the ducks andhens toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tinywisps of hay in their beaks. In the end they finished theharvest in two days’ less time than it had usually takenJones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvestthat the farm had ever seen. There was no wastagewhatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 45 – Chapter III

gathered up the very last stalk. And not an animal on thefarm had stolen so much as a mouthful.

All through that summer the work of the farm wentlike clockwork. The animals were happy as they hadnever conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful offood was an acute positive pleasure, now that it wastruly their own food, produced by themselves and forthemselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master.With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, therewas more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too,inexperienced though the animals were. They met withmany difficulties—for instance, later in the year, whenthey harvested the corn, they had to tread it out in theancient style and blow away the chaff with their breath,since the farm possessed no threshing machine—but thepigs with their cleverness and Boxer with his tremendousmuscles always pulled them through. Boxer was theadmiration of everybody. He had been a hard workereven in Jones’s time, but now he seemed more like threehorses than one; there were days when the entire work ofthe farm seemed to rest on his mighty shoulders. Frommorning to night he was pushing and pulling, alwaysat the spot where the work was hardest. He had madean arrangement with one of the cockerels to call him inthe mornings half an hour earlier than anyone else, andwould put in some volunteer labour at whatever seemedto be most needed, before the regular day’s work began.His answer to every problem, every setback, was “I willwork harder!”—which he had adopted as his personalmotto.

But everyone worked according to his capacity Thehens and ducks, for instance, saved five bushels of corn


at the harvest by gathering up the stray grains. Nobodystole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the quarrellingand biting and jealousy which had been normal featuresof life in the old days had almost disappeared. Nobodyshirked—or almost nobody. Mollie, it was true, was notgood at getting up in the mornings, and had a way ofleaving work early on the ground that there was a stonein her hoof. And the behaviour of the cat was somewhatpeculiar. It was soon noticed that when there was work tobe done the cat could never be found. She would vanishfor hours on end, and then reappear at meal-times, or inthe evening after work was over, as though nothing hadhappened. But she always made such excellent excuses,and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not tobelieve in her good intentions. Old Benjamin, the donkey,seemed quite unchanged since the Rebellion. He did hiswork in the same slow obstinate way as he had done it inJones’s time, never shirking and never volunteering forextra work either. About the Rebellion and its results hewould express no opinion. When asked whether he wasnot happier now that Jones was gone, he would say only“Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen adead donkey,” and the others had to be content with thiscryptic answer.

On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was anhour later than usual, and after breakfast there was aceremony which was observed every week without fail.First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found inthe harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones’sand had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. Thiswas run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden everySunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained,


to represent the green fields of England, while the hoofand horn signified the future Republic of the Animalswhich would arise when the human race had been finallyoverthrown. After the hoisting of the flag all the animalstrooped into the big barn for a general assembly whichwas known as the Meeting. Here the work of the comingweek was planned out and resolutions were put forwardand debated. It was always the pigs who put forward theresolutions. The other animals understood how to vote,but could never think of any resolutions of their own.Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in thedebates. But it was noticed that these two were neverin agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made,the other could be counted on to oppose it. Even whenit was resolved—a thing no one could object to in itself—to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as ahome of rest for animals who were past work, there was astormy debate over the correct retiring age for each classof animal. The Meeting always ended with the singingof Beasts of England, and the afternoon was given up torecreation.

The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a head-quarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, theystudied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other neces-sary arts from books which they had brought out of thefarmhouse. Snowball also busied himself with organisingthe other animals into what he called Animal Committees.He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Produc-tion Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League forthe cows, the Wild Comrades’ Re-education Committee(the object of this was to tame the rats and rabbits), theWhiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others,


besides instituting classes in reading and writing. Onthe whole, these projects were a failure. The attempt totame the wild creatures, for instance, broke down almostimmediately. They continued to behave very much asbefore, and when treated with generosity, simply took ad-vantage of it. The cat joined the Re-education Committeeand was very active in it for some days. She was seenone day sitting on a roof and talking to some sparrowswho were just out of her reach. She was telling them thatall animals were now comrades and that any sparrowwho chose could come and perch on her paw; but thesparrows kept their distance.

The reading and writing classes, however, were a greatsuccess. By the autumn almost every animal on the farmwas literate in some degree.

As for the pigs, they could already read and write per-fectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were notinterested in reading anything except the Seven Com-mandments. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat bet-ter than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to theothers in the evenings from scraps of newspaper whichshe found on the rubbish heap. Benjamin could read aswell as any pig, but never exercised his faculty. So faras he knew, he said, there was nothing worth reading.Clover learnt the whole alphabet, but could not put wordstogether. Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. Hewould trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof,and then would stand staring at the letters with his earsback, sometimes shaking his forelock, trying with all hismight to remember what came next and never succeeding.On several occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H, butby the time he knew them, it was always discovered that


he had forgotten A, B, C, and D. Finally he decided tobe content with the first four letters, and used to writethem out once or twice every day to refresh his memory.Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which spelther own name. She would form these very neatly outof pieces of twig, and would then decorate them with aflower or two and walk round them admiring them.

None of the other animals on the farm could get fur-ther than the letter A. It was also found that the stupideranimals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were un-able to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. Aftermuch thought Snowball declared that the Seven Com-mandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim,namely: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” This, he said,contained the essential principle of Animalism. Whoeverhad thoroughly grasped it would be safe from humaninfluences. The birds at first objected, since it seemed tothem that they also had two legs, but Snowball proved tothem that this was not so.

“A bird’s wing, comrades,” he said, “is an organ ofpropulsion and not of manipulation. It should thereforebe regarded as a leg. The distinguishing mark of manis the hand, the instrument with which he does all hismischief.”

The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words,but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbleranimals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart.FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on theend wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandmentsand in bigger letters. When they had once got it by heart,the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, andoften as they lay in the field they would all start bleating


“Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legsbad!” and keep it up for hours on end, never growingtired of it.

Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s committees.He said that the education of the young was more impor-tant than anything that could be done for those who werealready grown up. It happened that Jessie and Bluebellhad both whelped soon after the hay harvest, giving birthbetween them to nine sturdy puppies. As soon as theywere weaned, Napoleon took them away from their moth-ers, saying that he would make himself responsible fortheir education. He took them up into a loft which couldonly be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, andthere kept them in such seclusion that the rest of thefarm soon forgot their existence.

The mystery of where the milk went to was sooncleared up. It was mixed every day into the pigs’ mash.The early apples were now ripening, and the grass of theorchard was littered with windfalls. The animals had as-sumed as a matter of course that these would be sharedout equally; one day, however, the order went forth thatall the windfalls were to be collected and brought to theharness-room for the use of the pigs. At this some ofthe other animals murmured, but it was no use. All thepigs were in full agreement on this point, even Snowballand Napoleon. Squealer was sent to make the necessaryexplanations to the others.

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope,that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness andprivilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. Idislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these thingsis to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been


proved by Science, comrades) contain substances abso-lutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs arebrainworkers. The whole management and organisationof this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watch-ing over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drinkthat milk and eat those apples. Do you know what wouldhappen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would comeback! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,”cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side toside and whisking his tail, “surely there is no one amongyou who wants to see Jones come back?”

Now if there was one thing that the animals werecompletely certain of, it was that they did not want Jonesback. When it was put to them in this light, they hadno more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs ingood health was all too obvious. So it was agreed withoutfurther argument that the milk and the windfall apples(and also the main crop of apples when they ripened)should be reserved for the pigs alone.

– 52 –

Chapter IV

By the late summer the news of what had happened onAnimal Farm had spread across half the county. Everyday Snowball and Napoleon sent out flights of pigeonswhose instructions were to mingle with the animals onneighbouring farms, tell them the story of the Rebellion,and teach them the tune of Beasts of England.

Most of this time Mr. Jones had spent sitting in thetaproom of the Red Lion at Willingdon, complaining toanyone who would listen of the monstrous injustice hehad suffered in being turned out of his property by apack of good-for-nothing animals. The other farmerssympathised in principle, but they did not at first givehim much help. At heart, each of them was secretlywondering whether he could not somehow turn Jones’smisfortune to his own advantage. It was lucky that theowners of the two farms which adjoined Animal Farmwere on permanently bad terms. One of them, which wasnamed Foxwood, was a large, neglected, old-fashionedfarm, much overgrown by woodland, with all its pas-tures worn out and its hedges in a disgraceful condition.Its owner, Mr. Pilkington, was an easy-going gentlemanfarmer who spent most of his time in fishing or hunt-ing according to the season. The other farm, which wascalled Pinchfield, was smaller and better kept. Its ownerwas a Mr. Frederick, a tough, shrewd man, perpetuallyinvolved in lawsuits and with a name for driving hardbargains. These two disliked each other so much that it

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – 53 – Chapter IV

was difficult for them to come to any agreement, even indefence of their own interests.

Nevertheless, they were both thoroughly frightenedby the rebellion on Animal Farm, and very anxious toprevent their own animals from learning too much aboutit. At first they pretended to laugh to scorn the ideaof animals managing a farm for themselves. The wholething would be over in a fortnight, they said. They put itabout that the animals on the Manor Farm (they insistedon calling it the Manor Farm; they would not tolerate thename “Animal Farm”) were perpetually fighting amongthemselves and were also rapidly starving to death. Whentime passed and the animals had evidently not starvedto death, Frederick and Pilkington changed their tuneand began to talk of the terrible wickedness that nowflourished on Animal Farm. It was given out that theanimals there practised cannibalism, tortured one an-other with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females incommon. This was what came of rebelling against thelaws of Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said.

However, these stories were never fully believed. Ru-mours of a wonderful farm, where the human beings hadbeen turned out and the animals managed their own af-fairs, continued to circulate in vague and distorted forms,and throughout that year a wave of rebelliousness ranthrough the countryside. Bulls which had always beentractable suddenly turned savage, sheep broke downhedges and devoured the clover, cows kicked the pailover, hunters refused their fences and shot their riderson to the other side. Above all, the tune and even thewords of Beasts of England were known everywhere. Ithad spread with astonishing speed. The human beings


could not contain their rage when they heard this song,though they pretended to think it merely ridiculous. Theycould not understand, they said, how even animals couldbring themselves to sing such contemptible rubbish. Anyanimal caught singing it was given a flogging on the spot.And yet the song was irrepressible. The blackbirds whis-tled it in the hedges, the pigeons cooed it in the elms,it got into the din of the smithies and the tune of thechurch bells. And when the human beings listened to it,they secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of theirfuture doom.

Early in October, when the corn was cut and stackedand some of it was already threshed, a flight of pigeonscame whirling through the air and alighted in the yardof Animal Farm in the wildest excitement. Jones andall his men, with half a dozen others from Foxwood andPinchfield, had entered the five-barred gate and werecoming up the cart-track that led to the farm. Theywere all carrying sticks, except Jones, who was marchingahead with a gun in his hands. Obviously they were goingto attempt the recapture of the farm.

This had long been expected, and all preparations hadbeen made. Snowball, who had studied an old book ofJulius Caesar’s campaigns which he had found in thefarmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations. Hegave his orders quickly, and in a couple of minutes everyanimal was at his post.

As the human beings approached the farm buildings,Snowball launched his first attack. All the pigeons, tothe number of thirty-five, flew to and fro over the men’sheads and muted upon them from mid-air; and whilethe men were dealing with this, the geese, who had been


hiding behind the hedge, rushed out and pecked viciouslyat the calves of their legs. However, this was only alight skirmishing manoeuvre, intended to create a littledisorder, and the men easily drove the geese off with theirsticks. Snowball now launched his second line of attack.Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball at thehead of them, rushed forward and prodded and buttedthe men from every side, while Benjamin turned aroundand lashed at them with his small hoofs. But once againthe men, with their sticks and their hobnailed boots,were too strong for them; and suddenly, at a squeal fromSnowball, which was the signal for retreat, all the animalsturned and fled through the gateway into the yard.

The men gave a shout of triumph. They saw, as theyimagined, their enemies in flight, and they rushed afterthem in disorder. This was just what Snowball had in-tended. As soon as they were well inside the yard, thethree horses, the three cows, and the rest of the pigs,who had been lying in ambush in the cowshed, suddenlyemerged in their rear, cutting them off. Snowball nowgave the signal for the charge. He himself dashed straightfor Jones. Jones saw him coming, raised his gun andfired. The pellets scored bloody streaks along Snowball’sback, and a sheep dropped dead. Without halting for aninstant, Snowball flung his fifteen stone against Jones’slegs. Jones was hurled into a pile of dung and his gunflew out of his hands. But the most terrifying spectacleof all was Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs and strikingout with his great iron-shod hoofs like a stallion. Hisvery first blow took a stable-lad from Foxwood on theskull and stretched him lifeless in the mud. At the sight,several men dropped their sticks and tried to run. Panic


overtook them, and the next moment all the animalstogether were chasing them round and round the yard.They were gored, kicked, bitten, trampled on. There wasnot an animal on the farm that did not take vengeance onthem after his own fashion. Even the cat suddenly leaptoff a roof onto a cowman’s shoulders and sank her clawsin his neck, at which he yelled horribly. At a momentwhen the opening was clear, the men were glad enoughto rush out of the yard and make a bolt for the main road.And so within five minutes of their invasion they were inignominious retreat by the same way as they had come,with a flock of geese hissing after them and pecking attheir calves all the way.

All the men were gone except one. Back in the yardBoxer was pawing with his hoof at the stable-lad who layface down in the mud, trying to turn him over. The boydid not stir.

“He is dead,” said Boxer sorrowfully. “I had no inten-tion of doing that. I forgot that I was wearing iron shoes.Who will believe that I did not do this on purpose?”

“No sentimentality, comrade!” cried Snowball fromwhose wounds the blood was still dripping. “War is war.The only good human being is a dead one.”

“I have no wish to take life, not even human life,”repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.

“Where is Mollie?” exclaimed somebody.Mollie in fact was missing. For a moment there was

great alarm; it was feared that the men might haveharmed her in some way, or even carried her off withthem. In the end, however, she was found hiding in herstall with her head buried among the hay in the manger.She had taken to flight as soon as the gun went off. And


when the others came back from looking for her, it wasto find that the stable-lad, who in fact was only stunned,had already recovered and made off.

The animals had now reassembled in the wildest ex-citement, each recounting his own exploits in the battleat the top of his voice. An impromptu celebration of thevictory was held immediately. The flag was run up andBeasts of England was sung a number of times, then thesheep who had been killed was given a solemn funeral,a hawthorn bush being planted on her grave. At thegraveside Snowball made a little speech, emphasising theneed for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm ifneed be.

The animals decided unanimously to create a militarydecoration, “Animal Hero, First Class,” which was con-ferred there and then on Snowball and Boxer. It consistedof a brass medal (they were really some old horse-brasseswhich had been found in the harness-room), to be wornon Sundays and holidays. There was also “Animal Hero,Second Class,” which was conferred posthumously onthe dead sheep.

There was much discussion as to what the battleshould be called. In the end, it was named the Bat-tle of the Cowshed, since that was where the ambushhad been sprung. Mr. Jones’s gun had been found lyingin the mud, and it was known that there was a supplyof cartridges in the fa

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