Animal Farm
by George Orwell
(Penguin Books, London, 2013)
Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way.
Page 1.
What is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it, our lives are miserable, laborious and short.
Page 3.
The very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free, the life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
Page 4.
Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
Page 4.
Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free.
Page 5.
Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.
Page 6.
All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.
Page 6.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil. And above all, no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.
Page 7.
The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones’s especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did not work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such place.
Pages 11-12.
The animals had chased Jones and his men out onto the road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through; Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.
Page 14.
Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, and barrel of beer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer’s hoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous resolution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that no animal must ever live there.
Page 16.
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 animals 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.
Page 17.
It was a great drawback that no animal was able to use any tool that involved standing on his hind legs. But the pigs were so clever that they could think of a way round every difficulty.
Page 18.
The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others.
Page 18.
Everyone worked according to his capacity.
Page 20.
It was soon noticed that when there was work to be done the cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end, and then reappear at meal-times, or in the evening after work was over, as though nothing had happened.
Page 21.
On Sunday there was no work.
Page 21.
Snowball had found in the harness room an old green tablecloth of |Mrs. Jones’s and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals which would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown.
Pages 21-22.
It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of their own.
Page 22.
The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.
Page 23.
It was also found that the stupider animals such as the sheep, hens and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After much tough Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’.
Page 24.
The distinguishing mark of Man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.
Page 24.
The mystery of where the mild went to was soon cleared up. It was mixed every day into the pigs’ mash.
Page 25.
We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.
Page 25.
Every day Snowball and Napoleon sent out flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the animals on neighbouring farms, tell them the story of the Rebellion, and teach them the tune of ‘Beasts of England’.
Page 27.
Rumours of a wonderful farm, where the human beings had ben turned out and the animals managed their won affairs, continued to circulate in vague and distorted forms, and throughout the year, a wave of rebelliousness ran through the countryside. Bulls which had always been tractable suddenly turned savage sheep broke down hedges and devoured the clover, cows kicked the pail over, hunters refused their fences and shot their riders on to the other side.
Page 28.
War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
Page 31.
Snowball made a little speech, emphasizing the need for all the animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be.
Page 32.
Mr. Jones’s gun had been found lying in the mud, and it was known that there was a supply of cartridges in the farmhouse. It was decided to set the gun up at the foot of the flagstaff, like a piece of artillery, and to fire it twice a year - once on |October the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed, and once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.
Page 32.
It had come to be accepted that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by a majority vote.
Page 34.
Each had his own following, and there were some violent debates.
Pages 34-35.
The news of their defeat had spread across the countryside and made the animals on the neighbouring farms more restive than ever.
Page 37.
Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted onto the raised portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself.
Page 39.
‘Bravery is not enough,’ said Squealer. ‘Loyalty and obedience are more important’.
Page 41.
Discipline, comrades, iron discipline! That is the watchword for today.
Page 41.
Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: ‘If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.’ And from then on he adopted the maxim, ‘Napoleon is always right,’ in addition to his private motto of ‘I will work harder.’
Page 41.
The skull of old Major, now clean of flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun. After the hoisting of the flag the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn.
Page 41.
Squealer explained privately to the other animals that |Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon’s papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon’s own creation.
Page 42.
All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work.
Page 44.
The advantage of only having to feed themselves, and not having to support five extravagant human beings as well, was so great that it would have taken a lot of failures to outweigh it.
Page 46.
Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy. From now onwards Animal Farm would engage in grade with the neighbouring farms: not, of course, for any commercial purpose but simply in order to obtain certain materials which were urgently necessary.
Pages 46-47.
It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and took up their residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a resolution against this had been passed in the early days, and again Squealer was able to convince them that this was not the case. It was absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of ‘Leader’) to live in a house than in a mere sty.
Page 49.
Some days afterwards, it was announced the from now on the pigs would get up an hour later in the mornings than the other animals, no complaint was made about that either.
When,
Page 50.
Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were inventing fresh lies about Animal Farm.
Page 55.
Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent most of his time in the farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs.
Pages 55-56.
For the first time since the expulsion of Jones there was something resembling a rebellion.
Page 56.
Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens’ rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death.
Page 56.
Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.
Page 57.
The rats, which had been troublesome that winter, were also said to be in league with Snowball.
Page 58.
The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though Snowball were some kind of invisible influence pervading the air about them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers.
Page 58.
‘A most terrible thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our fam away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there is worse than that. We had though that Snowball’s rebellion was caused simply by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start!
Page 58.
Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the animals that they did remember it.
Page 60.
‘I warn every animal on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open. For we have reason to think that some of Snowball’s secret agents are lurking among us at this moment.’
Page 60.
When they had finished their confession the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess.
Page 62.
The tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones.
Page 62.
These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion.
Page 64.
Instead - she did not know why - they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch our comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.
Page 64.
There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that even as things were they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings.
Page 64.
Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred percent, three hundred percent, or five hundred percent, as the case might be. The animals saw no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer remember very clearly what condition had been like before the Rebellion. All the same, there were days when they felt that they would sooner have less figures and more food.
Page 67.
Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight. When he did appear he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ before Napoleon spoke.
Page 67.
It was also announced that the gun would be fired every year on Napoleon’s birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries.
Page 67.
It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit fro every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune.
Pages 67-68.
The animals now also learned that Snowball had never - as many of them had believed hitherto - received the order of ‘Animal Hero, First Class’. This was merely a legend which had been spread some time after the Battle of the Cowshed by Snowball himself. So far from being decorated he had been censured for showing cowardice in the battle. Once again some of the animals heard this with a certain bewilderment, but Squealer was soon able to convince them that their memories had been at fault.
Page 71.
A too-rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism.
Page 81.
For the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a ‘readjustment’, never as a ‘reduction’).
Page 81.
Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for hand almost faded out of their memoires. They knew that life nowadays was harsh and bare, that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were usually working when they were not asleep. But doubtless it had been worse in the old days. They were glad to believe so. Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.
Page 81.
About this time, too, it was lid down as a rule that when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animals must stand aside: and also that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their trails on Sundays.
Page 82.
Rations, reduced in December, were reduced again in February, and lanterns in the stalls were forbidden to save oil. But the pigs seemed comfortable enough, and in fact were putting on eight if anything.
Page 82.
If there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before.
Page 83.
They found it comforting to be reminded that, after all, they were truly their own masters and that the work they did was for their own benefit. So that what with the songs, the processions, Squealer’s lists of figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel and the fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies were empty, at least part of the time.
Page 84.
In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the farm, after an absence of several years, He was quite unchanged, still did no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy Mountain.
Page 84.
Except for Mollie and Snowball no other animal had ever left the farm, and they did not like to think of their sick comrade in the hands of human beings.
Page 87.
Squealer’s demeanour suddenly changed. \he fell silent for a moment, and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side before he proceeded.
Page 90.
Years passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses, the raven, and a number of the pigs.
Page 92.
In fact no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated animals had long since been dropped.
Page 92.
Many animals had been born to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition, passed on by word of mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention of such a thing before their arrival.
Pages 92-93.
The windmill, however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power. It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit.
Page 93.
Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.
Page 93.
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer - except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.
Page 93.
Neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.
Page 94.
Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones’s expulsion was still recent, tings had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they d compare their lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer’s lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better.
Page 94.
They were conscious that they were not as other animals. If they were hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves.
Page 95.
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME
ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
Page 97.
Mr.Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working-hours and the general absence of pampering which he had observed on Animal Farm.
Page 100.
This farm which he had the honour to control, he added, was a co-operative enterprise. The title-deeds, which were in his own possession, were owned b the pigs jointly.
Page 101.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Page 102.
APPENDIX 1
If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
Page 104.
The sinister fact a out literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban.
Pages 104-105.
The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics.
Page 105.
A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
Page 105.
The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicized with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency.
Page 106.
At present, not only is serious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases.
Page 107.
The Catholic Church has considerable influence in the press and can silence criticism of itself to some extent. … It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholic tendency to appear on the state or in a film. Page 107.
Any large organization will look after its own interests as best it can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to.
Page 107.
Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941.
Page 108.
You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press.
Page 108.
You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press.
Page 108.
This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the international situation, and the urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it, but it was clear that this was a rationalization. The English intelligentsia, or a great part or it, had developed a nationalist loyalty towards the USSR.
Page 108.
One does not say that a book ‘ought not to have been published’ merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did the opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are.
Page 109.
There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship so long as organized societies endure.
Page 109.
If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilization means anything t all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he beliefs to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way.
Page 109.
It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.
Page 110.
One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. … defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought.
Page 110.
These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists.
Page 110.
Tolerance and decency are deeply 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 weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous.
Page 111.
It is important to realize that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition.
Page 111.
Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history.
Page 111.
To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
Page 112.
For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian regime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won.
Page 112.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Page 113.
APPENDIX 2
I became pro-Socialist more out of disgust with the way the poorer section of the industrial workers were oppressed and neglected than out of any theoretical admiration for a planned society.
Page116.
Since 1930, I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism. On the contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transformation into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers have no more reason to give up their power than any other ruling class.
Page 117.
Yet one must remember that England is not complete democratic. It is also a capitalist country with great class privileges and (even now, after a war that has tended to equalize everybody) with great dirre4nces in wealth.
Pages 117-118.
Up to 1939, and even later, the majority of English people were incapable of assessing the true nature of the Nazi regime in Germany, and now, with the Soviet regime, they are still to a large extent under the same sort of illusion.
Page 118.
In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.
Page 118.
Men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.
Page 118.
I should like to emphasize two points: first, that although the various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution, they are dealt with schematically and their chronological order is changed; this was necessary for the symmetry of the story. The second point has been missed by most critics, possibly because I did not emphasize it sufficiently. A number of readers may finish the book with the impression that it ends in the complete reconciliation of the pigs and the humans. That was not my intention; on the contrary I meant it to end on a loud note of discord.
Page 119.