Communism

"Every line I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism," reads the preface to George Orwell’s satire, Animal Farm. The rest of that line, which reads "And for Democratic Socialism as I understand it," was omitted from the 1956 edition of the book. Orwell has been called a traitor to the socialists, while at the same time becoming a sort of hero to the right wing. Animal Farm is not only a parody of Stalinist Russia, it also demonstrates that Russia wasn’t truly a Social Democracy. Orwell criticizes Marx while maintaining his own beliefs in Democratic Socialism. These beliefs are apparent in what Old Major calls Animalism.

Animalism originates in a speech by Old Major, Farmer Jones’ prize boar. Old Major is to Animalism what Marx and Lenin are to Communism. Old Major is able to gather the animals in the barn, to give his talk. Both Marx and Lenin would have thought this difficult because they believed that that the proletariat would always be more concerned with work and survival than revolution or radical change. Once the animals are gathered, Old Major recounts a dream he had the previous night. He tries to explain to the animals, their place in life and how they can get out of it. This is what Marx tried to do in his writing. In The Communist Manifesto and A Contribution to the Political Economy Marx wrote about the proletariats appreciation of social position and the corrupt ways of Capitalism. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, wrote Marx, "But on the contrary, the social being that determines their consciousness." Marx is saying that there is no inherent reason workers should be oppressed, and they don’t see the injustice in it, because it is all they know. This is what Old Major says to the animals in the barn:

Why do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the

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