Dictatorship In Animal Farm

Over the course of the novel Animal Farm, many animals stuck out. A duo that was truly different were pigs named Napoleon and Squealer. After the revolution in which they kicked the humans off the farm, he co-led the farm with another pig called Snowball. The reader could infer at this point that the animal’s revolution was a parallel to the Russian revolution that started 30 years prior to the book Animal Farm being written. Snowball represents Leon Trotsky and Napoleon represents Joseph Stalin. Like Trotsky, Snowball was exiled from the farm and was forced to go to another one. Napoleon led the farm under dictatorship for the rest of the novel. Some leaders will use any means, even distortion of truth, to retain power. This is definitely
in Napoleon’s personality.

One way Napoleon shows this by using Squealer as a propaganda machine.
They will lie not just to stay in power, but even to have a leisure life style. On page 22 Squealer said this: ”’Comrades!' he cried. 'You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brain-workers. 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.'" Squealer represents spin doctors or biased media to an extent. In another of his speeches he makes Napoleon sound like a
god.
"In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleon’s wisdom, the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms." (Page 58) Before the Commandments were condensed the first one read “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.” In the last chapter when the pigs start walking on two legs, the first commandment becomes “two legs is better than four.” Again, Napoleon distorts the truth takes advantage of the animals’ poor memory to use it against them. The sheep are even chanting “two legs are better than four” because they are completely brainwashed by Napoleon and Squealer’s propaganda.

Putting fear into the animals is another way Napoleon controls them. He tells them lies like: “Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?” (Page 37) and because the animals hate Jones so much they cannot resist siding with Napoleon. He also uses his dogs to fend off any threat to his power. In parallel to the Russian timeline the dogs represent the KGB (Russian secret service.) In chapter seven, Napoleon asks if all the animals if they have had any relation to Snowball since he had been exiled. The four piglets confess that they have had been meeting Snowball privately. The dogs ripped their throats out. Some hens said they had a dream about Snowball. Again, the dogs ripped their throats out. Napoleon lodged the thought of if you even think of Snowball your throat will be ripped out. This was a very effective plan because now when the animals think of Snowball they think of their own deaths. Now with Snowball and his ideas out of the way Napoleon can do whatever he wants. He has manipulated their language to the point where he can make up new words and concepts whenever he wants. An example of this is when he changed the seventh commandment from “All animals are equal” to “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” Being more equal is impossible, but at this point, the animals are too brainwashed to notice.

The last factor that lead to Napoleon’s success as a leader was the trust the animals had in him and the false promises they believed.
This trust can mostly be credited to Squealer. “…The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white (metaphorically).” (Page 9) Napoleon threatened that Jones might come back if he was not in charge. The stubborn animals believed this and trusted that Napoleon was the sole reason why Jones was gone. With this trust the animals were more open to his ideas. Napoleon promised the stalls would be lighted and heated as soon as the windmill was finished. Once the windmill was completed, Napoleon did not hold up to his promise but instead used it for his own benefit to make money. Again, the animals were too stubborn to notice and distracted by trying to compensate for the empty leadership role as a leader. They have this great trust for Napoleon that he will always do the right thing. It goes to the extent where the animals never even check in their minds to see what they are saying is true or not and the animals will just believe it
instantly.

Napoleon and Squealer have completely and successfully brainwashed the entire farm into believing Napoleon is like a god that has just saved them from a demon, Mr. Jones. Napoleon proved in this book that some leaders will use any means, even distortion of truth, to retain power. The intellectual duo of Napoleon and Squealer was basically unstoppable matched up against to other stubborn farm animals.