Orwell.Animal Farm. Why the society that was meant to be just was transformed into a tyranny in Animal Farm. What made it possible?

Topic: Why the society that was meant to be just was transformed into a tyranny in Animal Farm. What made it possible?

Orwell in his work "Animal Farm" touches on the problems faced by society while trying to change an existing order and create an ideal state with a fair system of governance. He shows reasons why the system does not work, and as result society becomes a tyranny. Mostly it is the fault of the leaders who care about their well-being. Such leaders are eager to power and uncaring about ordinary people. Orwell also draws reader’s attention to the fact that society is transformed into a tyranny partially because of the citizens, their ignorance, stupidity, selfishness, and a number of other reasons. That is why it is difficult to establish a society that’s full of freedom and justice.
The main problem lies in leaders. The system of government, Orwell described in his story, is a prototype of actually existing dictatorial and totalitarian regimes established after a series of major changes in Spain, Germany, some republic of Latin America, but mainly, it is the dictatorial regime established after the 1917 revolution in Russia and the overthrow of the tsarist regime, led by Nicholas II . It is linked with the deposition of owner of the farm Mr. Jones in the “Animal farm”. Napoleon, who soon forcibly came to power, is a prototype of Stalin. He is contrasted to Snowball, who sincerely wanted to help animals. Snowball tried to enlighten animals, causing them to think and giving them an education. He inspired them, as he could, and sincerely believed in the idea of building a society of equal and happy animals. Snowball did not forget about the true purpose of the revolution and words spoken by Major, who dreamed about elimination of exploitation of animals by humans. He had a big plan for the future. He made a plan for construction of a mill, which would give huge benefits for residents of the farm. In the history of the Soviet Union this is a symbol of industrialization, during which enormous human and material resources were spent. Thus, Snowball is a prototype Trotsky, who was one of the organizers of the revolution and truly believed in its power. Unfortunately, Snowball did not manage to implement his plans. From the earliest days between Snowball and Napoleon there were disagreements. The reason was a struggle for a dominant position in the leadership of the farm.
Napoleon did not want to share the helm with Snowball, who had already inspired confidence in animals thanks to his great mind, declamatory and military skills. But Napoleon was neither an orator nor clever and intelligent. For this reason, he did not invent any farm development plans with the aim to surpass the opponent's plans, but only chose simple and sneaky way. He decided to expel Snowball, whose fate was similar to the fate of Trotsky. Trotsky was accused of treason and expelled from the USSR. In addition, his ideas of five-year plans have been appropriated by Stalin, as well as Napoleon subsequently appropriated the idea of building the mill.
Napoleon began actively to strengthen his power after expulsion of Snowball. His purpose was to convince animals in his devotion to them. Therefore, for this purpose he decided to use Squealer, because had excellent oratorical skills and could easily make everyone to believe in what he was telling them, and very important thing was that Napoleon understood that Squealer unquestioningly would carry out all orders of Napoleon. Squealer’s description, which Orwell gave in the beginning of the story, perfectly characterizes Squealer, as a very cunning and selfish character of the tale:” He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.”
Squealer was playing a very important role in advocating ideas of pigs and creating a cult of personality of Napoleon. Using Squealer, Napoleon bit by bit gradually began to change life on the farm and invisibly for other animals make minor amendments to the laws, because of what the very essence of laws were radically changed, and not for the benefit of the society. Napoleon affected on consciousness and thinking of animals, making them docile crowd that was easy to manipulate. So Squealer, who could convince others, played a crucial role in that. Thanks to his oratorical abilities, Squealer influenced on the fate of animals and the course of history. For instance, he deceived animals into the belief that it is necessary to create more comfortable living conditions for pigs, since they did hard mental work. From that moment pigs began to live in Jones’s house, eat at the table, sleep in the bed, and it became their legal right. Other animals that did not have such privileges agreed with this obvious injustice towards them, because they were led to believe that it was done for the common good and that the law prohibiting sleeping in bed or eating at the table had never existed. In another case he convinced everyone to necessity for creating trade links with people, as Napoleon did it in order to get the goods, without which they could not survive. When the animals began to think of the correctness of that actions Squealer once again reassured the crowd, dissatisfied with new transformations, by reminding about Jones: “Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back.”
Squealer symbolizes mass media, which was strictly controlled by the special services, so that all coming to citizens information was filtered, and so it was untrue. Media could make Media from an innocent person an enemy of the people, and from a criminal - a hero. At that time in the Soviet Union there were hunger and devastation, but officially, the newspaper wrote that everything was going according to plan.
Napoleon had also other methods of strengthening the power. He used violent methods of punishment and suppression of animals. Dogs were his faithful servants in this matter. Leadership of Napoleon was extremely violent and aggressive. Orwell associated it with the theme of Stalin's purges that existed for a long time in the Soviet Union. So dog were like NKVD organs. Once on Sunday's meeting Snowball declared that the chickens must give their eggs for sale in order to buy grain and flour. According to him it would help animals to survive until the summer. Of course, chickens were outraged and first time since the expulsion of Jones rebellion happened on the animal farm. But Napoleon brutally suppressed resistance. Another occurrence happened in early spring. Napoleon, using dogs, forced some of the animals, including also pigs, to confess to a conspiracy with a Snowball. Thus, through these actions, he finally consolidated his power. Actually there was not a person, who could change the situation on the farm a better way. Life of pigs was getting better and better while the animals were working hard, but their living standards were getting worse.
Another reason why society was transformed to tyranny lies in ignorance, passivity, stupid obedience and also selfishness of some animals on the farm. When the revolution occurred, a most of animals were not even aware off the essence of the revolution. They believed that revolution would improve the life of animals. Great believe in leaders and trustfulness of some animals were also the reasons of what happened on the farm. Animals were following their leaders. Most of them were ready to work hard. But ignorance of great portion of animals prevented their happiness. They just did what leaders demanded from them. They preferred just carrying out the orders of others to thinking themselves. Any mental work was complicating their lives. This lifestyle completely satisfied desires of animals. Orwell draws our attention to how animals behaved at those moments when Snowball tried to explain something to them. They did not want to think and did not try to learn and understand what Snowball told them. They were not truly appreciating what Snowball was doing for them. Thus, ignorance was the reason why animals allowed Napoleon to fool them. But on the farm there were animals, who really understood what was happening. Benjamin was among them. He was quite smart. Benjamin could be very useful to society, since he was able to shed light on all the vile actions of Napoleon. But he was too passive. On the farm there were also animals that cared only about themselves. They had no desire to help other. Good examples are cat and horse Molly, who did nothing and were indifferent towards others. Thus, because of all these reasons dictatorial regime was established on the farm.
Orwell tries to warn the world of this terrible danger, showing how society, which was full of freedom, becomes tyrannical, and makes us think about what makes it possible. My opinion is that the reasons lie in that such persons, as Stalin, comes to power, and it is also happens because of the acquiescence of society - someone is happy with position when it is not necessary to think and fight; someone does not believe in success of revolution, therefore does not want to spend his time and energy; others doesn’t realize that the government does not care about the welfare of this person. All these make establishing of tyranny possible.