I didn't realize it was supposed to be about communism until I got here. I was even a libertarian teenager when I read it and still just thought it was about how the CIA and FBI are bad.
It's really about what a long term Stalinism and bureaucracy would look like. All of the bureaucracy writing in it is basically taken from Orwell's experience within the British government. It's extremely particular to the political situation of the USSR and Britain in the 30s and 40s. Orwell supported other communists throughout his life, like the POUM during the spanish civil war (whose persecution by the USSR aligned faction also informed his writing as the POUM was prosecuted on it being a merger of the Trotskyist left and the workers and peasants' bloc (and broke with Trotsky in this process), said persecution included the POUM being accused of fascism and Trotskyism by the PCE in just crazy doublespeak because PCE was loyal to the Comintern).
It's of course not quite accurate, we have a much better idea of how politics and society was functioning during the Stalin period now than Orwell had access to.
I didn't realize it was supposed to be about communism until I got here. I was even a libertarian teenager when I read it and still just thought it was about how the CIA and FBI are bad.
deleted by creator
Yeah it was
It's really about what a long term Stalinism and bureaucracy would look like. All of the bureaucracy writing in it is basically taken from Orwell's experience within the British government. It's extremely particular to the political situation of the USSR and Britain in the 30s and 40s. Orwell supported other communists throughout his life, like the POUM during the spanish civil war (whose persecution by the USSR aligned faction also informed his writing as the POUM was prosecuted on it being a merger of the Trotskyist left and the workers and peasants' bloc (and broke with Trotsky in this process), said persecution included the POUM being accused of fascism and Trotskyism by the PCE in just crazy doublespeak because PCE was loyal to the Comintern).
It's of course not quite accurate, we have a much better idea of how politics and society was functioning during the Stalin period now than Orwell had access to.
Animal Farm is a cautionary tail about the dangers of counter revolutionaries and revisionists.