Napoleon is very clearly Joseph Stalin, and only Joseph Stalin, literally everything that happens in the book is a 1:1 parallel
That's definitely the Americanized spin on it, yes. The book is basically introduced as "Russian History 101", and you'll fail the class if you don't regurgitate this line just like all the other sheep in the classroom.
you can absolutely not “just as easily” read it as the French or American or any other revolution
Not when the curriculum is being written up by the CIA, no. But the comparison of the revolution to failures in France and Spain are easy enough to make. As someone who watched the Spanish Civil War rapidly deteriorate into factionalist conflicts between Stalinists and Trotskyists, only for the rebellion to be quashed by a fascist dictatorship, Orwell had a front line view of leftist infighting and betrayal to inform his worldview.
Of course, the American government wasn't in the business of stirring up antipathy towards Franco's Spain. So you'll never get a tight 1:1 reading in an effort to denounce fascism in Western Europe that's offered up by a Reagan-Era school teacher.
No, that’s not an Americanized spin, that’s just how the book is written. You’d be throwing your back out with all the reaching you’d have to do to relate the events in the book to other revolutions, because it was specifically written to be anti-Stalin. Who is Snowball if you’re talking about the American or French Revolutions? Who’s Frederick, what’s the windmill and the collapse of the windmill representative of?
That's definitely the Americanized spin on it, yes. The book is basically introduced as "Russian History 101", and you'll fail the class if you don't regurgitate this line just like all the other sheep in the classroom.
Not when the curriculum is being written up by the CIA, no. But the comparison of the revolution to failures in France and Spain are easy enough to make. As someone who watched the Spanish Civil War rapidly deteriorate into factionalist conflicts between Stalinists and Trotskyists, only for the rebellion to be quashed by a fascist dictatorship, Orwell had a front line view of leftist infighting and betrayal to inform his worldview.
Of course, the American government wasn't in the business of stirring up antipathy towards Franco's Spain. So you'll never get a tight 1:1 reading in an effort to denounce fascism in Western Europe that's offered up by a Reagan-Era school teacher.
No, that’s not an Americanized spin, that’s just how the book is written. You’d be throwing your back out with all the reaching you’d have to do to relate the events in the book to other revolutions, because it was specifically written to be anti-Stalin. Who is Snowball if you’re talking about the American or French Revolutions? Who’s Frederick, what’s the windmill and the collapse of the windmill representative of?