This video is a breakdown of the 1954 Movie "Animal farm" based on the book of the same name. I explain the themes, symbolism and historical parallels which gives me the opportunity to talk about the history of the soviet union.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:54 Pre-Revolution
4:41 Revolution & Civil War
5:40 Rebuilding
8:40 NEP
11:10 Stalin takes power
14:05 5-year plan
18:08 World War 2
19:35 Rebuilding v2
22:02 Cold War
23:27 Conclusion
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Transcript: Animal farm is a book, you might have heard about it. It’s a pretty famous one, it was written by George Orwell who also wrote 1984. It was released right as world war two was coming to a close and later there would be two movies based on it. One animated movie from 9 years later and another movie which was live action and made in 1999. I haven’t seen that one so I’ll say nothing about it though as I’ve heard the story goes on for a bit longer. On the surface it’s a book about animals that grow tired of humans taking off them without giving back which then rebel and create their own farm which eventually becomes just as bad. However, at this point pretty much everyone knows that it was a thinly vailed retelling of the story of the Soviet Union.
Remember that in the 50s when this was written the Soviet Union was only around 20 years or so and most people, including Orwell knew what happened because they lived during it. So the usual story is that Orwell wanted to tell the peoples of the world that communism sounds really good in theory but that in practice it always returns to the system it was before. There are problems with this analysis, among them that it’s quite shallow but apparently the CIA didn’t think so because they helped sponsor the animated movie as anti-communist propaganda and apparently the book is still required reading in schools in the US or something like that?
The US teachers of course tend to stick with this rather obvious surface level explanation that everything moves back to how it was. But, it doesn’t have to be interpreted that way, it could also be seen as anti-authoritarian. Many claim that Orwell himself was a socialist and that he couldn’t have been anti communist because of that. It seems that his beliefs depend on what definition of socialism you are using. It doesn’t seem like he was a fan of revolution but he wanted healthcare and apparently in America that makes you a communist.
But that’s not the point of this video, the point is to explain the real life parallels the book was based on one by one. Please note I will mainly talk about the 1954 Movie, though I have read the book and I will mention some parts from it when I feel like it’s an important change. That being said, let’s go:
We start off with a narration explaining that Manor Farm is not doing well, it used to be a good farm but the farmer mister Jones changed and now he treats his animals badly and the farm is in a bad state because of it. This makes the animals unhappy.
And this is our first parallel, the farm is supposed to be the Russian empire around 1900, once great, like during the reign of Peter the great, but now not as much. And the ruler at the time, Tsar Nicolas II was widely seen as an incompetent and bad ruler. For example, he lost the Russo-Japanese war, refused to give the new parliament any power and oversaw multiple human rights violations like when he ordered his army to shoot into a crowd of peaceful protestors.
The animals are supposed to be, in the Marxist sense, the working class. They are the ones who work by producing things in opposition to farmer jones who doesn’t work and just takes the things the animals produce as his. If you are familiar with Marxism this is quite an obvious parallel to bourgeoisie and proletariat.
The animals are unhappy and assemble at a big meeting, the first meeting of all animals we are told. This could be a reference to the first Internationale, where the working classes of the world met for the first time but there isn’t much to go on there.
We learn that this hog is the oldest and wisest of the animals, he called the meeting and he tells them about their condition, how the eggs the hens produce are taken from them, how the horse will not live to retire once he becomes weak and how the pigs will be slaughtered. He asks them if this is just, if it has to be this way and he says no.
He explains that the humans produce nothing yet they take it all, he tells them of his dream of a world without humans were things made by animals are only used by animals, were they are not slaughtered or stolen from. The farm is rich enough in grain for all of them to be fed but the greedy farmer keeps it all to sell for a profit. He says they must remove the farmer and create a better farm for all.
