NP Orwell's politics

[jbor]

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>From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
>

>> I guess what's most "startling" about the sentiment is
>> that Orwell was such a stern opponent of communism as well. _Animal Farm_
>> certainly symbolises how fascism and *communism* "are at bottom the same
>> thing", doesn't it?
>
> No it does not --unless my English teacher many,  many years ago was wrong
> (it was the first English
> book I've ever read in its original language) when he told us that it was a
> fable about stalinism.

It is certainly a fable about what happened after the Bolsheviks came to
power in the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks changed their name to
the Russian Communist Party in 1918. At the time that _Animal Farm_ was
written (30s and early 40s) Russia was the only Communist nation I believe.
But, your teacher was right in a way, too: of the two pigs who originally
assume command of Manor Farm after the animals revolt, Napoleon is certainly
Stalin-like, while Snowball is Trotsky-like.

> That is: a fable about how, in origin, nice ideas get deranged.  As one can
> argue that fascism is
> just a special form of capitalism, so stalinism can be seen as the cancer
> of communism.

I suppose that one could also argue that the anti-globalisation lobby, in
trying to align itself with "the workers", and in advocating socialism on a
national, or nationalist, model, is just a special type of National
Socialist Workers Party! Rhetorical ploys like this, and like the attempt to
connect fascism and capitalism, are nothing more than propaganda.

I think Orwell's fable has more to do with the fact that power corrupts. His
anti-Communist sentiments are well-documented: in his political writings and
allegiances after WWII he was concerned with "defending freedom against
imperialism and fascism, of course, but now, above all, against communism,"
and he gave a list of names of alleged Communist-sympathisers to a secret
service arm of the British Foreign Office. His firm anti-Communist stance
had much to do with his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, of course:

    Finally, there was the Spanish civil war. Spain, for Orwell, meant the
    experience of fighting fascism and getting a bullet through his throat.
    But still more important was the revelation of Russian-led communist
    terror and duplicity, as he and his comrades in the heterodox Marxist
    POUM militia were hunted through the streets of Barcelona by the
    communists who were supposed to be their allies. Of the Russian agent in
    Barcelona charged with defaming the POUM as Trotskyist Francoist
    traitors, he writes, in Homage to Catalonia, "It was the first time that
    I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies unless one counts
    journalists."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0106/02/spectrum/spectrum2.html

best