In Animal Farm, how do the pigs become what they hated?

George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is a political allegory about the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalin's subsequent rule over the Soviet Union. The story begins with Old Major, a representation of the creator of communism, Karl Marx, assembling the farm animals to revolt against the humans. The revolt is successful, and the pigs establish the Seven Commandments of Animalism to help secure their new society.

After the animals defend the farm from a human...

George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is a political allegory about the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalin's subsequent rule over the Soviet Union. The story begins with Old Major, a representation of the creator of communism, Karl Marx, assembling the farm animals to revolt against the humans. The revolt is successful, and the pigs establish the Seven Commandments of Animalism to help secure their new society.

After the animals defend the farm from a human attack, Napoleon begins to subvert Snowball. Napoleon represents Joseph Stalin, the tyrannical dictator of the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953. Snowball, on the other hand, represents Leon Trotsky, a one-time compatriot and later opponent and vocal critic of Stalin's. Napoleon argues for Snowball's removal from the farm and begins adopting human characteristics himself. He wears clothes, walks on two legs, and, with the death of Boxer, suppresses the other animals to advance his own interests. He eventually becomes as oppressive as the animals' former human master, Mr. Jones. This results in the novel's haunting last line: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" (Orwell). This represents how the communist revolution in Russia, intended to elevate the working classes, ultimately resulted in the degradation of the proletariat under Stalin's rule. The communist leaders became the very thing that they intended to destroy.

The pigs, meaning Napoleon and his followers, become what they hated by gradually adopting the tyrannical practices of the very humans they initially sought to overthrow. With this, Orwell establishes the corrupting nature of political power through the case study of the communist revolution in Russia.

For more information, please explore the guide to Animal Farm linked below!