Podcast & Show Notes Animal Farm ch. 6 & 7

Hello, and welcome to the book club and podcast of The Literary Friends Society, where we find the intersection of books, life, and faith as we journey together through life. I’m Caitlin, a literary book worm, history buff, and coffee drinker, and I’m thrilled that you’ve chosen to join us! If you love books, get your favourite cup of deliciousness, find somewhere cosy, open your favourite podcast app, and let’s get started.

Hello, you’re listening to episode 5 of The Literary Friends Society podcast. I am so glad you have joined us from wherever you are in the world! We are reading through George Orwell’s classic tale, Animal Farm. If you haven’t listened to the previous episodes, I recommend you listen to those first, just to get you up to speed. Today we are discussing chapters 6 and 7 of Animal Farm. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to read them this week, but if not, that’s fine. This episode will catch you up on what’s going on. But I strongly recommend you read the chapters for yourself!

Let’s start with chapter 6. In this chapter, we read that laborious work on the windmill continues. The animal commandments are beginning to be mysteriously changed and altered. Snowball is blamed for the windmill being destroyed in a storm, and Napoleon becomes more manipulative and dictatorial.

I want to begin by reading the first paragraph. “All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no efforts or sacrifice, well aware that everything they did was for the benefit of themselves as those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.” I think this is supposed to represent the collective agricultural society under communism. I also think that this says a lot about the good hard working nature of the animals, willing to sacrifice for a cause they believed in. They weren’t just thinking of themselves either, but about all the animals who would come after them and eat the fruit of their labours. They began work on the windmill. Boxer in particular worked especially hard moving heavy boulders.

We see that Napoleon is still the one making the decisions, one of which was to trade with the other farms. This made the other animals uneasy. They seemed to remember that in the past they had passed resolutions against having dealings with humans. At least, they thought they remembered. And that’s something we find in these couple chapters. The animals are gaslit into thinking that their memories were mistaken. You may remember that in chapter 2 we have the bringing in of the 7 animal commandments, and the first of these was “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.” So in trading with humans, essentially Napoleon is deciding that the animals should trade with their enemies. The four young pigs who protested when Napoleon abolished the meetings a couple of chapters ago protested again at this, but, like last time, were silenced by the growling of the fierce dogs. (Protesting is silenced in this society.) And again, Squealer, I don’t know what to make of what Squealer is doing here. Is it propaganda (I kind of wonder if Squealer does stand in a bit for propaganda or at least the media)? Is it manipulation? He uses lies to reassure the animals that they are wrong, that there wasn’t really a resolution against trading with the humans, and gaslights them into doubting themselves. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term gaslighting but in psychology it is when someone manipulates someone else in a way that causes them to doubt and question their own memories, perception, reality, and sanity. I think that we’ll see that this is what Squealer is doing in this and other chapters. To their doubts, Squealer said, “Are you certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades?” The guy they get involved in trade with is a man named Mr. Wymper, and he represents the capitalists who got rich doing business with the Soviet Union.
Then something else happens. The pigs suddenly move into the farmhouse and begin living there. The animals again remembered a resolution against this in the past, but again, Squealer convinced them that this was not the case. He had also begun calling Napoleon “the Leader”. Boxer was like, “Napoleon is always right.” Clover thought that she remembered a ruling in the past against sleeping in beds. And she was right, the fourth commandment was, “No animal shall sleep in a bed.” She puzzled over the inscription on the barn, and when she called Muriel over to help her read it, it said, “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” She hadn’t remembered the sheets part! That’s because it wasn’t there. The commandment had been changed to suit the pigs. The pigs could manipulate the rules and definitions to mean whatever they want them to mean. And again, the animals are threatened with Jones coming back which of course none of them wanted so they just had to go along with Napoleon.

Okay, then we have another significant event. The windmill is ruined in a storm. But Snowball was blamed for it. A death sentence was pronounced upon him and a reward was put on his head. The animals then resolved to rebuild the windmill.

Chapter 7 opens by telling us that it was a bitter winter on Animal Farm. The animals were always cold and usually hungry. Food began to fall short. Rations were reduced. Starvation began to stare them in the face. But it was necessary to keep this from being known in the outside world. They deceived Mr. Wymper into believing that they still had plenty of food. Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart.

So this parallels the history of the Soviet Union in the late 1920’s onwards as Stalin instigates his 5 year plans to transform Soviet society. Part of Stalin’s plan was a forced collectivization of the farms. He wanted them to go from small privately owned farms to larger collective state owned farms. This wasn’t popular, particularly in Ukraine, so the collectivization had to be forced. The harvest was still good the first year of Stalin’s collectivization of the farms in the Soviet Union, but the following years brought famine. Starvation was rather a factor in the Communist USSR in Stalin’s reign. Ukraine particularly went through a terrible famine in 1932-33, called the Holodomor, deliberately manufactured by Stalin, and caused by his policies. Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union were full of starving people desperate for food. One peasant later said, “You could see them walking about, just walking and walking, and one would drop, and then another, and so on it went.” The Holodomor killed 13% of the population of Ukraine. Stalin didn’t care about lives or livelihoods. He didn’t care about the cost. All he cared about was transforming Ukraine into a modern socialist proletarian nation. Many tried to flee Ukraine, but Stalin closed the borders. Then there was a great big cover up as Stalin tried to hide the reality of the famine, as we see here in Animal Farm. Two more things with Ukraine, the famine caused a massive labour shortage in the country so Stalin had to bring in Russians to resettle Ukraine and help boost the labour force. So that is part of why there are a lot of Russians in certain parts of Ukraine as Putin talks about with his war. Also, the famine ended up causing a deep rooted hatred of Stalin and Russia and solidified Ukrainian nationalism. I imagine that as Ukrainians are fighting the Russians they haven’t forgotten what it was like to be under Russian rule. In spite of Stalin’s suppression, they would have passed along stories of what it was really like to live in Ukraine during the Holodomor down to their children and children’s children, down to today.

Okay, let’s move on. The text says, “In these days, Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce looking dogs. When he did emerge, it was in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs who closely surrounded him and growled if anyone came too near.” Sounds like he’s becoming quite the elitist. Notice how he’s starting to look more and more like a dictator. He’s got Squealer making the announcements for him now too. I think the dogs represent his personal body-guard and possibly also his secret police. Stalin had a frightening system of secret police.

There was an announcement made for the hens to surrender their eggs. They were very upset about this and there was something of a rebellion. Nine hens died. I wonder if this also is a reference to Stalin’s policies in Ukraine where he had their grain confiscated. Those who resisted his policies were thought of as enemies of the State and driven off their farms and transported to Siberia, or else they were killed.

*** Then it was discovered that Snowball was frequenting the farm at night. At least, that’s what was said. Whenever something went wrong, Snowball was blamed for it. Napoleon sniffs Snowball out everywhere. We find that historical revisionism becomes a factor in this part of the story. They are changing the historical facts about Snowball and his role in the Battle of the Cowshed and attacking his character and villainizing him. They start to change history to fit in with their narrative and agenda. That’s what revisionism is. It is another tactic of the State. Squealer tells the animals that Snowball has sold himself to Pinchfield farm and is plotting to attack them and take the farm. He also tells them that he was in league with Jones from the start. So now Snowball, the hero of the Battle of the Cowshed, is now the one who attempted to get them all defeated and destroyed at said battle. The pigs apparently just discovered documents that apparently explain a great deal. This is a convenient time to reveal that you have secret documents containing secret information, isn’t it. The animals remembered, or thought they remembered (there it is again), Snowball’s heroism at the Battle of the Cowshed. But Squealer is revising things. Napoleon becomes the hero of the Battle of the Cowshed instead. Understandably, the animals are confused.

We also see the power of oratory. Squealer’s thing is his ability to sway the animal’s opinions and beliefs in a particular direction, in this case, according to the narrative that Napoleon wants to set forth. Remember that Adolf Hitler used this tool quite effectively to sway people and bring them over to his cause in Nazi Germany. Lenin and Trotsky also used it quite effectively.

Now, as a history buff, historical revisionism is something I feel strongly about and could go on a bit for a bit once I get started! Let me just explain it here, briefly. There are two types of historical revisionism. The first type is an important part of doing history and archaeology. It is when you revise your theories and hypotheses and what you know about a particular time period or person or event based on new evidence and new studies. This is especially a factor in archaeology where new evidence is being dug out of the ground all the time. In this case, you revise and rewrite history in a way that makes it more accurate and fitting with the evidence. The second type of historical revisionism is quite different. It is when someone revises and rewrites history based on a particular worldview or narrative to fit in with some agenda. For example, Marx in the Communist Manifesto rewrites history in a way that fits in with and supports his ideology of Marxism, that is, that all of history is the history of class struggles. To say that all history is the history of class struggles, is itself a rather broad and general statement. Now, there is an element of truth in what he writes, but it is so one sided and leaves so much out that it is totally not convincing at all and is not an accurate portrayal of history. Certainly not stable enough to build an ideology on. Also, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, history books were rewritten to give Stalin a more prominent role in the Revolution. This is what Napoleon is doing here in the book. Photographs were also censored as a way to rewrite history. Totalitarian societies tend to use rewrite history to turn their leader into the hero they’re not (like what’s happening in the book) and to villainize others. People in these societies are told a particular version or interpretation of history that fits with a particular worldview or narrative or agenda of a society and what’s politically correct. That is, they tell them what they want them to hear and suppress the parts they don’t want them to know about. There’s a thing at the moment with history that if something or someone in the past is not politically correct by current standards they’re cancelled out. Dear old Winston Churchill has been getting a bit of this for allegedly being racist (and that’s a discussion for another time!). It has been a bit of a thing with me for a while that revisionism happens a lot in the West with history curriculums (if history is even taught at all) and history courses and such, and with certain historians and politicians. They maybe twist facts, or leave important facts out, or exaggerate facts, or downplay other facts, or try to make it say what they want it to say so that it supports their particular agenda.

I know it’s controversial, but I have also seen this happen in the church and in Christian organizations where history is written in a way that fits with a particular version of Christianity and agenda. Now obviously I’m a Christian and believe that we ought to see history through a Christian worldview and biblical lens. I’m not talking about that. History, like science, points to biblical truths and realities that transcend time. It ultimately points to God. Truly Christian history is going to point to and reveal the truth about history, not the other way around. So this is not what I mean when I talk about Christian revisionism.

Let me tell you a couple ways I have seen Christians be revisionist about history. Christian revisionism is when we hold to particular ideas that seem Christian but aren’t actually biblical and then construct and revise history in a way that backs up and supports these ideas. Maybe to make history seem more Christian than it really was, or whatever. One of the ways I have seen this happen is in America where history is used to back up ideas like Christian nationalism, the whole America is the greatest country, America is a Christian nation, America is God’s chosen nation, thing. I’m sorry guys, but a lot of that is based on an incorrect view of American history. It’s based on a version of history that turns America into something it’s not and its history into something it wasn’t. I know I’ve probably just opened a can of worms here and realise that this isn’t the space to go into it, but I recommend you do some of the history and look at the evidence for yourself and see what conclusion you come to. Another way I’ve seen Christian revisionism is where Christians, particularly conservative homeschoolers (and yes, I grew up as one of them!), glorify the olden days. We hold up the 1800’s as our ideal and think that somehow they were more Christian, and more moral, and that they somehow fit our ideal of how we’d like to live and raise our kids. But honestly guys, this is nothing more than a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of history. Start digging into the 19th century and you’ll find that it was not the ideal society we think it was. You’ll find that life in this time was hard and at times brutal. You’ll find that people in this time had plenty of issues too and often they were worse because things weren’t talked about like they are today. Sure, people in general were coming from a more Christian worldview and lived in a more Christian time that held to more Christian values and sure it was perhaps a more moral society in that morals were upheld more. But even that had its own issues, one of which was its tendency towards moralism and legalism. People in this time were just as broken. Society had just as many issues. It just looked different to today. So, guys, let’s not glorify the olden days and let’s not try to make history fit into our particular ideas. Let’s also be aware of revisionism and learn to recognize it when it happens so we don’t end up falling for a twisted misrepresentation of history. If you would like to know more about this topic, I wrote an article on providentialhistory.org called “The De-Historization of History.” It goes into revisionism and such. It’s worth looking at, if I do say so myself. So that’s providentialhistory.org. I told you I can go on a bit about this! But I hope you find it helpful. But let’s get back to the story. ***

So, here we see Boxer thinking about all this stuff with Snowball. At least he’s thinking guys! He’s choosing not to agree with what Squealer is saying. But then he changes his mind to “Napoleon is always right” when Squealer says that Napoleon has said that Snowball was Jones’s agent from the beginning. And apparently, they think that Snowball has secret agents lurking around the farm too.

Look at what happens next. These same four pigs, the ones that had protested twice before, are brought before Napoleon and the animals and Napoleon calls upon them to confess their crimes. It reads, “Without any further prompting, they confessed that they had been in secret touch with Snowball ever since the expulsion, and that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over the farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that they had been Jones’s secret agent for years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess.” So guys, here we are. They are having forced confessions and executions on Animal Farm. Three hens confessed to crimes and were executed. Then other animals followed. “And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones.” The animals were understandably sad and disturbed and shocked by these goings on. The text says again, “These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when Old Major first stirred them to rebellion.” They’d had a different vision for their future. Old Major had given them a different vision. They’d dreamed of a farm full of freedom and equality and where the strong protect the weak. “Instead,” it says, “they did not know why, they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”

I think this is a good place to talk about Stalin’s purges and Great Terror which are represented here in this part of Animal Farm. We’ve talked about the forced collectivization and famine and the revision of history. But another thing that Stalin is infamous for is his Great Purge or Great Terror of 1936-1938. As he grew older, Stalin became increasingly paranoid and distrustful of everyone and suspicious that even people within his own Bolshevik Party were plotting against him. So, he began to purge the Communist Party and the government and the military by killing anyone who might possibly be plotting against him. He claimed he uncovered a plot of anti-Stalinist Communists. He held the Moscow trials which were staged events where politicians, military leaders, and intellectuals were interrogated, threatened, tortured, and forced to confess to false crimes. Then they were taken out and executed or sent to the Gulag. He also tried to eliminate anyone who tried to oppose him or who might try to oppose him. His reign of terror was totalitarian and brutal. He used secret police. He encouraged people to spy on each other and dob each other in. He sent millions to the Gulag labour camps where they died. Churches also were attacked. Church leaders were arrested and churches shut down. Churches stood starkly at odds with Stalin because Stalin wanted them to revere him and go along with his cult of personality while of course Christians wouldn’t do that. We put God before the government. Later, Khrushev, Stalin’s successor, called Stalin’s purges an “abuse of power” and said that many of Stalin’s victims were actually innocent.

Lastly in this chapter, we see that singing “Beasts of England” was abolished and forbidden. Squealer told them that it was not needed anymore. Why? Because it had been a song for the rebellion, and the rebellion, he said, was ended, it was complete. He said that a new society had now been established. The song was replaced with a new one.

What do you think he meant by a new society? Stalin’s new society was one where there was a loss of freedom and a lot of suffering and oppression. His was a society where the State tried to control everything. The media… people were only allowed to see and read what the State allowed them to. Education was controlled by the State, kids had to be taught what Stalin told them to. Books were censored by the State. Now living standards did rise in the Soviet Union in the 1930’s. Those who went along with Stalin and didn’t get on his bad side were better off than they had been under the Czars. There was better healthcare and a stable government. Stalin is still popular with some in Russia because he took Russia from a backwards peasant society and transformed it into an industrial nuclear superpower. But the end does not justify the means. They way he went about achieving those goals was horrific and brutal and evil and caused endless amounts of suffering.

Okay, so we’ve seen some pretty big changes on Animal Farm. Some pretty disturbing changes. Let’s summarize chapter 7. A bitter winter brings with it food shortages. The hens are forced to give up their eggs. Terrible lies are spread about Snowball that turn the animals against him. Napoleon forces false confessions and executions. And the rebellion is declared complete.

That’s where we need to leave it for this week. Be sure to join us over at the Discord server for a discussion of these chapters. Also, it would be really wonderful if you could rate and review this podcast on the app you listened to it on, and if you would share it far and wide. It would really help us to get it out to as many people as possible. Thanks guys! Hope you all have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye!

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