Orwell's Animal Farm Sticks a Bit Too Close to the Book

George Orwell's Animal Farm: A Fairy Story is a well-loved parable set on a farm in England, where rebellious animals stand in as critique for the corruption and downfall of the Communist Revolution in Russia. It is also a story that has often been made to serve different meanings for different groups of people. In 1946, Orwell received a letter (documented in the book George Orwell: A Life in Letters) from a colleague, Dwight Macdonald, who reported that anti-Stalinists in his circle "claimed that the parable of Animal Farm meant that revolution always ended badly for the underdog, 'hence to hell with it and hail the status quo.'" In his response, Orwell made sure to clarify his thoughts, writing: "If people think I am defending the status quo, that is, I think, because they have grown pessimistic and assume that there is no alternative except dictatorship or laissez-faire capitalism." He emphasized that if there was one lesson behind his parable, it was "you can't have a revolution unless you make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship."