Why did George Orwell write Animal Farm?
To warn of the dangers of totalitarianism of both left and right. People usually assume that Animal Farm and 1984 are exclusively anti-Communist. In fact they are not. At the end of Animal Farm the animals look in on a gathering of the pigs and the local human farmers. In their behaviour the animals can perceive no difference between the two groups. Both Animal Farm and 1984 arose out of Orwell’s experiences of fighting Fascism in the Spanish Civil War where he fought in what was effectively an anti-Stalinist, Trotskyist organisation that was brutally suppressed by Stalinists. Read his book Homage to Catalonia. To the end of his life Orwell considered himself to be a radical democratic socialist opposed to both capitalism and totalitarianism of all kinds.
