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In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, a new “political party” is created by the members of their animal society, which Is not only comparable to Communism In theory but also In execution. This so-called political party goes by the name of Minimalism; a name that Is reminiscent of Communism due to the pronunciation. There Is far more to Minimalism than the name that brings the thought of Communism to mind. The idea of Minimalism (the name would come later from a different source) was brought forth by one of the oldest and most respected members of the farm, Old Major.
He relays his through a magnificent speech to the whole farm. Throughout his speech he speaks of a farm no longer controlled by humans and a world in which all animals are equal: Never listen when they tell you that Man and animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interest of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship In the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades. (10) Unfortunately, his Ideas of what will later be called
Minimalism are not at all long lasting In the way he envisioned them. Karl Marx, who was a respected and Important sociologist, was the central creator of the Idea of Communism. His ideas for Communism were relayed through a book known as The Communist Manifesto. Communism was an idea that all people are equal; the basic meaning of the radical political view was that society should be classless. His influence was, however, short lived in its original state. The creators of both Minimalism and Communism were highly similar in a couple different ways.
The ideas they delivered were similar in that they both thought that everyone (animals in Old Majors case) should be on equal terms. Along with that similarity, neither of their influences lasted long in their original state, becoming corrupted by misinterpretations by others. Old Major soon passed away after his speech and the animals of his farm were quick to adapt his teachings Into a single train of thought, Minimalism. Unfortunately, the animals that adapted his teachings, namely the pigs, Incorrectly Interpreted them. The animals were very strict in following their version of Old Major’s teachings, forever.
The followers of Marx were similar to the followers of Old Major. They all incorrectly interpreted the teachings that Marx passed on to them through his research and writings. This misinterpretation of his teachings was highly ill-fated. Their following of their own version of his teachings, however, was impeccable. The inconvenience of the misinterpretation of the original teachings of the creators of these two political movements was uniform throughout. The followers of both of them, thinking they were doing a good thing, were actually incorrectly counterpoising the teachings of the person (or animal) they were following.
Although they were Incorrect In their understanding of the teachings, they were very good about following what they thought were the correct teachings. That Is until someone began corrupting the way the system worked. Named Snowball, and the other was named Napoleon. The two of them rarely agreed with the other, causing a large amount of arguments and inefficiency in the way things worked on the farm. Eventually, Napoleon used force to remove Snowball, which he saw as a threat to his own ideas on how the farm should be ran.
Once Snowball was gone, he began to blame anything that went wrong on Snowball. Those that still supported were violently removed from the farm, either by execution or being run off the farm. Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin arose as leaders of the Communist society. They often clashed and had many arguments causing the Communist party to run in an inefficient way. In time, Stalin ran Trotsky out of the country with force. After Trotsky was out of the picture, Stalin began using him as a scapegoat for anything that went wrong in the country.
Anyone that was discovered to be a continued supporter of Trotsky was violently purged from the country with little mercy. Stalin and Napoleon both have massive similarities between each other. They both had rivals whom they forcibly removed from their midst. Soon after the removal of their rival, they began using that particular person as a scapegoat for anything bad that went on within the country or farm. They also used force to remove those that were still followers of their rival even after their removal. Napoleon had dogs to protect him with unrestricted force.
These dogs were first used to remove Snowball from the farm and not long after that became Napoleon’s constant companions. The dogs weren’t only for protecting Napoleon, but they were also used to strike fear into the other members of the farm. Stalin used a secret agency known as the KGB for his protection. They KGB were used to remove Trotsky from the country and then were used to purge those that were against Stalin from the country. They were used for more than protection, however. They were also used to strike fear in the population beneath Stalin.
Both Stalin and Napoleon used a group to protect themselves. These groups were used for numerous things; among them were the removal of enemies to the leader and also the protection of the leader. These similarities can easily be seen. Minimalism and Communism are extremely similar in a number of ways. Chief among those ways are the similarities of the leaders of the parties, and also the way those leaders work. There is still more to the similarity of these two political ideas, but these similarities stated above are the most important and obvious similarities.