OCCASIONALLY, there is a reference in the Guyana press to the late British writer George Orwell’s fable ‘Animal Farm’. Some Guyanese may have studied the booklet as part of their school work, as it is considered ‘literature’. But when Orwell had it published nearly 70 years ago, when people read more books, it was a political tract.

Orwell, who was born in India in 1903 and died of tuberculosis in 1950, used the allegory of a group of animals becoming cruel and undemocratic after they took over a farm to criticise what he saw as the ‘totalitarianism’ of the then Soviet Union (or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -USSR).

Anybody at the time with a smattering of interest in public affairs knew that the head honcho named Napoleon in the booklet was supposed to represent Joseph Stalin, then head of the Soviet government. ‘Snowball’ (depicted, as with the main characters, as a

boar pig) was an opposition figure named Leo Trotsky, while ‘Old Major’ was Vladimir Lenin, though some argue that he represented Karl Marx.

In the early parts of ‘Animal Farm’, things seemed to be going well. But shortly after Old Major fades from the scene (he dies of old age in the story), the pigs’ greed and undemocratic rule once more result in inequalities and injustices.

A sign appears on the barn: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

The fable is sometimes referred to here in Guyana by anti-government critics who bleat: “Orwell could have written this about present day Guyana!” Let’s deal with that absurdity later.
‘Animal Farm’ wasn’t that popular when it was first published in August 1945. After all, the Soviet Union’s great Red Army played a significant role in the Allied victory over German fascism in World War II. Stalin, before disclosures of his abuses of power became known, was hailed by the British people and in other Allied countries including, probably, then British Guiana, as ‘Uncle Joe’. Without Soviet resistance on the

Far-Eastern front during the war, German forces may well have invaded England and other countries and entrenched fascism for a longer period. More ethnic minorities and

people of colour, including black and Indian people and every Jew in Europe, would have been slaughtered (in gas ovens).

During 1944, several publishing houses rejected ‘Animal Farm’. Orwell’s own publisher, Victor Gollancz, correctly remarked: “We couldn’t have published it then. Those people (the Soviet people and government) were fighting for us and had just saved our necks at Stalingrad.”

One rejection letter from an American firm (Dial Press), injected a humourous note when it wrote Orwell saying: “There is not much demand for animal stories in the USA.”

Orwell himself knew of the then popular support for the Soviet Union. Indeed, he praised its early years (under Lenin) in the fable. Orwell considered himself part of the political left, or the ‘Socialist Movement’ as he wrote in the Ukranian edition. Some of his other books, such as ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (published 1932), ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ (1936) and ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ are sympathetic to the aspirations of ordinary working people. In ‘Burmese Days’, he was critical of British Imperialism. He had served on the Republican side (typically, with the militias of the

Trotskyist Workers Party of Marxist Reunification rather than the Communist-led International Brigades) against Franco’s fascist treason during the Spanish Civil War in

the 1930s. As the 1950s broke, ‘Animal Farm’, along with another Orwell novel, ‘1984’, became useful to conservative anti-Soviet Union forces during the Cold War.

Orwell’s views about the perceived corruption and lack of democracy of socialism in the Soviet Union fitted in with the ideological baggage of those opinion makers and

neo-conservatives extolling the virtues of ‘western style democracy’. The international left, including in the Caribbean, recognises the mistakes made by the Soviet (Communist)

leadership. Such abuses of power assisted in bringing about the USSR’s disintegration.

Other socialist bloc countries, such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), were also affected. Among the causes: The routinism and bureaucratic heavy-handedness of party officials and lower-level cadre. Citizens did not like, for example, restrictions on their freedom to travel.

But in his criticism of Soviet type of socialism, Orwell, to all intents and purposes, “threw out the baby with the bath water,” as the saying goes. Despite the shortcomings and errors of the Soviet Union’s party leadership, the overall socialist principle of uniting

of resources and individual commitment so that everyone benefits remained valid, as did the planned nature of the economic base. Informed and serious analysts say the existence of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries like the GDR benefited working people and their allies everywhere, including people of colour in Developing Countries. Of course, such societies had to accept reforms, to change with the times, including economic ones. The great People’s Republic of China is now recognised internationally, even in corporative board rooms within the bastions of capitalist economies, for its economic progress.

Orwell didn’t look at the overall picture; he didn’t see the potential of further development. An admirer, Noel Malcolm, writing in the normally conservative British newspaper, The Telegraph (13 August 1995), noted:

“Some of the early critics of Animal Farm complained that its treatment of the political realities of Soviet history was far too thin. Everything was reduced to the simple desire to be top dog (or top pig)….” Malcolm adds that Orwell’s “real talent (lay in) his exposure of moral failings, not political ones.”

Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ makes for interesting reading, but it had an incorrect premise. This premise held that Soviet-style socialism was doomed to degeneration because people could not come together to govern themselves and build a better life in a collective and sustained way.

Orwell’s political views were what may be described as social democratic. He supported and worked for the British Labour party in his later years. Those in Guyana who invoke Orwell’s take on Stalinism ‘forget’ to point out that while there may be Marxists in the ruling PPP/Civic (and they have a right to be there), Guyana is not a communist State. The private sector is flourishing and opposition parties participate in free and fair elections. As an aside, neither is the government fascist, a description ludicrously bandied about by local shock newspaper columnist, Freddie Kissoon.

As with his apparent ignorance about the influence of the European Enlightenment period on Marxism (he wrote there was, effectively, no connection), Kissoon also appears not to know the extensively documented difference between Fascism and Communism.

Politics reflect a complex real world in which several influences and pressures confront genuine peoples’ leaders who are guided by the moral imperative to always try and do good.

On one of these fronts they combat, and through corrective measures strive to eliminate corruption, greed and misuse of power in high places. In the case of Guyana, despite challenges, much has been achieved in this respect.

Such a commitment and activism has been one of the corner stones of the present administration’s programmes for Guyanese of all races and walks of life. It is part of a forward-looking and optimistic outlook — so much unlike the pessimism and fatalism of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’. (Norman Faria is Guyana’s Honorary Consul in Barbados.)