/lit/ - Literature

>>22981882
It’s an anti-authoritarian book

also*

>>22981882
It's explicitly a fable about Stalinism as exploitative and a betrayal which is borne from cynicism but nonetheless I think Orwell saw the animal revolt as a genuine revolution against their oppression and exploitation, just with that caveat. His books have also been of much use to the right, and people who continue to defend Stalinism will say that's because Orwell himself had betrayed socialism (an interesting reversal!) and had gone to the right. Then others will say it really is a left critique of Stalinism that has been misused. There are problems with some of these arguments. For one, he had difficulty getting it published because Britain and the USSR were allies when he wrote it, so an attack on Stalinism as being a new form of exploitative tyranny was not popular with the political establishment at the time. That came later.

There's another critique of him that his critique of what happened in Russia was based more on a moral rejection of totalitarian methods and practices. That leads to a movement to the right, but Orwell was also aghast at the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and became a patriot when it happened. As disturbing as totalitarianism is, I think Orwell had a very sharp sense of detecting WHAT it is while he struggled to understand the WHY. He didn't have an answer to that, so he retreated into pessimism and basically said it was all about some kind of disembodied sadistic power hunger. Orwell was a really visceral writer with the senses to detect when something was really wrong or perverted, to detect mind-control propaganda:
https://youtu.be/txh4CUmq4fw

But some of the most interesting critiques of totalitarianism and the Soviet Union can come from Marxism turned on it, and looking at the material conditions which produced it, because at least that provides a material framework for understanding the why, whether they be the product of the birth pangs of the industrial society, the contradictions in transitioning to a planned economy which mankind has not yet learned how to do, the collective exhaustion of all classes after a revolutionary period -- accelerated by external threats as a condition of the change into totalitarianism (but not the basis), stuff like that. You can still find it pretty alarming but you might be more psychologically prepared whereas Orwell became increasingly paranoid.

Hard to blame him though.

>>22981882
reks fascists, USSR wasn't communist, it was a russian fascist empire with a red paint

>>22981944
this, real communism has never been tried

>>22981976
Define real communism.

>>22981976
>real communism has never been tried
kys communist. communism is cancer

>>22981882
>It makes the Other Side look good? CRINGE
>It makes the Other Side look bad? BASED
What a barren way to approach reading.

for a non english native, is this an easy book to start reading in english?

>>22981883
Nah it’s not a general book, the pigs are a succession of actual communists.
>>22982031
If you read Orwell’s introduction (only available in some editions otherwise in essay collections) he’s a complex character. He’s actively being fought on Animal Farm by his publisher who is a commie sympathIzer and tries to bury the book, even prevent him from finding another publisher. He’s being fought from inside the UK government by a figure who we’d learn decades later was a literal communist spy. All because of the clear anti-communist message in Animal Farm.
Many take 1984 to be the fascist version of this but that book is inspired in large part by Orwell’s experiences being censored by the UK government during the war, and a reaction to propaganda at large, the switch from the evil Soviets to “Uncle Joe” Stalin as they’re made an ally against Germany. Again there’s much to read in the essay collections about this.
At one point in the Animal Farm foreword he defends Mosely’s right to speech after the war.
He describes himself as a democratic socialist, but is an eccentric british traditionalist in his private life. Very odd character.

My read on it is that people like to pigeonhole his criticisms as anticommunist and antifascist because that allows them to close their eyes to it being just as much critiquing the liberal order and the allied powers. It’s always the other, bad people doing this shit. Not us, the good guys.

>>22982085
I wish more people would read beyond Animal Farm and 1984.

>>22981882
Its makes /leftypol/ troons seethe so its based because they keep making shit threads.

>>22982081
It's pretty easy yeah like 11yo level with 13yo level of ideas

>>22982081
The sentence structure is simple but there are a fair few words and phrases you're going to have to look up. (ex. "pop-holes," "vivacious" "laugh to scorn," etc.) Signed, an RPCV anon who optimistically tried to teach Animal Farm to kids overseas

>>22982081
yes it is a children's book

>>22981976
"Real communism" can't be tried, at least not for centuries, but I don't see the circumstances to make it a possibility coming to fruition—maybe with space colonies.
Whenever something is close enough the power vacuum is filled. I remember hearing my self-proclaimed communist sister rambling about the autonomous zone in Cascadia—forget the name of it for the life of me, the one from 2020—and how it could been a true effort towards communism. Then a rapper turned war lord took control and any mention of it and its potential was never mentioned at family gatherings again.
I don't see any form of communism being possible without religion. It sounds great on paper but beyond that nothing besides introducing socialist elements to democracy is worthwhile.

>>22981999
Like most 16 year olds I identified as a communist. One of my friend's boyfriends said this to me, I whipped out a proper definition and he stuttered profusely for a good minute. I'd be a lot more humiliated by my past self if that poor guy's face reddening with desperation wasn't burned into my mind.

It's not really an anti communist book. It's a hit piece shitting on Stalin for being a big fat meanie to Orwell.

>>22983294
Capitalist Chad fucked your friend while you remained in friend zone and dreamed about him sharing some pussy crumbs with you.
But I bet you do know what real communism is. Every communist does.

>>22981882
Stalin was based and I’m tired of pretending he wasn’t just because he makes cuckservative Americans seethe.

>>22983402
The capitalist chug sexually assaulted her because she was “taking too long” and then got beat up for spoiling endgame a few days later.
One summer he got ripped and tried to intimidate me but he was 5”4 so everyone just went back to mocking him. Chuds never win my friend.

>>22981944
>>22981976
Lenin was openly taking about killing many people before Stalin took over and executed his plans. Lenin was a devout marxist

>>22983416
>Starving millions of people under his ward
>needlessly executing anyone who may have slightly resembled a threat
>annihilated the military command after the failure of the finno-Russian war
Bravo Stalin

>>22983294
This reads like one of those /pol/posts
>Today I owned a libtard in school hehe

Macro-n-Cheese