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Funny, I always thought that everyone agreed that Old Major represented both Marx and Lenin. Isn't that what you guys assumed? On 04/18/2010 05:03 AM, Paul Flewers wrote: > In a big article on George Orwell's Animal Farm in the Guardian's literary > review supplement (17 April 2010), Christopher Hitchens writes: > > 'There is, however, one very salient omission. There is a Stalin pig and a > Trotsky pig, but no Lenin pig. Similarly, in Nineteen Eighty-Four we find > only a Big Brother Stalin and an Emmanuel Goldstein Trotsky. Nobody appears > to have pointed this out at the time (and if I may say so, nobody but myself > has done so since; it took me years to notice what was staring me in the > face).' < > http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-an > imal-farm > > > This statement is factually incorrect. I had an edited collection of essays > on Orwell published in 2005, George Orwell: Enigmatic Socialist. In my > contribution, '"I Know How But I Don't Know Why": George Orwell's Conception > of Totalitarianism', I wrote: > > 'The taciturn, devious and ambitious Napoleon is clearly Stalin, and the > more inventive and vivacious Snowball is an equally obvious Trotsky... There > is, however, no porcine Lenin, as Major (Marx) dies just before the animals > take over the farm, although the displaying of Major's skull is reminiscent > of the rituals around the embalmed Bolshevik leader.' > > John Molyneux wrote in his contribution, 'Animal Farm Revisited', an article > originally published in 1989: > > 'It is clear that Napoleon represents Stalin, just as Old Major is Marx and > Snowball is Trotsky. Who then represents Lenin? Since Orwell depicts the > Rebellion as led by two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, one is forced to the > conclusion that Napoleon also represents Lenin. Thus in Animal Farm the > figures of Lenin and Stalin are merged into one character.' ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
