NB: "allied forces" included US troops.
On Aug 19, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
by the way, there's a copy of _Animal Farm_ at
http://www.george-orwell.org/Animal_Farm/index.html.
"One day in October, Jones, all his men, and half a dozen others
from the
neighbouring farms, attack Animal Farm. They walk up the laneway
through the
main gate. They are all armed with sticks except for Jones, who
carries a
gun. The animals, however, are well prepared. After an initial
skirmish
where the pigeons and geese attack the humans, Snowball attacks them,
supported by Benjamin, Muriel and all the sheep. The men repulse
this attack
with their sticks, and Snowball sounds the retreat. They fall back
to the
farmyard, pursued by the men, who think that they have triumphed.
However,
they have walked into a trap."
Interesting that this might be as an attempt to map to historical
events,
Orwell makes no effort to connect the downfall of the animal
experiment as a
function of the invasion. Indeed, there seems to be no serious
damage to the
farm's infrastructure or the lives of its animal-citizens, at least
on the
basis of the summary.
it's also not on the scale of the multilateral invasion that the
nascent USSR has to suffer from. The Wikipedia says that
The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition
launched in 1918 during the Russian Civil War and World War I. The
intervention involved almost a dozen nations and was conducted over
vast expanse of territory. The [official -- JD] initials [sic]
goals were to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion, to secure supplies of
munitions and armaments in Russian ports and possibly re-establish
the Eastern front. With the end of the war, the Allies, fearful of
Bolshevism, openly intervened in the Russian Civil War giving
support to the pro-tsarist, anti-Bolshevik White forces. However,
oppostion for ongoing campaign became widespread, due to a
combination of a lack of public support and war weariness; divided
objectives and a lack of an overarching strategy also hampered the
effort. These factors, together with the evacuation of the
Czechoslovak legion and the deteriorating situation compelled the
Allies to withdraw from North Russia and Siberia in 1920. Although,
the Japanese occupied parts of Siberia until 1922.
With the end of allied support, the Red Army was able [with help
from the peasants, I've read] to inflict defeats on the remaining
White government forces, leading to their eventual collapse. During
the Allied Intervention, the presence of foreign troops was
effectively used for patriotic propaganda by the Bolsheviks in
their struggle to influence the Russian populace in winning the
Civil War.< FWIW, I can't think of any government which would miss
this propaganda opportunity. The author(s) of this seem to think
it's a bad thing.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
With Communist pigs acting in such selfish fashion, no wonder
Orwell felt
compelled to give the British Foreign Office a list of people he
suspected
of being "crypto-Communists and fellow travelers." Orwell went to
great
lengths to avoid being a pig apparently, even if it involved
turning himself
into a rat.
To put Orwell's rat-like behavior into context, as a supporter of the
somewhat Trotskyist POUM during the Spanish Civil War, he harshly
criticized the CP's behavior from the left in his _Homage to
Catalonia_. (or from the ultra-left, depending on one's perspective.)
He was likely turned off (to say the least) by the Soviet elite's
foreign policy antics after that (e.g., grabbing a piece of Poland as
part of the Hitler-Stalin pact). He was likely influenced by the
political currents that included James Burnham (who published his
"Managerial Revolution" in 1941) and Max Shachtman (who split with
Trotsky in 1939/40 over the USSR's invasion of Finland and developed
the idea that the USSR had become a new "bureaucratic" class society).
This, I guess, was enough to produce propaganda like _Animal Farm_
(1944). It's interesting to note that even though he criticized the
USSR as being nothing but a reestablishment of class society, it was a
British ally at the time. That would fit with Orwell's general
alienation from the British establishment (e.g., the BBC) and his
general tendency to "go it alone" ideologically (or at least _think_
we was going it alone).
Then the revolution he (and many other leftists) expected after WW2
didn't happen. More importantly, I think, his own social isolation and
declining health likely contributed to his ratting. At the end, he
seems to have been overwhelmed by despair, both personally and
politically.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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