"We animals are brothers.
Large or small, clever or simple, fur or feathers.
Now and forever, all animals are equal!"
Based on George Orwell's famous novel of the same name, Animal Farm uses the incongruous
device of animal characters, such as cartoon characters from a Disney film, to create an
allegory for Communist oppression in the aftermath of revolution.
The animated film tells the story of an uprising led by farm animals after being mistreated
and abused by their owner, Mr. Jones, who subjected the farm animals to physical abuse,
overwork, and often starvation.
"Sooner, perhaps, than Old Major would have predicted, the animals found their situation
quite unbearable."
After the successful revolution, the animals try to build an egalitarian society.
But one pig named Napoleon, who represents Stalin, decides that he is able to rule the
animal farm better.
He takes power by killing Snowden, the chosen leader of the farm, and uses fear tactics
to keep all of the other animals in line while he and other pigs use and abuse the farm's resources.
In a scene that represents the Stalinist starvation policy in the Ukraine, where the harvest was
stolen by Soviet Communists while the Ukranians starved, the pigs too steal all the eggs produced
by the chickens.
When the chickens investigate, they discover that the pigs are feasting while the other
animals starve.
They also discover that the pigs sleep all day in beds, a practice associated with their
former oppressive owner, while the other animals work constantly and sleep on the ground.
In an allegory for Communist oppression of dissent, the chickens are caught and persecuted
along with any other animals that resist the pigs' selfish rule.
"The animals thought they remembered a law against beds, but obviously they were mistaken.
The innocent suffered with the guilty, and the chickens' uprising was short-lived."
Communism promises people a better life.
But far from elevating people to a new level of equality, Communism treats people worse
than animals.
Human rights are the last defense of the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich,
and the powerless against the powerful.
Any nation that rejects human rights in the name of political ideology, even if the ideology
promises equality, is on the road to oppressing people in ways so powerfully portrayed in
Animal Farm.
This dehumanization is a timeless irony at the heart of Animal Farm.
It is a reminder that human dignity is both fragile and precious, and worth fighting for
in every generation.
"The revolution is now complete.
We have no more use for that song.
See it is now forbidden under penalty of death."