The Authoritarian Regime and Animal Farm

Analyzing Animal Farm
An authoritarian regime is defined as a form of government controlled by one individual or a small group of people who are able to wield control over the state (Authoritarian Regimes, n.d.)—i.e., over the “bundle of specialized political institutions serving as the primary authority over a particular territory and the people who live there” (Origins and Transformations of the State, n.d.). The authoritarian regime may have present a constitution—a set of rules or laws—to the people, but the regime is not held accountable to the same rules or laws and is not responsible for adhering to the constitution to the public. This situation describes perfectly the case in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and it also reflects the real world cases of the Soviet State in Russia, the Communist state in China, and the Democratic-on-the-Outside-but-Authoritarian-on-the-Inside government of the U.S.). This paper will analyze Orwell’s Animal Farm according to the concepts of origins and transformations of the state, democratic regimes, authoritarian regimes, and political violence.
In Animal Farm, the pigs assume power over the other animals on the farm once the farmer Mr. Jones is chased out of the farm following an organized uprising of the farm animals. Snowball and Napoleon serve as a duo in leading the ideological development of the farm via the principles of Animalism—the most important law of which is that “all animals are equal” (Orwell). Though Snowball helps to defeat the counter-attack by Mr. Jones, he is used as a scapegoat by Napoleon to enable the latter to assume complete power over the farm—Napoleon does not believe in equality and wants rather to assume total control. In the end, he becomes like Mr. Jones, living in the house, walking on two legs, and drinking (all of which are against the rules for the other animals).
Animal Farm reflects the state of affairs in Soviet Russia, where Lenin and Trotsky were the initial duo to lead the origins and transformation of Tsarist Russia into the Soviet State. Just like in the book, Lenin and Trotsky had to lead an overthrow of the legitimate ruler—the Tsar Nicholas II in Russia—and set about putting forward new Communist principles for governing society. And just like in the book, Snowball (Trotsky) was chased out of the government by his political equal (Lenin) Napoleon, who assumed power. Stalin eventually took over once Lenin died and ruled with absolute authoritarian power. Stalin used violent methods to gain political control—i.e., coercion—by unleashing the Cheka (the secret police) on the bourgeoisie: they were beaten, murdered, and imprisoned in the gulag; they lost access to influential roles in the state; and people were used as informants.
In China, the situation was a little different in terms of origins: the country had already descended into chaos as a result of different gangs fighting. Mao Tse Tung organized a massive push for power that subordinated the rival gangs and allowed him to consolidate power. Once consolidated, he then followed in the same transformational practices—he gave a new set of laws and rules that the people had to follow and used coercion to subvert old practices and induce the people into compliance. His model was based on the model of Hobbes: society is in an anarchic state (true in China), fear resulted, and a new social contract was formed to bring order. In Russia, the Engels model was applied: the Bolsheviks wanted to control the surplus and take private property from the ruling class (the aristocracy), and so they overthrew the Tsar and installed an administrative class of Bolsheviks.
In the U.S., the Tilly model was applied: there was competition for resources, which led to war (the colonies against the French, the Native Americans, the Mexicans and the British). The U.S. then came together as a result of a representative form of government (not a direct democracy) in which the semblance of power was in the people’s hands, but the reality of power was in the hands of a few select people (much like in the case of Animal Farm). In Animal Farm, Orwell notes that democracy was supposed to be used—but Napoleon always gets the vote he wants by using the threat of political violence (chasing out Snowball and using bulldogs to subordinate the other animals into voting for the policies he wants to implement). This is essentially how the state has been run in China. In the U.S., people vote but once officials are elected, they get to appoint other officials who are unelected, and there is not much of a mechanism in place to hold them all accountable to the people (other than another election years later—which is often impacted by the amount of campaign money the candidates are supplied by donors/lobbies), so the representatives end up pursuing the aims of their financiers rather than their constituents. Thus, the U.S. is democratic in name but really authoritarian in practice, just like Animal Farm. Soviet Russia was always authoritarian in practice, and China is basically authoritarian in practice, with a semblance of voting given to “legitimize” the power and authority of the ruling party: the state still uses a Constitution (just like the animals in Animal Farm), but President Xi recently had his own name written into the Constitution to cement his own power—which shows that the Constitution, no matter the state or nation, is ultimately just a piece of paper that can be changed whenever it suits the purposes of the rulers—and in the U.S. that would be the judges (i.e., the process of judicial review).



References
Authoritarian Regimes. (n.d.). Pdf.
Origins and Transformations of the State. (n.d.). Pdf.
Orwell, G. (n.d.). Animal Farm.