Animal Farm Vs. Marxism

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Animal Farm versus Marxism
In the movie Animal Farm, writer George Orwell reflects the life of a small group of animals living together on a farm. He depicts the social actions of each animal and gives them individual qualities, personifying them as if they were able to function as humans. With each animal able to reason and act on its own, Orwell progresses through the story with a plot closely satirizing beliefs by Karl Marx, a great social and economical philosopher of Russia. Orwell illustrates the four concepts underlined in Marx’s Das Kapital discretely as they intertwine with events in the story. They are the theory of history, the labor theory of value, the nature of the state, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the following paragraphs I will compare and contrast the relationship between Orwell’s Animal Farm and the philosophies of Karl Marx known as Marxism.
In Marx’s theory of history, Marx believed that throughout all of time there has been an ongoing struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. He also alleged that this class struggle for the control of labor and productive property, and the constant conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat would ultimately lead to a revolution of the proletariat. This rebellion would bring the downfall of the bourgeoisie and enter the society into socialism. Marx hypothesized that the economical and political progression of a civilization would have to occur in steps. First, agrarian, then capitalism followed by socialism, and concluding with communism were the evolution that Marx believed a society will go through during its existence.
Orwell based his story Animal Farm heavily upon Marx’s ideas of history. In the beginning, the animals are being oppressed by the malevolent owner of the farm, farmer Jones. He neglects to feed them, overworks them, and even threatens to kill them when they do not produce. There are even signs of oppres...