7 Simple steps to establish a Totalitarian Government: Lessons from Animal Farm (1945)
“The best lessons are those which are not taught but only learnt [with observation].”
Indian people generally listen Arijit Singh in case of a romantic crisis but is there an option if you are in an existential crisis, when you start questioning every system, every process and every ideology? I would say “George Orwell”. The satire doesn’t fail to amaze you with its relevance even after 75 years. Here are the lesson for ‘aspiring to be dictators’ Orwell might have.”
The book seems to draw its central theme from 1984. In 1984 Orwell explains that the existence of the social hierarchy is inevitable. He defined 3 classes of people, Aristocrats, Middle class, and lower class. Whenever a system of hierarchy is destroyed by a rebellion, often middle class leads the rebellion, assisted by the lower class (to whom middle class leader shows the picture of Utopia), against aristocrats. But then slowly after the rebellion, the middle class replaces the aristocrats. And a social divide form eventually to further create the new order. It seems like in “1984” I studied the theory and “Animal Farm” is a perfect practical example of the same. Or in some say “Animal Farm” seems like a prequel of “1984”.
The story is of a farm in the countryside where animals of farm rebel against humans, draw humans out of the farm, and then run the farm by themselves completely. They do the farming, form their own rules, laws, form a democracy, and a republic! Some ambitious creatures among them even plan to create a windmill to generate electricity and whatnot. So, what goes wrong then? let’s find out. A complete nonsense you may think at first but after the end of just two chapters, you would not be able to resist yourself from appreciating the beauty of Orwell’s writing.
Before I start, I would like to highlight that with the article I am not implying towards any shortcomings of communism. But one thing I strongly believe in is to be aware of one’s shadow. If you strongly believe in principles of an ideology then instead of sticking to the only bright side of it, you should well be aware of what can go wrong with it. Only then you will be able to identify and avoid the downsides to make use of the best parts of the system. Like every ideology (Yes each one) communism also has its flaws. Those who religiously believe in principles of communism should definitely give a read to Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm; Not only to understand the inadequacy of communism but to know that what can go wrong with communism and what can be done to make it better. The same is true, I think for every other ideology. Acknowledge and be aware of your shadow. Well, that’s my opinion and that doesn’t matter at least for now :p so let’s move to the classroom of Orwell where he teaches some of “Great Totalitarian” leaders
Step-1: Everything great starts with a rebellion.
Rebellion is necessary and there is not much you have to do to start a rebellion. Everyone is unsatisfied with what they have, everyone wants more.
The catch though is that the rebellion can be successful, only if every oppressed group is a part of it. You promise them for a better future, better days, you show them how much oppressed they are in the current regime and what future holds for them if they support the rebellion.
Please note that I am not implying there should not be a rebel to prevent the formation of a totalitarian government. Most rebels (or call them heretic) are the ones who have made the world better by their rebelling ideas. Thing is that every totalitarian rule starts with a rebellion but every rebellion needs not to lead to dictatorship.
The novel starts with the rise of rebellion idea in Old major (The witted pig of farm). He communicates it to other animals; He prophesizes about a rebellion inevitable to happen and One day it happens finally. What’s amazing is the importance Orwell has showed of ‘rituals’ and ‘unquestionable rules’ as the pillar of an ideology. The 7 “holy” commandments of ‘Animality’ crafted after rebellion are a great example of that.
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
Step-2: Establish Aristocracy because it’s necessary ‘for the welfare of all’ and everyone is certainly not equal.
On successful rebellion, it would be expected that every ‘comrade’ who had participated in rebellion would be treated equally, would be entitled to same benefits and opportunities. But is that true, can all animals become equal in one night of rebellion?
No. the thing is that “Everyone is not equal”. If I look at a teacher (belonging to the 2nd class of aristocracy) and an oppressed farmer (At the last class of aristocracy). They are certainly not equal. The oppressed farmer hasn’t got the same opportunities as former; their beliefs, political ideas, and visions of society might be completely opposite! And mere a rebellion can’t change that in one night.
Thus, this creates the divide. The question here is not that ‘Who is right’. The question is ‘They are different, so whose ideas are more valid according to societal construct’. Automatically those in power are valid and Aristocracy becomes inevitable.
After a successful rebellion, it’s inevitable that the responsibility to ‘maintain order’ will come upon those, who have led the rebellion. In the story since pigs were most intelligent among other animals, the responsibility to ‘maintain law and order’ automatically fell upon pigs. What happened next?
Animals found out about corruption involving the theft of milk and apples which pigs were supposed to guard. But was that really a theft? No, it was a sacrifice, pigs made for the greater good, for the community, for their comrades!
“You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well−being of a pig. if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious.”
Step-3: Competition is bad and so is Opposition. End it, period.
Even in an established aristocracy, there might be a place for democracy. The opposition can be a group or senior leader in your party or your colleague in party itself. Dictatorship can be started only on coffin of democracy and any existence of opposition is a sign of democracy.
You either make it [The opposition] too week or eliminate it completely. In novel we had the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball and one can learn from Napoleon perfectly, how to remove opposition. Snowball was eliminated by the ‘devotees’ of Napoleon. How to make these devotees? This brings us to the next lesson.
Step-4: ‘Education is Important’
Education is often seen in a positive way. Education is seen as means of growth, innovation, progress. How that can help you if you want to be a dictator?
One thing most important for a totalitarian government is “True Believers” who would defend your regime, no matter what. These are complete ‘devotees’ of your principles. These devotees might not understand a single word about your ideology but they would utter is religiously, just like sheep did in novel (Four legged good, two legged better). And they are not born, they are made, with “Education”. Every dictator might has its own rules, methods and sets of teaching but two things necessarily embedded in teachings are:
1. Leader (Or Party) is always right.
2. Those who says opposite to leader, is against the welfare of farm (or country).
How they make devotees, might be different in each case. These devotees might be nurtured with violence (like Napoleon taught the dogs) or hate (about a particular community or previous leaders, like snowball) or with lies (Like fake data about prosperity of farm) or with lessons of deep patriotism (Like boxer). Central theme though lies on universal rightness of the leader.
Step-5: The Media — to make your stories a reality.
Though it might seem ironical but a totalitarian leader is most worried how the ‘subject’ thinks of him. The public opinion and public image about the “Leader” matters the most (Though their vote opinion for none :P). And who is better than the media for it.
But seriously a media house full of ‘fiction writers’ is an essential ingredient if you want to be dictator. The people who will make persuasive stories for the action taken by you, just like squealer. This media will help you to show fake figures of prosperity, to justify your completely dictatorial decisions, to keep people distracted from important matters (which might be a threat to your dictatorship!) by keeping them engaged in useless stories, and even to test out your followers. A squealer is all you need.
This media would serve you not only to justify your actions but also to spread misinformation falsified figures and facts about the prosperity of community compared to “earlier days”, This media would for sure turn black into white. Squealer is surely the IT Cell of Animal Farm :p.
Step-6: Kill the rebellion. Kill the rebels.
Leader is always right. Whatever he does, he does for nation and those who rebel against leader are rebelling against the nation. And there is no place of rebellion if you love your Nation. But rebellion is inevitable to happen in a dictatorship.
The difference is, how you deal with rebellion. Certainly in a dictatorship there is no place for rebellion. You kill the rebellion in its infancy itself. Your ‘devotees’ will kill the rebels.
“The four pigs waited, trembling, with guilt written on every line of their countenances. Napoleon now called upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his expulsion that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill.”
The media will help you to justify the killing of rebellion. The devotees would do anything which is necessary to criminalize the action of rebels and glorify of the leader. But….
Napoleon (the leader) was violating the 6th commandment by killing the rebel animals!
Like always Squealer has the answer, actually, commandment ran: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out of the animals’ memory. And then there was no doubt!”
And that brings us to the last step to establish a successful dictatorship.
Step-7: History is Malleable. Those who control the present control the past.
History can be whatever you want to make of it. History should satisfy your present. If you are a dictator you have the power to change the history [literally!], whether it be about the living conditions of the subject in or the doings of a leader in the past. You can change (and should change) them according to your present.
Oh, but wait you are not changing the history, you are just restoring it! It was always the same but others have forgotten a few things about the past. In the novel, the most prolific example of it is, how 7 commandments changed over the years.
Oh, wait, “they didn’t change. They were always the same, just few words slipped from Animal’s mind over the years.” Squealer said.
1. Four legged good.
2. Two legged better.
3. No animal shall wear clothes. [There was no such law].
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol in excess.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.
7. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
Since you hold power over history, you have the power to get away from your wrongdoings. If something wrong happens today, it’s not because of you but because of some mistakes made in history. “If there is drought today then it’s because a leader drank too much water 50 years ago”. Putting blame on past leaders gives you uncountable advantages including more validity to your actions, proof that promise of ‘better days’ has been fulfilled and more strong devotion for your regime. And again, remember you are not changing the history, you are just exposing the glorification of oppression!
The change of snowball from “War hero” and “Innovative Leader” to a “traitor” is the best example.
And snowball was not the innovative leader who started the rebellion, in fact, he was always in league with Jones (Farm’s owner). As squealer said, “He was Jones’s secret agent all the time.” Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.
So, this completes the Dictatorship 101. Now, gear up comrades, Go claim your regime. Start your own dictatorship.
But wait a second “Are you already in one” ?……….No, that can’t be.……. But that’s what Boxer said.
A dictator never says, “I am the dictator”. The most important lesson for the Totalitarian Power is that “Don’t tell the fool, they are being fooled and don’t tell the ruling they are being ruled”. Just do what you want to do. Claim you are doing it for the welfare of people. And rest will always be justified by your “Squealers” and “Sheep followers”. So, it is difficult for one to gauge if this is really what “Dictatorship” means.
So how to check if you are living in a dictatorship or ‘to be a dictatorship’? No worries, steps above are the checklist to check if you are in one 😛. BEWARE! BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.
