Animal Farm - Knowledge Is Power

George Orwell's novel Ð''Animal Farm' is an allegorical fable of the Russian Revolution. It depicts the Revolution in a way that is inoffensive to people and also very easy to understand. This controversial novel also teaches many valuable lessons, all very true in man's past and also in the present.

In all of man's histories, there are legends of tyrannical kings and merciless emperors, corrupted with the thirst for ultimate power. Education also played an important role in the subjugation of mankind; the intelligent and educated use their knowledge to undermine and control the naÐ"Їve uneducated proletariats. The naÐ"ЇvetÐ"© of an ignorant working class is detrimental to any society; neither communist nor democratic societies are unaffected.

Power is a blessing and also a curse, cast upon man and affecting us all, nevertheless, it affects those without power, as well as those with power. All great leaders had and have great power. Power is not biased, it does not make a good leader a good person, but it can make a good person a tyrannical and merciless leader. For example, Adolf Hitler was a great leader, but he was a very bad man. Due to the knowledge, cunning and coaxing of education, leaders can become corrupted and tainted, tainted with the poison of corruption laced in their meal of power and control. Such was what occurred in Ð''Animal Farm'; the pigs who were educated gained power and control over Manor Farm, which under the concept of Animalism, they called Animal Farm. From a communist society, the Revolution resulted in a dictatorship being set up. In essence, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and no one is safe from themselves, no one is safe from the flaws of human nature.

In today's society, influences from the western world depict education as a prerequisite for adulthood, required to be undertaken as a child. We as students in a western world must learn the ways of the western world and how we can alter and instil it into the societies of the honourable eastern world. In Ð''Animal Farm', the pigs first tried to teach the other animals to read; some animals learnt the alphabet, but most did not. Seeing this, the pigs realized that they could tell the animals anything and they would have to be believed. Gradually, the pigs began to control education and began to indoctrinate the animals. For example, the sheep were taught to say Ð''Four legs good, two legs bad' at certain times so that the animals had to listen to the pigs' propaganda, which was accepted and remained unquestioned.

So it was in the Russian Revolution; Stalin controlled the level of education provided to the proletariats and therefore gained power over them. Through this lack of education, the Russian peasants were unable to detect the gradual power Stalin was establishing over them.