Animal Farm, George Orwell’s allegorical novel about the Soviet Union and Stalinism, marks its 80th anniversary this week. The book was released on August 17, 1945, just two days after Japan surrendered to end World War II. Orwell had started writing the novel in late 1943 while the Soviet Union was still an ally of Great Britain against Nazi Germany.
Orwell’s decision to criticize Stalinism during a time when the Soviets were enduring heavy losses in their fight against Nazi Germany was not widely accepted. Despite this, he chose to focus on his principles rather than public opinion.
Orwell had previously shown his commitment by fighting alongside communists against fascist-supported nationalists in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. His experiences with internal purges among leftist groups during that conflict inspired Animal Farm.
In 1949, Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, which became a defining critique of both communism and totalitarian regimes more broadly. Concerns about censorship by democratic governments such as Canada and Germany have kept Nineteen Eighty-Four relevant for contemporary readers.
A profile from InfluenceWatch details how the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) functioned under significant influence from the Soviet Union throughout much of its history. According to the profile:
“The 1921 merger creating the CPUSA was ordered by the Communist International (Comintern), an organization controlled entirely by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the political faction that ruled Soviet Russia (later the Soviet Union). At its founding convention, the CPUSA declared the ‘inevitability of and necessity for violent revolution’ and that the party would prepare for ‘armed insurrection as the only means of overthrowing the capitalist state.’ The CPUSA’s long-term goal of violently overthrowing the American government and capitalism was removed in 1935, on orders from the Comintern, due to the Soviet Union’s concern over the growing threat of Nazi Germany and a desire to form alliances with capitalist nations (such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Democrats in the United States) against fascism.”
The profile also notes shifts in CPUSA policy that aligned closely with changes in Soviet foreign policy. For example, after signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, CPUSA changed its stance toward President Roosevelt’s administration from cooperation to hostility; but reversed again when Germany invaded Russia in 1941.
The relationship between CPUSA leadership and Soviet intelligence agencies is also highlighted: “From late 1920s through Cold War, CPUSA and its highest officers provided substantial assistance to Soviet espionage agencies spying on United States,” historians Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes wrote, calling it “a fifth column working inside and against United States in Cold War.” After access to post-Cold War archives became available, it was revealed that between 1971 and 1990 CPUSA received $40 million in subsidies from Moscow.
The full profile can be read at Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
