10 Famous Books You've Been Reading Wrong This Whole Time
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four And Animal Farm Aren't About How Bad Communism Is
Orwellian, Big Brother-esque, thoughtcrime: these are all terms that will get thrown around as examples of how society is going to hell and becoming more like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's downright impossible to get a real idea of what Orwell was going for, unless of course you read about what Orwell was going for, then it's easy.
Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm get pushed together here, as both are seen as a dystopic view of communism and totalitarian rule, with Nineteen Eighty-Four specifically going into the details on government surveillance and control.
Big Brother isn't the real problem though, the fine print is the problem.
A life long socialist, Orwell saw no real issue with socialism on the whole (both books are pretty anti Stalin and single-party control, however) Orwell's big bugaboo was complacency and the public allowing these totalitarian groups to take control.
He was still trying to highlight why Stalinism was bad, but the fact he wanted to show that the public's willingness to allow it to happen seems to have become ignored over the decades.
In one letter Orwell explained that had the animals put their collective foot (paw? Hoof?) down when the pigs started hoarding all the apples they would have had no problems, but they didn't, and so Boxer the lovable horse gets turned into glue. (Spoilers.)