Stalin's reign consisted of many purges. These were
incidents in which he would kill masses of people for various reasons. They were never
good ones, whether he couldn't or wouldn't get resources to people or they didn't do
what he wanted them to do.
I think Orwell threw this
incident into the book to demonstrate Stalin's regular purges and the effect it had on
people (or in this case the animals). Once their confessions are complete and the rest
of the animals are left speechless and in a huddle, we feel the weight of what has
happened as readers. I think he hoped this would give the world a taste of how it felt
to be a Russian under Stalin's rule.
My students in class
hypothesize that maybe some of the animals knew death would be better than continuing to
live this way.
A biography I've seen had Russians from
Stalin's rule reporting the difficulty they experienced. They were so affected by the
propaganda that they believed everything Stalin wanted them to. It is hard for us as
free individuals to relate with such submission to a ruler. For them, it was business as
usual.
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