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SOCIALIST PHILOSOPHERS: Karl Marx and Friederich Engels developed communist social philosophy in the 19^th century and it became a potent world in 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and created the Sovietic Union.

COMMUNISM: is an economic and political system where the productions and economic methods are not controlled by private business but by the government, that is the community, for the benefit of all the people. In a communist regime people will work according to their abilities, in exchange they will be able to receive benefits from the society as they are contributing to build that perfect society. Then, when all the items of capitalism have been abolished, any government will be unnecessary, and the proletarian dictatorship starts.

SOCIALISM: socialism is as well and communist an economic and political system but unlike communism, in socialism the means of production and economy should be property of the state for the welfare of society. Socialism and communism were responses to the big inequality that existed during the XIX and XX century in Europe between the higher classes and the lower classes.

In this paper I have chosen three well-known authors and one of its most representative works. I would like to show through the links how these authors reflected his utopian or anti-utopian or dystopian ideas in their works. We know beforehand that Marx and Engels are representatives of the utopic socialism, and I will explain their thoughts  they want to show in their significant work, then as the oposition of their ideas we will study the themes of Animal Farm by G. Orwell and Lord of the flies by W. Golding. These authors are known as anti-utopian authors, and I will try to show why their utopic vision of society developes from a perfect civilized society to a society where the individual  is not seen as a whole, but each one of them put their own interests first, to take profit of others.The interesting thing about the three of them is that we will see how the utopian dream that Marx and Engels fought to achieve, is portrayed around 50 years later when Orwell and Golding wrote their works. Through the different posts I will show how the utopian dream that Marx and Engels explained in the Manifesto will develope into a dystopian society, especially in G.Orwell´s work, Animal Farm. With a post regarding Animal Farm we can maybe undestand why his revolution in Animal Farm is frequently compared with the Rusian Revolutiom

– Utopian Dream Versus Dystopian Reality: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies a Case Study.  Darvish,Bahareh.   American Journal of Scientific Research. ISSN 1450-223X Issue 46 (2012), pp. 14-21

<http://www.eurojournals.com/ajsr.htm> 3- 12- 2012

– Nazismo y comunismo: origen, paralelismo y diferencias a la luz de la literatura. Canals Pou, Ines. Universitat Abab Oiva Ceu

– Men of a smaller growth: A psychological analysis Of William Golding´s Lord of the flies. Rosenfield, Claire. Literature and psychology, Vol. XI, No. 4, Autumn , 1961, pp 93 – 101

<http://www.mrchiorian.com/lotfreadings/Rosenfield,%20Men%20of%20a%20Smaller%20Growth%20(LOTF).PDF> 10 – 12 – 2012

– On George Orwell´s  Political development. Storgaard, Claus B. The orwell reader

<http://www.theorwellreader.com/essays/storgaard.html > 9 – 12 – 12

– Karl Marx and Frederick Engel’s: MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

<http://www.wvup.edu/elamb/Emily%27sPDFfiles/222%20eCourse/Unit%20Three/Manifesto.PDF>  6 – 12- 2012

– El movimiento obrero. Historia Contemporanea. Universidad de Castilla La Mancha

http://www.uclm.es/profesorado/javi…/apuntes%20h%C2%AAcontemporanea.doc 10 – 10 – 2012

With the reading of the three works, it comes clear what the concepts of utopia and dystopia are. In the case of the Communist Manifesto, the concept of utopia is associated with an ideal state, an state that only works with the cooperation of all parts of society, their Manifesto show the ideas that Plato earlier developed in what he called  Republic, his ideal state. The Communist Manifesto shows an optimistic development of society, we have to consider that The Communist Manifesto was written in 1847, in a timer were democracy was gaining power in western society, with the appearence of the Trade Unions and the formation of liberal parties.

Animal Farm was published in 1945, and Lord of the flies in 1954, only 100 years after the publication of The communist Manifesto. Orwell and Golding lived the rise of bolsheviks and they both participated directly in II World War, so it is not surprising they wanted to show a dystopian society, a society in decadence. In their respective works they both reflect a pessimistic world-view taking the form of satires and allegories. In Animal Farm and Lord of The flies, character reach their utopia, but they don´t show what is to live in a place where thing are better that they thought they can be, but what they show is what will happen if these utopian ideas were carried out to the extremes. In both works, characters were possesed by the desire to make life good, but when they reach their utopia, they find difficult to follow their ideas they had before the sucess of their utopia, and their search for happiness will end tremendly tragic, the remains of revolution will nor be any better than the situation of their previous life.

Since both men show a dark rather than optimistic future of society, their fiction has been refered as anti-utopian or dystopian novels. In Animal Farm their revolution starts with the exile of the human owner of the farm and an animalistic utopia based on the equality and effort of all members of the farm to carry out their ideal society, but as time goes by,  their utopian dream turns into a dystopian reality, with a totalitarian regime worse than the previous one governed by humans. Animals become a calque of their pervious regime; as pig´s power grows the class sytem imposes gradually, power will decide the way of life of each animal, betraying the commandments that ruled right after their revolution. The most significant aspect of this betrayal is the evolution of pigs, they start the revolution as the rest of animals but when they reach their purposes, pigs start to be the ones who govern over the rest of animales, they will manage and supervise the work of the other animals but they won´t work. As their power grows worse is their repression, they change the history of the farm in their own way to justify violence and tyranny. Pigs represent the unfulfillment of their utopic society, as time goes by, their actions resemble the action of humans and they adopt the habits and rutines that humans used to do, and at the end will not be possible to distinghuis betweem humans and pigs. George Orwell presents us the corruption that always comes with power,  the decadence of society who will always be condemned to be controlled physically and mentally for higher individuals.

In Lord of the flies, the dystopia comes out in a different way, in the novel the utopian dream cannot be fulfilled because it was a utopic vision under pressure, and it is under pressure where the intrinsic cruelty of man appears. This work shows us how a civilized nation turns into barbarity, a society withouth moral and ethic that inevitably will end into a horrifying  situation. At first they try to govern the island imitating the world of adult where they came from, but they soon get bored and children are carried along by the promeses of the other leader, Jack (as in Animal Farm, there is two leaders that fell into confrontations until one of them has to leave to safe his life) who controlled their mind and increases his power through festivities, hunting deeds and manipulation of truth. Ralph the other leader represented the moral of adults and Jack the dark internal behaviour of humans, the dystopian aspect is the moral evolution of characters, their actions show us that outside society, human nature is wicked and evil, so a society were there is equality of power between all members of society, as the society that describes The Communist Manifesto, will be imposible to carry out, as human nature is starving of power.

Lord of the flies (1954) is a dystopian novel written by William Golding. The novel can be seen as an allegory of the innate cruelty of humans, through his novel he portrays human human beings and their problems  actions of human behaviour, as well as they interact with each other. In his novels hi puts human beings into the extremes, as they have to face situations they have neve thought they would live.

The characters that would experiment the unfullfilment of their utopian dream will be childrem between six and twelve years, but although their short age their adventure will develop in a large scale of violence, fearness, suspicion and power.

The first character that presents the author is Ralph, who is the main character. The novel starts with an airplane crash where only children survive the impact. The first organizative decisions will be taken as a game, but when they have to choose a leader the dilemma of the book will start. Ralp is proclamated leader, after Jack and him were presented as the possible bosses, Ralph names Jack the hunting boss. But the short age of the children helps to the failure of any attempt of organization, and the situation gets worse when the fearness appears.

Soon it starts confrontation between Jack and Ralph, the power of organization by Jack is questioned and after Jack tries to take over the control of Ralph´s organization he leaves to another part of the island, and the older children follow him. Then starts the serious confrontations between both organizations and the tribe of Jack kills Simon, after confusing him with the feard beast, and after some arguments between Ralph and Jack, Ralph has to leave to safe his life; when he was near to be caught by Jack the adults ( the moral world) appear and he can save himself from death.

The main theme of the book is to show the dark aspects of humanity, that are covered under the rules of society. Children represents the real nature of humans and adults appear dignified, and the main purpose is to show the potential for brutality that humans have. The novel deals with the different moral evolution of the different characters, ones take the direction of civilization, and rationalism, as Ralph that imitates the model of rational organization he has learned from society, others go toward tribal superstitions, human sacrifice, as the case of Jack and the characters that follow him. This two tendencies clash and the convivence remains impossible, so the first one are defeated.

Lord of the Flies is an allegory of human society today, the novel´s primary implication is that what we have come to call civilization is, at best, no more than skin-deep. All of the boys have been influences by adult patterns, and soon enough they´re busy organizing, electing a chieftain…but the miniature civilization breaks down; there is an accelearting reversion to savagery, and ideal turns into a nightmare. It is a frightening parody on man´s return to that state of darkness from it which it took him thousands of year to emerge. The climax of the novel presents the boys reverted to a savage state. Civilization is seen as a thin veener scraped away in the experience living in a wilderness.

Utopian Dream Versus Dystopian Reality: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies a Case Study. Bahareh Darvish and Mohammadreza Ghanbari Najjar. American Journal of Scientific Research.ISSN 1450-223X Issue 46 (2012), pp. 14-21 © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012 http://www.eurojournals.com/ajsr.htm

Lord of the flies can be seen as a dystopian novel, as the utopic theory the children had when they first came into the island will never be put in practise; instead of showing an optimistic view of the human being, Golding shows us a pessimistic view of human nature. They had plans of organization and they had assigned works for each other but they soon get tired of that not so perfect organization, and they forget the rules and promises, and the disaster comes.

Snowball has been compared ferquently with Trotsky; he creates comitees, he teaches other animals how to read and write , and he look for masures to improve the animals´ quality of life. He represents the inicial ideals of the rebelion. His intelligence will be his downfall because it collides with the lack of charisma and intellect of Napoleon, and as the novel developes, the differences between both bosses start to come out until Snowball has to leave to safe its life.

Through manipulation, Napoleon will turn Snowball into a coward and then into a traitor, he convince the rest of animals and he addopts total control over the farm, using violence and fearness as  method to achieve honour and respect, the rest turns into a secondary roll. Napoleon is not interested in revolution, Animalism or the defense of the  farm rights, what gains importance in his mind is his power to controll the rest of the animals. Napoleon imposes obidiency, enthusiams and admiration through threats of death and punishment.

As time goes by after revolution, the rest of the animales in the farm learn that rebeling against the established only has bad consequences, so they learn to shut up.

To understand the situation inside the farm, it is necessary to consider the balance of power. Napoleon is the farm because he has the absolute controll of it, internally he is a powerful leader, and their guarantee of freedom. But truth is that this freedom has been misunderstood as a consequence of the manipulation from Napoleon of the concept of freedom. The real freedom is their liberation from their yukes and the aspiration to Animalism, but Napoleon manipulates freedom and he establishes that freedom means their liberation from Mr. Jones.

Napoleon wears of the medals created by the animals and he awards himself with honarable titles, he speaks from a platform, and sleeps in separated rooms etc … but it os a divinity that he creates for his own.

Napoleon manipulated the story and information by giving inflated sums of production, restricting will and manipulating the past for his own interests. The most notable proof of that is the change on the commandments to justify his actions, he changes their past to adapt it to present times, and thanks to the short life of animals and the coming of new animals to the farm, the meaning of the revolution gradually looses its meaning; as they have not known any different type of government they adopt that one as something normal and Animalism looses its meaning.

In short instance, the farm is a totalitarian regime with a piramidal structure with a boss that is considered as a God.

Animal Farm (1945) of George Orwell has been described as an anti-utopic novel, a satiric novel and a politic parable. Animal Farm was written durind the Second World War, so when Orwell finished his novel, the Sovietic Union and Great Britain were fighting together against the third Reich, despite their politic differences.

As Orwell explained, his idea for writing the plot of Animal Farm will born after his stay in the Spanish Civil War. Despite that a long time has been by since Animal Farm appeared for the first time, the paralelism between the plot of the novel and some historic facts will not lose its impact on the reader. Animal Farm is a satirical criticism of some historic events as the Russian Revolution that adopted a communis system afterwards. What Orwell displays in the book is that in any period or society revolution will corrupt as the consecuency of autodestruction in any kind of revolutionary movement.

In Animal Farm, the animals that live in Jones´ farm are unhappy with their way of life. The pig, Old major will explain before dying a dream he had, where he had a vision of a revolution that took place in that farm, in the dream they will throw out the farm Mr Jones, the farm´s owner, then they were free from all their yokes. After the dream that Old Major had, the pigs Napoleon and Snowball start as leaders of the farm revolution. One night they were starving to death they break the doors and serve themselves their food. When Mr. Jones and his farm workers arrive, the animals leap on them and they took the control of the farm.

The commandments fixed after the revolution will form an unbreakeable law which all animals should follow and respect, this seven commandments will be the basis of Animalism:

The original commandments are:

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.

From then on, the life inside the farm is more thriving and they start making plans for the futere: to learn how to read, to study, to build a mill etc … However, soon pigs will take charge on the farm and they take control over the farm´s administration, while the rest of animals work for them.

Snowball and Napoleon, the pigs, will named themselves leaders, but soon it starts to como to the surface differences between them, these differences will end with the prosecution of Snowball who has to leave the farm to safe its life. Thereon, Napoleon set himself up as the only leader and he rules the rest of the animals under a hard dictatorship government based on demagogy and terror. Gradually, pigs star to adopt human habits, and the revolutiones is betrayed definately with the execution of some animals that confessed some treasons.

Gradually the tiranny of the Pig Napoleon gets harder,  the rest of animals, spured on hopes for a better future, and the false promises of pigs and their fear of dogs, try to finish as soon as possible a mill so they can work the land and take profit of it. But Napoleon adopts little by little more human habits, he get dressed and lives like humans do. Finally the only commandment that still reamains on the wall is: » All Animals are equal, but some are more equal than others», and it seems impossible to distinguish pigs from humans.

In the first chapter of Animal Farm Orwell sets out the desperation of animals in view of humgry and their future full of unanswered questions, a parallelism with the deception of lower and middel classes after the Russian Revolution.

From the fist page of Animal Farm, the differences between humans and animals are established, and they are the ones who have done worst out: Mr. Jones is always drunk, he hits his animals although he hasn´t got authority in his life. Humans represent violence and anti-humanity, while the animals of the farm are the ones who represent civilization and their commandments will be the method that will assure their survival, so every modification of the codes in the commandments carries antihumanity and violence.

`WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! ´Marx, karl and Engels Friederich. The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto is considered today one of the world´s most important political documents due to his content, its style and its repercussion in history and literature and it will become one of the most read and discussed documents of the 20th century.

The Communist Manifesto according to K. Marx was written to develop a practical base to socialism based in the study of history along the years.Marx and Engels wrote together the Communist Manifesto, because the London Congress of the Communist League wanted a manifesto for their organization, so they wrote the Manifesto on 1847 and it was published in 1848.

The Manifesto begins with a general view of class struggle along history of humanity; the repression of society began with owners and slaves, turned to the feudalism system during the Middle Ages and then developed on the system of guilds, up to the working class of their own day.The lower classes have always been exploited by higher classes, as as the lower classes gained some power, the higher ones invented new laws to continue with the class system repression. Thus, the upper classes will change and develop into other classes to adapt their repression to the new times.

The utopian vision of Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto is that there is an incoming process to eliminate the struggle of class system, for the sake of lower classes. If there is only one class, the class struggle would no longer exist, and money, nation-states and governments will be completely unnecessary.Their utopic socialism philosophy of these authors will influence the core of the Communist Manifesto, but although Marx and Engels thought that they had found a scientific truth that could be applied to humanity, truth is that those governments that adopted communists systems never leave the power of governing to society.

`The real problem with t he Marxian ideas imbued in the Manifesto might be that Marx misundertood which class would ultimately take over the means of production and so destroy the capitalist system. What he could not understand was that means of production would become less and less expensive all the time due to efficiencies in production. Workers would themselves become entrepreneurs in free and republican societies, the advent of computers and inexpensive access to the tools of service industry would make small bussiness a dominant and driving force´

http://www.wvup.edu/elamb/Emily%27sPDFfiles/222%20eCourse/Unit%20Three/Manifesto.PDF

The Communist Manifesto is considered a recompilation of the communist principles and a practical guide to achieve class system freedom according to Marx and Engels. It is a text of around 17.000 words and it has different prologues for different countries as the prologue for England and for Germany. The Communist Manifesto can be divided into four sections:

The first one explains how class struggle has been developed along different stages of history. Higher classes have been always developing into other different classes along history, but they have always exploited lower classes, which is the class that produces the wealth of capitalism.

The second section of the Manifesto is where the utopian view is more evident, this part of the Manifesto develops the nature of the new working class, the new ruling class that they will name `the proletariat´. It shows its implications for the advance of society, including the abolition of private property, the source of power and repression. This section stresses that this utopian society will be brought about by conflict with the working class taking power from the owners of economy, the bourgeoisie.

The last two parts of the Communist Manifesto discuss the diverse forms of socialism; social feudalism, petty-bourgeois socialism and true socialism. The last part deals with how these different socialist systems could inter-relate

In conclusion, there is no doubt that the works of George Orwell are literary criticisim of a society and political states, and Animal Farm is not an exception but one of his most importantan political writing, because although Animal Farm is a novel with apparently fiction character, the book is a Political book from a distopiant point of view. Although he was a socialist Animal Farm criticises the consequences of political revolution, and Animal Farm, althought it can be adressed to any revolution, it seems to be addresed to the Russian Revolution, but as happened with Russian revolution, when they reach freedom another dictatorship system if going to start. For Orwell society is always corrupted and there is no revolution that can repair it, when peoples reach power they forget all their principles and they forget what they have fought for, power will be their main principle and people with power will always over-controlled the mass. Perfect society is impossible and Animal Farm is an allegory of society.

The animalism of Animal Farm resembles the Communist society, but as communism in Russia, things are not so ideal after the revolution and people are still controlled by the power of corrupted politics, and several of his characters in Animal Farm have a direct base on participants of the Russian Revolution as Stalin and Trotsky. The ideals of the Communist Manifesto are discredited beacuse proletarians can never enjoy what the representants of power promised when they still did not have power, the decadence of powers is reflected in the novel, it is the perversion of the ideas of Karl Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. The idea of a perfect society  is impossible and this is also reflected in most of his works.

This paper is going to be focused on the specific of how George Orwell described society and politics in his book Animal Farm, he identified himself with socialist ideas, but however he reflects in most of  his books and Animal Farm is not an exception that he was sick of society, every society becomes corrupted with power, so the perfect society seems to be impossible. George Orwell had a distopian idea of society. We´ll also develop the historical and political background to understand such a book as Animal Farm and we´ll also deal with the themes of the book amd an analys of the animal characters of the book, as every kind of animal represents someone concrete in a society, for example the blackbird in Animal seems to represent the church. Have a look through the links and you will find out that some characters even can have a specific representant, is Animal Farm describing a pessimistic point of view of revolutions such as the Russian one ?? Maybe we can understand the themes of the book through the blog.