The Purges & Terror
The Confessions and Executions (Chapter 7)
Chapter 7 is the darkest moment in Animal Farm. Napoleon orders all the animals to assemble in the yard, then calls forward four pigs who had previously questioned his decisions. With the dogs snarling beside him, Napoleon forces them to confess to being in secret contact with Snowball and plotting to sabotage the farm. The dogs immediately tear out their throats.
Then other animals step forward — hens, geese, a sheep — and confess to various crimes, all supposedly inspired by Snowball. Each confession is followed by execution. By the end, a pile of corpses lies at Napoleon’s feet, and the air is heavy with the smell of blood.
The purges directly mirror Stalin’s Great Purge (1936–1938), also known as the Great Terror. Stalin held show trials where former allies were forced to confess to impossible crimes before being executed. An estimated 750,000 people were killed during the Great Purge.
The Sixth Commandment — Rewritten
The Sixth Commandment originally read: “No animal shall kill any other animal.” After the executions, the animals remember this rule and feel uneasy. When Clover asks Muriel to read the commandment from the barn wall, it now reads: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” The two added words change the entire meaning.
Orwell uses the commandments as a structural device to track the corruption of Animalism. Each alteration marks a new betrayal:
“No animal shall sleep in a bed” becomes “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets” — when the pigs move into the farmhouse.
“No animal shall drink alcohol” becomes “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess” — when Napoleon discovers whisky.
“No animal shall kill any other animal” becomes “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause” — after the purges.
The animals think they must have misremembered the original wording. Orwell shows how cognitive dissonance enables oppression — rather than accept that their leaders are lying, the animals doubt their own memories.
Clover’s Silent Despair
After the executions, the animals gather on the knoll by the half-built windmill. Orwell sets Clover’s grief against “a clear spring evening” and a farm that has never looked so desirable. She tries to marshal her thoughts but cannot find the words to express what she feels. She knows this is not what Old Major envisioned, but she cannot articulate why or how things went wrong.
Clover’s scene on the hillside is one of the most poignant in the novella. Orwell deliberately denies her the ability to speak — “Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.” This represents how ordinary people can sense injustice but, without education and political language, cannot challenge it. The absence of words is itself Orwell’s point about the power of language.
The confessions are one of the most disturbing aspects of the novella. Some animals may genuinely believe they have done wrong, having internalised the propaganda. Others may confess out of terror — they have watched others torn apart by the dogs and know resistance is futile.
Orwell leaves this ambiguous, mirroring the genuine uncertainty about why people confessed during Stalin’s show trials. Historians debate whether victims were tortured, threatened, ideologically broken, or simply desperate. Orwell captures all of these possibilities.
The hens who confess had previously staged a small rebellion, refusing to hand over their eggs for trade. Napoleon starved them into submission. Their “crime” was resisting an unjust order — but under Napoleon’s regime, any dissent is punishable by death.
The Banning of “Beasts of England”
After the purges, Napoleon bans “Beasts of England.” Squealer explains that the song is no longer necessary because the Rebellion is complete and the better society it promised has been achieved. In its place Minimus writes a song in praise of the farm itself: “Animal Farm, Animal Farm, / Never through me shalt thou come to harm!” This is deeply ironic — the song represented hope for liberation, and its removal signals that hope’s death. The revolution has consumed its own ideals.