Chapters 1-3: The Rebellion
Old Major’s Speech: The Spark of Revolution
The novella opens with Old Major, a prize-winning boar, calling the animals together for a secret meeting in the barn. His speech is the catalyst for everything that follows. He tells the animals that “our lives are miserable, laborious, and short” and that Man is the source of all their suffering. His argument is simple and powerful: remove the human oppressor, and the animals will be free and equal.
Old Major represents both Karl Marx (who developed the theory of communism) and Vladimir Lenin (who led the October Revolution). His speech mirrors The Communist Manifesto’s call for workers to overthrow their oppressors. He dies before the revolution happens, just as Marx died before the Russian Revolution.
Old Major teaches the animals the song ‘Beasts of England’, which becomes a revolutionary anthem. The song paints a utopian vision of a future without humans: “rings shall vanish from our noses, and the harness from our back.” This vision of freedom and equality is genuinely moving — Orwell wants the reader to understand why revolution seems so appealing before showing how it can go wrong.
The Rebellion and the Seven Commandments
After Old Major dies, the animals drive Mr Jones from the farm. Nothing of the kind had been planned. Jones fails to feed them, they break into the store-shed, and they turn on him when he comes at them with whips. The pigs take charge straight afterwards. The speed and ease of the Rebellion mirrors the October Revolution, where the Bolsheviks seized power with relatively little resistance. The animals rename Manor Farm as ‘Animal Farm’ and establish Animalism as their governing philosophy — a direct parallel to Marxism-Leninism.
The pigs condense Old Major’s teachings into the Seven Commandments, painted on the barn wall. These commandments represent the founding principles of the revolution, just as the Soviet constitution promised equality and workers’ rights. The most important is the seventh: “All animals are equal.”
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. These commandments function as both the constitution of Animal Farm and a structural device — Orwell uses their gradual alteration throughout the novella to track the corruption of the revolution.
Early Optimism: The Harvest and the Cowshed
The early chapters of Animal Farm are deliberately hopeful. The animals work harder than they ever did for Jones, but they do so willingly because they believe they are working for themselves. The harvest is “the biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen” — a detail that mirrors the genuine early achievements of Soviet collective farming before Stalin’s disastrous policies took hold.
The Battle of the Cowshed occurs when Jones and neighbouring farmers try to retake the farm. Snowball leads the defence brilliantly, planning military tactics inspired by Julius Caesar. This parallels the Russian Civil War (1918–1921), where Trotsky organised the Red Army to defeat the counter-revolutionary White forces.
Even in these optimistic early chapters, Orwell plants seeds of future corruption. On the very first day after the Rebellion, the cows’ milk mysteriously disappears. The animals later discover that the pigs have been taking the milk and apples for themselves. Squealer justifies this by claiming the pigs need them because they do “brainwork” — and warns that if the pigs fail, “Jones would come back!” This is the first use of propaganda to justify privilege, and it establishes the pattern that will define the rest of the novella: the pigs claim special treatment is for the common good, when it is really for their own benefit.
The Pigs Take Charge
From the very beginning, the pigs position themselves as the natural leaders. They do not do any physical labour during the harvest — instead, they “directed and supervised the others.” The word ‘naturally’ recurs when describing the pigs’ assumption of authority, as though their leadership is inevitable rather than chosen. This mirrors how the Bolshevik intellectuals positioned themselves as the ‘vanguard of the proletariat’ — the educated elite who would lead the revolution on behalf of the workers. Orwell subtly questions this assumption: if the revolution is about equality, why should one group automatically lead? The pigs’ early claim to intellectual superiority is the first crack in Animalism’s promise of equality, and it widens throughout the novella until the hierarchy is as rigid as it was under Jones.
Orwell’s Structural Choices
Orwell structures the opening chapters to create a deliberate arc from hope to warning. The reader shares the animals’ excitement about the Rebellion, making the later betrayal more devastating. The simplicity of the fable form means that every detail carries allegorical weight. The milk and apples are not just food — they represent how revolutionary leaders immediately begin appropriating resources for themselves. For the Edexcel exam, connecting these narrative choices to context will demonstrate the sophisticated understanding that earns higher marks.