Chapters 7-8: Terror & Purges
The Confessions and Executions
Chapters 7 and 8 represent the darkest phase of Animal Farm, mirroring the Great Purges of the 1930s under Stalin. Napoleon summons all the animals to the yard and, with the dogs snarling at his feet, demands confessions. One by one, animals step forward to confess to crimes they did not commit — or to minor acts of disobedience that are treated as capital offences. The hens who protested against giving up their eggs confess that Snowball came to them in a dream and told them to disobey, and they are slaughtered on the spot. A goose then confesses to “having secreted six ears of corn” and is killed too. The dogs tear the confessors’ throats out.
The confessions scene directly parallels the Moscow Show Trials (1936–1938), where Stalin forced former allies — including senior Bolsheviks who had fought in the Revolution — to publicly confess to treason, sabotage and conspiracy with foreign enemies. The confessions were fabricated under torture, but they provided a veneer of legality for Stalin’s mass executions.
Orwell describes the aftermath with devastating understatement: the animals huddle together on the knoll, and Clover looks down at the farm that was supposed to bring them freedom. “These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when Old Major first stirred them to rebellion.” This is one of the most powerful moments in the novella — Orwell allows the reader to feel the gap between revolutionary hope and totalitarian reality.
Boxer’s Unwavering Loyalty
Boxer responds to every crisis with his twin mottos: “I will work harder” and “Napoleon is always right.” Even after witnessing the executions, Boxer does not question Napoleon’s authority. He believes the confessors must have been guilty, and he redoubles his physical labour. Orwell uses Boxer to represent the loyal, exploited proletariat who sustain the regime through their labour but receive nothing in return.
Boxer is arguably the most important character for understanding Orwell’s message. He is not stupid — he is trusting and decent, and those qualities are exploited by a regime that sees loyalty as a resource to be consumed. His physical strength literally builds the windmill (Soviet industrialisation), but Napoleon discards him the moment he is no longer useful. Orwell’s point is that totalitarianism destroys precisely the people whose hard work makes the state function. In the exam, you can argue that Boxer’s fate is Orwell’s most devastating critique of Stalinism.
The Hens’ Rebellion
Before the mass confessions, Napoleon orders the hens to surrender their eggs for trade with the outside world. When the hens refuse — in the only organised resistance in the entire novella — Napoleon cuts off their food rations. Nine hens die during the five-day standoff. This small but significant episode shows that Napoleon will starve his own citizens to enforce obedience, just as Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture in the early 1930s caused the Holodomor — a devastating famine in Ukraine that killed millions. The hens’ protest is also notable because it is so quickly crushed. Orwell shows that individual resistance, however brave, is no match for a regime that controls food, information and armed force.
The Changing Commandments
Throughout these chapters, the Seven Commandments are quietly altered. “No animal shall sleep in a bed” becomes “No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.” “No animal shall drink alcohol” becomes “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.” “No animal shall kill any other animal” becomes “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” Each addition of a qualifying clause strips away the original principle.
The changing commandments represent how authoritarian regimes rewrite laws and constitutions to legalise their own corruption. The Soviet constitution of 1936 — ironically written during the height of the purges — guaranteed freedoms that were systematically violated. Orwell shows that controlling language means controlling reality: if the commandments say the pigs can sleep in beds, then the pigs sleeping in beds is no longer a betrayal.
Frederick, the farmer from Pinchfield (representing Hitler and Nazi Germany), attacks Animal Farm and dynamites the windmill. The animals fight back and eventually repel the invaders, but at enormous cost — the windmill is destroyed. Napoleon declares it a “great victory,” which Squealer supports with propaganda. This parallels the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) and the devastating Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943). The Soviet Union ‘won’ but suffered catastrophic losses. Orwell shows how totalitarian leaders reframe catastrophic defeats as triumphs.
‘Beasts of England’ Is Banned
After the executions, Napoleon bans ‘Beasts of England’ and replaces it with a new song by Minimus the poet, which praises the farm itself. Squealer explains that the song is “no longer needed” because the revolution is complete. This is deeply ironic: the revolution has clearly failed, and banning its anthem is Napoleon’s way of suppressing the animals’ ability to imagine a different future. Minimus later writes a poem called ‘Comrade Napoleon’, and that is where Stalin’s cult of personality shows most clearly — art is redirected from collective ideals to glorifying the leader.