In 1945, George Orwell wrote an introduction to “Animal Farm.” It was not printed, and remained unknown till now. It appears here under Orwell's title:
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, ‐but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it pub lished (in spite of the present book shortage, which ensures that anything describable as a book will “sell”), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti‐Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political color. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the prelim inary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:
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“I mentioned the reaction I had had from an im portant official in the Ministry of Information with regard to ‘Animal Farm.’ I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think. . . . I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictator ships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so com pletely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs.* I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offense to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.”
This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a Government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in wartime) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the M.O.I. or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country, intel lectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
Censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totali tarian “coordination” that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about lit erary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensa tional items of news—things which on their own merits would get the big headlines—being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that “it wouldn't do” to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right thinking people will accept without question. It not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other but it is “not done” to say it, just as in mid‐Victorian times it was “not done” to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
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* It is not quite clear whether this suggested modification is Mr. —'s own Idea, or originated with the Ministry Information; but seems to have the official ring about it.
At this moment what is demanded by the preveiling orthodoxy is an un critical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet regime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet Gov ernment would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to un printable. And this nation wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual toler ance. For though you are not allowed to criticize the Soviet Government, at least you are reasonably free to criticize our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a com promise peace have been pub lished without interference. More, they have been pub lished without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the U.S.S.R. is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld, There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them pres ently, but the prevailing attitude toward the U.S.S.R is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.
The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propa ganda from 1941 onward would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one con troversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without exam ination and then publicized with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the B.B.C. celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar with out mentioning Nelson, but evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the vari ous occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favored by the Russians and libeled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing mate rial evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mikhailo vich, the Yugoslav Chetnik leader. The Russians, who had their own Yugoslav protégé in Marshal Tito, accused Mikhail ovich of collaborating with the Germans. This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mikhailovich's supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were kept out of print.
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In July, 1943, the Germans offered a reward of 100, 000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mikhailovich. The British press “splashed” the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mikhailovich; and the charges of collaborating with the Ger mans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish Civil War. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libeled in the Eng lish left‐wing press, and any statement in their defense, even in letter form, was re fused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the U.S.S.R. considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trot sky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — I believe the review copies had been sent out when the U.S.S.R. entered the war. The book was imme diately withdrawn. Not word about this has ever ap peared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its sup pression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.
It is important to distin guish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia volun tarily impose
In July, 1943, the Germans offered a reward of 100, 000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mikhailovich. The British press “splashed” the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mikhailovich; and the charges of collaborating with the Ger mans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish Civil War. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libeled in the Eng lish left‐wing press, and any statement in their defense, even in letter form, was re fused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the U.S.S.R. considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trot sky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — I believe the review copies had been sent out when the U.S.S.R. entered the war. The book was imme diately withdrawn. Not word about this has ever ap peared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its sup pression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.
It is important to distin guish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia volun tarily impose
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