Politburo2[1]

THE SOVIET POLITBURO:

A PANEL OF JUDGES

BROOKE ALLEN, ANNA DER

MS. PAVELKA

ENGLISH 1H B, PERIOD 5

27 MARCH 2012

In the words of iconic American Idol judge Simon Cowell, “No.” And queue the shattering of hopes and the death of dreams–because it only takes a powerful man’s single word to deny a person; their future; their aspirations; and in the case of Soviet Russia, to deny you their life. In political allegory (to Russia after the Communist Party coup) Animal Farm, George Orwell mocks human animal stupidity–exactly what the ideologist Karl Marx himself did not account for in his plan for a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

Although Communism is traditionally about the rule of the people, the Soviet Union was actually run by a political party called the Politburo. Their influence in Soviet society came to represent just how the face of Communism had been altered in a totalitarian country.

HISTORICAL EVENTS• During the October Revolutions in 1917, the Politburo ran for a

period of 2 weeks and was created “to provide political leadership”

• The Politburo was re-elected in 1919 by the Central Committee and ran until 1952, when Stalin replaced it with his Presidium

• After Stalin’s death when the Politburo was re-established by the Central Committee, it ran more like a General Assembly on individual perspectives rather than political view points

• The Soviet-Politburo ended in 1991 following the August Coup

As Marx believed true Communism was “a form of complete socialism in which the mean of production…would be owned by the people…All goods and services would be shared equally” (Beck et al. 303). In Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, this was not the case. Meant to be a rule of the people by all of the people, Russia soon turned into a dictatorship of the few. The Politburo, a single-digit membered group of the more prominent Soviet leaders that ruled the Communist Party, “began making the day-to-day high-level decisions of government” ("Grigori Evseevich Zinoviev” para. 6).

The few–that originally included Vladimir Ilyrich Lenin and also Joseph Stalin–became synonymous in their jobs to the controlling monarchal regime they had once intended to eradicate. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the same thing happens to the pigs that take the role of leadership–Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer. Once the animals take over the farm, the irony of the situation is clear to see. While the working animals have to slave the same as they did under Mr. Jones and considerably even harder, now, the pigs get the pampered treatment of all the milk, all the apples, and all the power–the same materials the animals once envied of the humans.

The Politburo had become the new nobility of Russia and all in the same manner. This makes, if anything, a complete joke of the seventh and the “most important” commandment of Animalism–“All animals are equal” (Orwell 25; ch. 2). They faltered at the underlying principle of every average teenager’s hopes and dreams growing up in angst, to become nothing like their parents. The oppressed had become the oppressors.

“Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev and the Politburo…crushed all political disagreement” (Beck et al. 612). In a familiar story, Orwell describes the political debates among the animals, “It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions” and “Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates” (31; ch. 3); showing, that truly any of the important decisions were the result of only a single animal’s opinion. Fact of the matter is that the exact opposite of what Marx intended in his manifesto occurred. In a grueling process of nature, the tables had turned, and too fast for the eye to see.

As the Russian citizens transitioned into a new world, many were left petrified by the infamous KGB, the group that stood as the main enforcers. Little did they realize the KGB was only the bronze that masked the brains–the Politburo. Not only were they a group of political adherers, but also as stated in the magazine Foreign Policy “Vast archival evidence accumulated over the post-communist years proves that [they were]…also directly responsible for the executions of innocent people” (Rodgers para. 8). If Animal Farm had not been an allegory and if it was not a moral atrocity to rape the connotation of precious farm animals then maybe Orwell might have depicted the mass amounts of genocide that was actually achieved.

A New York Times article from 1992 announced, “The Russian Government today [October 15] for the first time made public secret documents revealing that Stalin’s Politburo in March 1940 had specifically ordered the execution of more than 20,000 Poles, including nearly 5,000 senior Polish Army officers, whose bodies were dumped in a mass grave in the forest of Katyn [as reference to the Katyn Massacre]” (Bohlen para. 1). Most active in savage role-play under Stalin, the Politburo should have been represented by a ferocious bear or an extremely pissed off panther…because a donkey or an elephant just would not have been enough.

Failure to act under the Rule of Law, failure to endeavor the ideals of Communism, and failure to break the stereotype that has molded history’s greatest leaders–that absolute power corrupts absolutely; Russia under the Politburo makes a true Communist want to ask themselves, “What the bloody hell was that?” Life under new rule was not supposed to be oppressive; life under new rule was not supposed to be like an American hit TV show where three judges decided fate. But then again, the Soviet Union was not supposed to be something that ended either.

JUST REMEMBER“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”–Margaret Meade

WORKS CITED 

Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Larry Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. Modern World History:

Patterns of Interaction. California ed. Sacramento: McDougal Littell, 2006. Print.

Bohlen, Celestine. "Russian Files Show Stalin Ordered Massacre of 20,000 Poles in 1940." New York Times 15 Oct.

1992. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 26 Mar. 2012.

"Grigori Evseevich Zinoviev." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998.Gale Student Resources In

Context. Web. 26 Mar. 2012.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Signet Classics, 1996. Print.

Rodgers, Walter. "How Russians survived militant atheism to embrace God."Christian Science Monitor 16 June

2011. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 26 Mar. 2012.

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