Meeting

After the Rebellion, the Sunday-morning Meeting was established as the central democratic institution of Animal Farm. Following the hoisting of the green flag—a tablecloth painted with a hoof and horn to symbolize the future Republic of the Animals—all animals gathered in the big barn. There the work of the coming week was planned, resolutions were put forward and debated, and votes were taken. It was always the pigs who proposed the resolutions, but the other animals understood how to vote, and the Meeting ended with the singing of Beasts of England.

The Meetings became the arena for the rivalry between Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball, quick in speech and inventive, often won the majority with his brilliant oratory, while Napoleon, less talkative, canvassed support between meetings and used the sheep's bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad" to disrupt Snowball's speeches. The most bitter dispute was over the windmill. On the Sunday when the vote was to be taken, Snowball delivered a passionate appeal that seemed certain to carry the day. But Napoleon gave a signal, and nine enormous dogs—the puppies he had secretly raised—burst into the barn and chased Snowball off the farm. The Meeting had been violently overturned.

Immediately after Snowball's expulsion, Napoleon mounted the platform and announced that the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary and wasted time, he said. In future, all questions of farm policy would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself, meeting in private. The animals would still assemble on Sundays to salute the flag, sing Beasts of England, and receive their orders, but there would be no more debates. Squealer was sent to explain that this sacrifice was necessary to prevent the return of Jones, and the animals accepted it. The democratic forum had been replaced by a one-way transmission of commands.

In the years that followed, the Sunday assembly became a ritual of obedience rather than deliberation. Napoleon, surrounded by his dogs, read out the week's orders in a gruff soldierly style. The singing of Beasts of England was eventually abolished and replaced by a hymn to Napoleon. Spontaneous Demonstrations—military-style marches with banners and speeches—were instituted to celebrate the farm's struggles. The pigs moved into the farmhouse, slept in beds, and eventually began walking on their hind legs, carrying whips. The final degradation of the Meeting came when the farm was renamed Manor Farm, the green flag was stripped of its symbols, and the animals' assembly was replaced by a card game between pigs and human farmers, where the faces of pig and man became indistinguishable. The Meeting had not merely been suppressed; its very memory was erased.