Napoleon-Snowball rivalry

From the moment the pigs assumed the leadership of the Rebellion, two distinct temperaments emerged among them. Napoleon, a large, fierce-looking Berkshire boar, was not much of a talker but had a reputation for getting his own way; Snowball, more vivacious, quicker in speech, and more inventive, was nevertheless not considered to have the same depth of character. Together with Squealer, they elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought called Animalism, and held secret meetings in the barn to expound its principles. During the first days of the liberated farm, the two worked side by side: Snowball painted over the name Manor Farm with Animal Farm, inscribed the Seven Commandments on the barn wall, and threw the ribbons onto the fire, while Napoleon led the animals to the store-shed and served out double rations. Yet even then, the seeds of division were present—Snowball was the one who wrote and organized, whereas Napoleon quietly took charge of distribution and the young dogs' education.

By the first winter, the ideological fault line had become unbridgeable. At the Sunday Meetings, Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates, and it was noticed that they were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either made, the other could be counted on to oppose it. When Snowball proposed windmill to generate electricity, ease labor, and light the stalls, Napoleon declared himself against it from the start. Snowball closeted himself in the incubator shed, drawing elaborate plans with chalk on the floor, while Napoleon held aloof—until one day he arrived unexpectedly, examined the plans, and without a word lifted his leg and urinated over them. The farm split into two factions under the slogans "Vote for Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for Napoleon and the full manger." Only Benjamin refused to side with either.

The decisive confrontation came on the Sunday when the windmill question was to be put to a vote. Snowball delivered a passionate speech, conjuring a future of electric light, hot and cold water, and threshing machines, and carried the animals with him. Napoleon, who had spoken for barely thirty seconds, then stood up, cast a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, and uttered a high-pitched whimper. At that signal, nine enormous dogs—the puppies he had raised privately—burst into the barn and dashed straight for Snowball. Snowball barely escaped their snapping jaws, raced across the long pasture, and slipped through a hole in the hedge, never to be seen on the farm again. The dogs returned to Napoleon, wagging their tails to him as they had once done to Mr. Jones. Napoleon immediately abolished the Sunday Meetings, announced that all questions would be settled by a pig committee under his presidency, and the era of open debate was over.

In the weeks that followed, Napoleon systematically rewrote the history of the rivalry. He announced that the windmill would be built after all, claiming that the plans had been stolen from among his own papers and that his earlier opposition had been a tactical maneuver to get rid of the dangerous Snowball. Squealer explained that Napoleon had never really been against the windmill—it was all "tactics." When the windmill was destroyed by a storm, Napoleon blamed Snowball, declaring that the traitor had crept in at night and sabotaged the work of nearly a year. He pronounced a death sentence on Snowball, offered a bushel of apples for his capture, and claimed to detect Snowball's footprints leading toward Foxwood. Later, when food shortages and the hen rebellion threatened the regime, Squealer revealed that Snowball had been in league with Jones from the very start, that his apparent bravery at the Battle of the Cowshed was part of a plot to lure the animals to destruction, and that his wounds had been inflicted by Napoleon's teeth. The animals, confused but unable to resist, accepted these fabrications; even Boxer, after a moment of doubt, concluded that if Comrade Napoleon said it, it must be right.

The rivalry did not end with Snowball's physical expulsion. It became a permanent tool of terror and control. Any failure or misfortune was attributed to Snowball's secret agents lurking among the animals. The four pigs who had protested the abolition of the Sunday Meetings were forced to confess that they had collaborated with Snowball, and were then torn to pieces by the dogs. The three hens who led the egg rebellion confessed that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream. Confessions and executions multiplied, and the air grew heavy with the smell of blood. Snowball's name was systematically erased from the farm's history: the medal "Animal Hero, First Class," which he had been awarded after the Battle of the Cowshed, was now said to have been a legend spread by Snowball himself; in reality, he had been censured for cowardice. The very tune of Beasts of England, which Snowball had helped to popularize, was abolished as no longer needed, replaced by a hymn to Napoleon. By the end, the green flag bore only a hoof and horn, and later became a plain green field; the name Animal Farm was itself abandoned in favor of the original Manor Farm. The final irony was that the pigs, once sworn to equality, began walking on their hind legs, carrying whips, wearing Mr. Jones's clothes, and playing cards with the neighboring farmers, while the sheep bleated the new slogan: "Four legs good, two legs better." The rivalry had been won, but at the cost of everything the Rebellion had stood for.