Sixth Commandment: No animal shall kill any other animal

The Sixth Commandment, 'No animal shall kill any other animal,' was among the Seven Commandments painted on the tarred wall of the big barn in white letters visible from thirty yards away, intended as an unalterable law for the newly independent Animal Farm. This prohibition had been the final, emphatic note of Old Major's speech, delivered on the night he first stirred the animals to rebellion: 'No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.' The commandment was not merely a rule but the ethical cornerstone of Animalism, a promise that the new society would break utterly with the violence of human tyranny. The animals, who had just witnessed the destruction of Jones's whips and knives, accepted it with complete unanimity.

Not long after the Rebellion, Snowball, the most intellectually inventive of the pigs, declared that the Seven Commandments could be reduced to a single maxim: 'Four legs good, two legs bad.' This slogan was meant to make the principles accessible to the less intelligent animals, who struggled to memorize the full list. The sheep, in particular, took to bleating the phrase for hours on end, often at crucial moments of debate. Though the simplified version omitted any mention of killing, the original Sixth Commandment remained on the wall, and the animals still believed it to be in force, understanding that the prohibition against killing was absolute.

The first open violation of that absolute prohibition came during the wave of executions that followed the alleged discovery of Snowball's secret agents. Nine dogs, reared privately by Napoleon, tore the throats out of four pigs who had confessed to collaborating with Snowball; then a series of other animals—hens, a goose, a sheep—were likewise slaughtered on the spot for various confessions. The animals were horrified, but the terror was so overwhelming that none dared speak. A few days later, when the shock had partially subsided, Clover asked Muriel to read the Sixth Commandment from the wall. Muriel read: 'No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.' Somehow the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory. The Commandment had not been violated, they were told, for there was clearly good reason to kill traitors. The wording had been altered without any formal announcement, and the animals, lacking written records of their own, accepted the change.

This pattern of silent amendment was not unique to the Sixth Commandment. The Fourth Commandment, which had originally forbidden any animal to sleep in a bed, was later discovered to read 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,' and the pigs, who had moved into the farmhouse, slept between blankets. The Fifth Commandment, 'No animal shall drink alcohol,' was eventually found to have been amended to 'No animal shall drink alcohol to excess,' a change that conveniently allowed the pigs to consume whisky. Each modification was accomplished by the same method: a quiet alteration of the painted text, followed by Squealer's persuasive explanations that the animals' memories were faulty. The Sixth Commandment's revision was part of a coordinated erosion of every original prohibition that stood in the way of the pigs' privileges.

By the final chapter, the entire wall of the barn bore only a single commandment: 'ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.' The original Sixth Commandment—like the others—had been literally painted over. The ethical foundation of Animalism was replaced by a tautology that justified any inequality. In the same period, the pigs began walking on their hind legs, a direct violation of the principle that 'whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.' Squealer was the first, strolling awkwardly but with perfect balance across the yard, followed by a long file of pigs, all upright. Napoleon himself emerged last, majestically upright, carrying a whip in his trotter. The animals, huddling together, watched the pigs march around the yard. The sheep, trained to a new slogan, burst into a tremendous bleating: 'Four legs good, two legs better!' The old boundary between friend and enemy, between animal and human, had been erased. The final image of the novel—the faces of pigs and men indistinguishable, twelve voices shouting in anger, all alike—confirmed that the commandment against killing, like every other principle of the Rebellion, had been entirely abandoned. The pigs had become the very thing they had sworn to destroy.