Final Word from Wednesday, July 24, 2013
George Orwell stated in his private letters that Animal Farm was a condemnation of Joseph Stalin. In a Dec. 1946 letter, he wrote: "I meant the moral to be that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job. The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves. If the other animals had had the sense to put their foot down then, it would have been all right." He wrote in the same letter that, "People have grown pessimistic and assume that there is no alternative except dictatorship or laissez-faire capitalism." Miloš Zeman has done his job of ousting the laissez-faire Nečas government. What will his own milk & apples moment now be? When the Rusnok cabinet fails to win confirmation on the first attempt ... and Zeman insists on keeping it in power anyway.[Czech Republic autocracy autocrat New York Review of Books]
Glossary of difficult words
Napoleon - the lead pig and biggest villain of Animal Farm, meant to symbolize Stalin;
to chuck out - to throw something out or away;
to put one's foot down - to adopt a firm policy when faced with opposition or disobedience;
laissez-faire - a policy or attitude of allowing things to take their course, without interfering.