QUORA: George Orwell said, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." What does that mean?
answered by Alex Suchman, 2014

Time to dust off my old copy of Animal Farm.
While the novella is ostensibly a fairy tale-esque story of
farm animals, it's really a thinly veiled allegory for the
Soviet Union. The animals are led by a pair of pigs, Snowball
(Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin), who lead a rebellion against
the human owner of the farm. The animals successfully drive him
out and establish Animal Farm. They agree to adopt the Seven
Commandments of Animalism as their constitution. The most
important of these is the last commandment: "All animals are equal."

Napoleon runs Snowball off the farm and gives himself full leadership.
He gradually violates more and more of the commandments as his behavior
becomes increasing like that of their previous human master. The climax
comes years later when the animals spot Napoleon walking on his hind
legs while carrying a whip (violations of the commandments) & discover
that all the commandments have been reduced to simply "All animals are
equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Logically, this quote is nonsensical. To be equal means to be exactly
the same, so there cannot be more or less equal. You are either equal
or unequal. What it symbolizes is the open admission that the ideals
of social justice and equality that inspired the animal's revolution
will never come to fruition. Through all of Napoleon's previous
transgressions, the animals held on to the hope that they could create
the farm described by Old Major (Marx/Lenin). This line represents the
moment they are forced to let go of that dream, and shows that Napoleon
and the pigs have become just like the humans they overthrew. In this way,
it defines the central thesis of the book--that the Soviet Union has
abandoned the ideas that sparked its creation and adopted the oppression
and tyranny of the government it replaced.

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