It has been a little more than 80 years since English author George Orwell published his celebrated satirical novel Animal Farm in 1945. When I was in high school more than 50 years ago, Animal Farm was required reading. TIME would later include it among its 100 best English-language novels. Today, through my own informal observations, it seems increasingly difficult to find people under 50 who have read the novel, or, in some cases, even heard of it.
Stay with me. This journey back into literature and history has a point. Animal Farm is written as a beast fable. The animals of Manor Farm overthrow their irresponsible human owner, Mr. Jones, believing they can create a society in which animals will be equal, free, and prosperous. But something happens along the way. The revolutionaries who promised equality gradually became the new ruling class. The novel was a political allegory based largely on the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent development of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. The enduring lesson of Animal Farm is a movement's name and promises do not tell us how it will ultimately govern.
Fast-forward to 2026. The word "Nazi" is frequently thrown around in American political debate, including accusations directed at President Donald Trump and other conservatives. But history deserves greater precision than political name-calling. The Nazi Party's complete name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Again, Orwell's lesson is useful: judge political movements not simply by what they call themselves, but by what they propose to do with power. That brings us back to America. The Democratic Socialists of America's current national program proposes fundamental changes to the American constitutional structure.
Among other things, it calls for abolishing the Senate and Electoral College and replacing the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary selected by and subordinate to Congress. Americans ought to know these proposals exist and examine them for themselves.
That brings me to my generation. Baby Boomers, born between 1946 -1964, now approximately 62 to 80 years old.
Our generation grew up during the Cold War. We remember civil-defense discussions, nuclear fears, the Soviet Union, and Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev led the Soviet Union from 1953 until 1964. Americans heard Soviet leaders proclaim their confidence that communism would ultimately surpass capitalism. Meanwhile, Soviet advances in nuclear weapons, missiles, and space technology made the ideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union frighteningly real.
My generation received a heavy dose of anti-communist education and rhetoric. It would probably have been difficult for many Americans living through that period to imagine that, within their lifetimes, some of their children and grandchildren would openly embrace socialism and that some Americans would openly identify with communist ideas. But history moves in unexpected directions. The socialist/communist thought process has infiltrated politics from Capitol Hill to City Hall.
Perhaps young Americans who want to become revolutionaries fully understand the political systems they advocate. Perhaps some do not. Either way, there is an inexpensive place to begin the conversation. Go to the library. Find George Orwell. And read Animal Farm. The animals of Manor Farm still have something to teach us.