Orwell’s Work Manipulated for Propaganda Purposes, Study Finds

The Cold War weaponization of George Orwell’s literature has created a lasting political legacy that continues to shape public discourse decades later, according to research published in the Journal of Strategic Security.

Intelligence agencies from both the United States and United Kingdom actively promoted Orwell’s works as anti-communist propaganda during the 1950s, transforming his nuanced political critiques into blunt ideological instruments against the Soviet Union.

Samantha Senn, a Justice, Law, and Criminality scholar, traces how “Animal Farm,” written in 1944, was deliberately reinterpreted and distributed to serve Western political interests. The novel, which Orwell conceived as a “fairy tale” allegory of the Russian Revolution’s descent into Stalinist authoritarianism, depicts ruling pigs who gradually betray revolutionary ideals until they become indistinguishable from the capitalist humans they once opposed.

Though the story implicitly critiques both Soviet communism and Western capitalism, Western intelligence agencies seized upon its anti-Soviet elements while downplaying any criticism of capitalist systems. The CIA and British intelligence services translated the book into multiple languages and distributed copies throughout Eastern Europe and the Middle East to advance anti-communist sentiment.

In 1950, following Orwell’s death, the CIA commissioned an animated adaptation of “Animal Farm” that significantly altered key elements of the original text. The film portrayed Snowball (representing Leon Trotsky) less sympathetically, emphasized contentment among animals on neighboring farms, and completely rewrote the ending to show the oppressed animals successfully overthrowing their pig rulers—a dramatic departure from Orwell’s bleaker conclusion.

While commercially unsuccessful, the animated adaptation found its way into classrooms across the United States and United Kingdom, reaching generations of students with its modified political message. The film was also translated and distributed internationally as part of broader Cold War information campaigns.

Intelligence agencies similarly promoted “1984,” Orwell’s dystopian vision of a world divided between three totalitarian superpowers. Despite being set in England and offering a more universal warning against authoritarianism, Western powers framed the novel primarily as a critique of Soviet-style governance.

Ironically, Soviet propagandists eventually appropriated “1984” for their own purposes, recasting it as a prediction of America’s future. Soviet media compared figures like FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President Ronald Reagan to Big Brother, demonstrating the remarkable adaptability of Orwell’s concepts across political boundaries.

This malleability has contributed to the enduring power of Orwell’s imagery and language in contemporary discourse. Terms like “newspeak,” “thoughtcrime,” and “Big Brother” have transcended their original contexts to become universal shorthand for government overreach, surveillance, and propaganda across the political spectrum.

“By ensuring that Orwellian concepts such as ‘Big Brother,’ and ‘some are more equal than others’ entered into the public lexicon,” Senn writes, these intelligence agencies “unwittingly provided the world with a vocabulary that is potentially well-suited to criticizing the United States in the twenty-first century.”

The lasting impact of these Cold War propaganda efforts is evident in how Orwell’s phrases—”Who controls the past controls the future,” “Some animals are more equal than others,” and “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears”—continue to resonate in modern political commentary across ideological lines.

Senn’s analysis highlights a profound irony: the same Western powers that once weaponized Orwell’s critiques of authoritarianism against their Cold War enemies have inadvertently provided future generations with powerful linguistic tools to critique all forms of state power, including their own.

This historical context provides essential background for understanding how literary works can be transformed into political instruments, and how such transformations can produce unexpected consequences that last well beyond their original strategic purposes.