Editing Animal Farm (section)

===Animalism===
{{Redirect|Seven Commandments|the Noahide code|Seven Laws of Noah|The Bronx Is Burning episode|The Seven Commandments}}

Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally name Animalism, an allegoric reference to [[Communism]], not to be confused with [[Animalism (philosophy)|the philosophy of Animalism]]. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer partake in activities associated with the humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading), which were explicitly prohibited by the Seven Commandments. Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an [[allusion]] to the Soviet government's revising of history to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society.{{sfn|Rodden|1999|pages=48–49}}
[[File:Animal Farm artwork.jpg|thumb|Squealer sprawls at the foot of the end wall of the big barn where the Seven Commandments were written (ch. viii) – preliminary artwork for a 1950 strip cartoon by [[Norman Pett]] and Donald Freeman]]

The original commandments are:
# Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
# Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
# No animal shall wear clothes.
# No animal shall sleep in a bed.
# No animal shall drink alcohol.
# No animal shall kill any other animal.
# All animals are equal.

These commandments are also distilled into the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad!" which is primarily used by the sheep on the farm, often to disrupt discussions and disagreements between animals on the nature of Animalism.

Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:
{{ordered list|start=4
| No animal shall sleep in a bed '''with sheets'''.
| No animal shall drink alcohol '''to excess'''.
| No animal shall kill any other animal '''without cause'''.
| All animals are equal '''but some animals are more equal than others.'''
}}

Eventually, these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better" as the pigs become more [[anthropomorphic]]. This is an [[ironic]] twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which was supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political [[dogma]] can be turned into malleable [[propaganda]].{{sfn|Carr|2010|pp=78–79}}