Animal Farm- Chapter 5

In chapter 4 the animals successfully manage to hold onto the farm when the farmer comes back to reclaim his land, and the animals killed in this battle were honored as "heroes" of a sort. Now the pigs have come to a crossroads because there are 2 different pigs who want to lead, but each has a different direction on where they'd like to take the farm. Snowball is the genuine pig who truly wants the farm to advance with the times by building modern conveniences like a windmill to lighten the work load. Napoleon is the pig who reminds me of a crooked politician. He makes the argument that the windmill idea is way too human, which is what they were wanting to avoid in the first place. The ideas of how to defend the farm from future attacks is also a issue of debate between the two pigs. Each pig has their own followers, which divides the farm community. Again, in a country there are always people who have different views on which direction they should go as a nation. The leaders have their own followers which causes a civil divide. In the book Napoleon chases Snowball out of the farm by force thus forcing the animals to recognize him as leader. Opposing him would almost mean certain death. Although the animals were scared they accepted Napoleon as their ruler and followed his orders, which were to build the windmill after all. Napoleon then recruits Squealer as his mouthpiece to explain to all the animals his reasoning for the decisions he has made, and to squash any doubts the animals might have had against Napoleon and his motives. In the end of chapter 5, Napoleon makes the windmill plan seem like it was his all along, and he opposed it only as a tactic to get rid of Snowball who now suddenly is a shady, untrustworthy enemy who only wanted the farm for evil purposes. Again, the animals of the farm just accept this as the truth.
This chapter specifically was really powerful to me because it's almost a certainty that every country will have 2 or more people vying for the leader position. Sometimes there is a truly genuine candidate while the other candidate is selfish and only wants to rule to push their own personal agenda. In the event that the bad candidate eliminates their competition, it's by force as a tactic to scare the people into being loyal to them. This also makes people too scared to ask questions about rules/laws/projects the new leader has put into place. After the leader comes to power they suddenly become too good to mingle among the rest of the people, and they often have their own person they designate to do their bidding and explain things to the people in a way that makes them seem like bleeding hearts.
I can see why this book had such a hard time getting published in the 1940's with all the war that was going on in the world back then.