In today’s Washington Post, Pamela Constable describes the scene in Crimea, and it reminds me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Vladimir Putin is playing the starring role of Napoleon the pig. To consolidate his power, Putin is employing menacing dogs, just as Napoleon did. Constable writes:

As the referendum approached, the capital was calm, but the streets were filled with a swelling number of stocky security men on corners and outside government facilities … For the most part, they stood around looking tough, but their mere presence was intimidating …

As on Orwell’s farm, Crimea has a few skeptical donkeys, but most people are apparently gullible sheep:

Occasionally, I met someone who questioned the official line … One was a stocky former soldier in his 50s named Volodya who was downing shots of vodka between bites of potato salad at a working-class cafe. “They say my pension will go up, but so will this meal,” he said. “People in a crowd tend to hear slogans and get excited.”

In Orwell’s book, the animals are propagandized with “four legs good, two legs bad.” In Crimea, people are being told that the folks in Kiev have two legs. Constable talked to one person who: “confided that his parents had been won over by the barrage of pro-Russian propaganda warning of fascist threats from Kiev. ‘They told me to be careful and not to associate with people there,’ he said with chagrin. ‘It is like a demon that possesses people and they are no longer able to think.’” 

Finally, the Russian national anthem is stirring the nationalist sole in Crimea, just as “Beasts of England” did on Animal Farm. Constable says:

Even if you don’t know the lyrics, the state anthem of the Russian Federation is one of the most stirring national anthems ever written. This week, on assignment in Crimea, I heard it in full rousing splendor, sung by a chorus of uniformed young men standing at attention, and I had to catch myself from being swept up in the moment.