mechanistic, not particularly cruel but essentially heartless, Napoleon's methods of control are always changing. Mr. Jones would have begun his career as a farmer thinking of himself as completely different from the animals, rather as Tsar Nicholas II saw himself as the representative of God on earth, a different species from the Russian peasantry. Napoleon begins the book as one of the animals, just as Stalin was one of the people. Throughout the book, the pigs are gradually separated from the other animals, and Napoleon from the other pigs, to create a difference of caste that was natural and inevitable for Mr. Jones.

Because Napoleon is one of the animals, he constantly has to justify his rule in a way that Jones never did. He accomplishes this through two main methods: violence and propaganda. The violence is there from the beginning: Napoleon uses the dogs to get rid of his rival, Snowball, but it becomes more extreme throughout the book as Napoleon uses more vicious methods to crush dissent. Jones would never have thought of doing this, since he had no idea that dissent was possible until it was too late. He would also never have considered persuading the animals of the legitimacy of his rule, as Napoleon does, with propaganda, which becomes ever more detached from reality.

In Animal Farm by George Orwell, following their revolt against Mr. Jones, the animals enjoy a brief honeymoon period in which their lives are better. Thus, they are happy to be autonomous initially:

The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals were.

The situation begins to deteriorate. Orwell writes, “If they had no more food than they had had in Jones's day, at least they did not have less.” Moreover, they soon begin to work harder than they had and their lives under Napoleon end up being similar to under Jones. They also have less to eat and most of the food they produce goes to the pigs and dogs. Orwell writes that “starvation seemed to stare them in the face.” It is clear that the pigs and the dogs get much more food than the others.

Moreover, the dream of retirement and of leisure never materializes. In fact, they work harder under Napoleon and their demise is equally as unpleasant as it was under Jones. For instance, when Boxer is injured, he is taken to “the knacker's," just as if Mr. Jones was still in charge.

Moreover, Napoleon proves himself to be a tyrant in many ways. In addition to the significant disparity between the ration for the pigs and the dogs compared to all the others, Napoleon decides important changes by himself without consulting the others. It is not a democracy, as they had anticipated it would be. For instance:

One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders, Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy…if more money were needed, it would have to be made up by the sale of eggs... The hens, said Napoleon, should welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution…

Like many other tyrants, Napoleon begins to investigate and punish his enemies. He “decreed that there should be a full investigation into Snowball's activities.” The animals also come to fear him. “One afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the animals to assemble in the yard... They all cowered silently in their places, seeming to know in advance that some terrible thing was about to happen.”

The way that the animals live under Napoleon is essentially no different than the way they lived under Jones.  There is only one real difference that I see -- no animals are killed for food under Napoleon (although Boxer is killed for money, but at least it is after he is already pretty close to death).

Under Napoleon, the animals have little choice in what happens to them.  They have to do what Napoleon says or they will die.  The same was true under Jones.  To me, this means that little has changed.

Napoleon is similar to Jones because he is using the animals' work to make a comfortable life for himself.  He cares mainly about himself (and the pigs) and does not care if he is being fair to the other animals.

Before Old Major dies, he convenes a meeting where he tells all of the animals that their problems lie with man. If the animals remove Man from their lives then they will never be hungry or overworked again. He says that animals would never treat each other the way Mr. Jones treats the animals on his farm. After Old Major dies, Mr. Jones gets drunk more often, and beats the animals so much, that one weekend when they are neglected they revolt and throw him off the farm. The whole point of getting rid of Mr. Jones is so they can have a happier and more productive life. 

Once on their own, they create seven commandments about never becoming anything like humans, such as, never wearing clothes, sleeping in beds, drinking alcohol, and killing other animals. Every animal is to be considered equal and anything that walked on two legs except for chickens is an enemy. All seems safe and organized for most of the time, but slowly Napoleon demands more work from the animals with less food and no vote. For example, Napoleon creates a contract with the attorney Mr. Whymper for 400 eggs a week from the chickens. The result is as follows:

"When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry. They had been warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not believed that it would really happen. They were just getting their clutches ready for the spring sitting, and they protested that to take the eggs away now was murder" (68-69).

The situation with the hens shows that Napoleon did not take their opinions into account when he made the deal with Whymper, which creates an unequal relationship between him and the hens. This situation is minor, though, compared to the many lies Napoleon tells the animals in order for him to gain control of the farmhouse, live off of their labor, and control their lives.

Another way Napoleon secures his position as leader and dictator is by raising puppies to be his bodyguards. Napoleon is cunning and patient. He shapes and molds the puppies to love, protect, and obey him. He makes them fighters against anyone who might challenge Napoleon; and out of fear, he gains control over the weak and the weak-minded. 

By the end of the book Napoleon is walking on two legs, wearing clothes, sleeping in beds, drinking alcohol, killing other animals and considering himself more equal than others. He does not respect the other animals and he does not treat them like equals. Napoleon probably becomes worse than Mr. Jones in the end. The final scene shows Napoleon drinking and playing cards in the farmhouse with other humans at his table. The irony is that the animals end up with exactly what they had fought and worked so hard to eliminate--a "Man" for a leader.

The conditions on the farm are far worse under Napoleon than under Mr. Jones and this is shown most clearly through the use of violence. Mr. Jones, for example, commonly used a whip against the animals, as we learn in Chapter One. His farmhands also used a whip on the day of the Rebellion in Chapter Two.

Napoleon, on the other hand, uses deadly violence against the animals.  He trains Jessie and Bluebell's puppies as his own personal bodyguards, for instance, and then sets them on Snowball in Chapter Five. He also brutally slaughters some pigs and the rebellious hens in Chapter Seven. Later, in Chapter Nine, he sells Boxer to a glue manufacturer so that he can use the money to buy alcohol.

Napoleon, then, is far more violent and self-interested than Mr. Jones ever was.

For one thing, the animals did not work as hard or as much under Jones.  They had work time and they had down time.  They all realize this, but not many discuss it as they are beginning to question what they truly remember since the rules on the barn keep changing.  The animals also never went hungry under Jones.  Everyone had enough to eat and enough time to recover from the work of the farm.  The animals were led to believe (by the pigs) that they were suppressed and treated unfairly which led to the rebellion and the ousting of Jones.

Under Napoleon, the animals are manipulated to work harder for longer hours, and then they are not all equally sharing the benefits.  For instance, the cows milk more, but the pigs get the milk.  Boxer works harder and longer, and is sent to the glue factory without hesitation.  The pigs are no better than Jones...in fact, they are worse since they do not show any remorse or feeling for the treatment of the animals they propose.  They reap all the benefits and do none of the work.

There isn't a huge amount of difference in the way that Mr. Jones and Napoleon treat the farm animals. Neither of them could care less about the animals's welfare. However, Napoleon is much more ruthless and efficient than his human predecessor. His cruelty towards the animals is systematic and unrelenting, driven by a fanatical ideology which, ironically, is supposed to liberate the animals from oppression.

Napoleon is also much more clever than Mr. Jones, who spends most of his time getting drunk instead of attending to the farm. Though as we will discover later on in the story, Napoleon comes to develop a taste for alcohol himself, which he indulges on a regular basis after cynically changing one of the Seven Commandments of Animalism from "No animal shall drink alcohol" to "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess."

I would suggest that they are identical, at least in performance.  Mr. Jones makes no pretense of creating a better world, a new social order, for the animals.  He is a capitalist.  He takes care of the animals when it is to his advantage.  The animals seem OK with this until the speech of the Old Major.

Napoleon, on the other hand, is one of them.  He uses the idealism of the Old Major to convince the animals that there is something better for them and that he can deliver it to them.  In this way, he is worse than Jones who made no pretext of improving the lot of the animals.  In fact, he creates and entire class of leeches that live off the work of the rest of the animals.

Give me Jones.  At least we know what we're getting.

The similarities: Both regimes are totalitarian states, one run by a Monarchy, one by a Dictatorship.  They repress the population by a lack of education, brutal work conditions and lack of food.  This keeps the working animals looking for survival more than anything else.  At the end, when the animals cannot tell the difference between the pigs and the Mr. Jones, it is meant to represent that the other animals just traded one harsh reality for another, and their lives are no different

The differences: While Mr. Jones represents a top down type of repression, with Napoleon in place, the animals feel, at the beginning, that they are in control of their destiny.  At the end they find out differently.

Orwell uses various elements to convey the differences and similarities to Jones' control and that of Napoleon. When Jones ran the farm, the animals were mere slaves, there to do their master's bidding and to feed his greed. To ensure his comfort. The animals were regarded as property and treated as such. They worked themselves to death, literally. When their usefulness was over, they were either brutally slaughtered or sold. There was no provision for retirement. No animal lived a full life. Life was hard and laborious, except of course, for Mr Jones' favourites: Old Major, Mollie, Moses. They served another purpose, however.

Although the lives of the animals devolve into typically the same situation as in Jones' time, there are differences. The animals do not feel the need to rebel against the tyrannical control exercised by Napoleon. Essentially, they are, on the whole, apathetic, best illustrated by Benjamin's refusal to either agree or disagree. Even though there are periods of protest, these are soon suppressed by Napoleon's swift and brutal retribution in which he uses the dogs to tear out the throats of those who have 'betrayed' him, or starving to death those who have disobeyed his instructions (the hens who refuse to give up their eggs for sale).

The animals meekly accept Napoleon's rule for various reasons: Firstly, it is better to be treated in this manner by their own kind, rather than by a grudging human. They are loyal and will sacrifice everything to display that. What a noble act! Secondly, they believe that whatever is done is executed in their best interest. Squealer, through his propaganda and misinformation, makes sure that they understand that. Thirdly, the animals are terribly afraid. The threat of the dogs tearing out their throats, after they have witnessed these atrocities, drive them into submission. Also, there is the constant threat that, "Jones would come back." In the fourth place, the animals are naive, gullible, uneducated and generally unintelligent.

They cannot remember, and this fact is grandly exploited by Napoleon whenever he has Squealer change the commandments. The animals trust that the pigs know better since they are, after all, more intelligent. This clearly indicates that the other animals feel incompetent and they therefore lack the confidence to challenge either Napoleon or any other pig.

Furthermore, Napoleon introduces a militaristic system on the farm. Animals have to report for duty at specific times and on specific days. They have to stand to attention. It becomes their duty to celebrate specific events and to address Napoleon as 'leader'. This, in itself stifles any individualistic tendencies or the expression of free thought. The animals are kept in a constant state of exhaustion, which, in itself, discourages any desire to rebel or even think. It is hard enough for the animals to perform all that labour and to think will require more effort which very few of them are capable of, after all.

Another aspect one should consider is Boxer's almost unyielding loyalty to Napoleon and the farm. The other animals find inspiration in his maxims: 'I will work harder' and 'Napoleon is always right'. In his simple-minded way, Boxer thinks that he is doing good, but ironically, his loyalty unequivocally encourages the other animals to accept their exploitation as being 'for the greater good.'

So, in conclusion, one can therefore say that the conditions on the farm are far worse than they could have been at any time during Jones' reign. The animals have been suckered into accepting a totalitarian system because they believe that they are been better off than before. What a terribly disastrous and tragic irony! 

I agree. It's much worse especially since the propoganda that was used by the pigs to convince the other animals that they were being mistreated, abused, etc. is the same things that they themselves are doing to their own kind. In fact, that is the exact definition of irony. The outcome is expected to be different because of the change that was brought about but it was more tyrannical and hypocritical than before.

It's the same thing ... perhaps worse.  I say worse because under Jones the oppression came from another species or class.  When Napoleon takes over he is one of their own and he offers them hope that things will be better with new leadership.  What the animals finally wind up seeing is that the problem isn't with who is the leader, but with the whole problem of leadership.  They also learn that what those who seek to lead them say often has no bearing on what actually happens in the end.  At least Jones made them no promises; Napoleon offered them a better life, an earthly paradise, and delivered them Jones II.

I would say that one of the major comparisons that Orwell makes between the styles of leadership under Napoleon and Farmer Jones lies in how the former uses the latter.  Orwell constructs a setting where Farmer Jones is used as the constant "boogey man" by the Pigs.  Squealer employs the vision or notion of Farmer Jones as the representation of all that is evil and wrong in the world.  In doing so, he guarantees that the animals cannot question the world around them.  Farmer Jones is associated with oppression, unfairness, and exploitation.  In this, Napoleon and the Pig leadership ensures that he will never be forgotten.  While they are doing this, they are mimicking the same repressive tendencies of Farmer Jones.  The animals' lives shows no real sign of improvement as the leadership of the Pigs takes hold.  Each time an animal raises the slightest hint of questioning, they are accused of wanting to bring back Farmer Jones and the immediate demonizing of Farmer Jones begins.  In this, Orwell is making the point that regimes and political orders benefit from blaming their predecessors while they might be doing the exact same thing in order to consolidate their own base of power.