how is propaganda used in chapter 5 animal farm

Under Napoleon, as under Stalin, propaganda takes on a much-expanded and more powerful role in this chapter. Specifically, Squealer comes to represent Stalin’s revisionist propaganda machine. No sooner than Snowball is gone, Squealer is already questioning Snowball’s bravery in the Battle of the Cowshed. Notably, Squealer claims that the windmill was Napoleon’s idea all along. Whether this is true or not, it certainly seems like revisionist history.

With the exhumation of old Major’s skull, Orwell makes the point that propaganda is often effective not simply for its message but for the atmosphere of domination it creates. Napoleon is changing Major’s ideas in order to create his own personal regime in the same way that Stalin changed Marxism-Leninism. Still, he makes the animals march past Major’s skull as though they are still adhering to the old boar’s exhortations.