How does Napoelon use his power to control the animals?

After Snowball is chased out of the farm Napoleon, with Squealer as his right-hand “man”, assumes total control of the farm. To be able to control what the animals say and do Napoleon uses his intelligence and a number of techniques, these being the following: propaganda (relying mostly on lies) and intimidation.

Propaganda is the main aspect that allows him to control the animals, since it is because of this that most of them are on his side. Because the pigs have higher intelligence than the rest of the animals, it’s easy for him and Squealer to tell things that are not true, or completely true, and have them believe it. “He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions by yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and there where should we be?” (p 40) Here Squealer tells the animals that the reason why Napoleon is making all the decisions now is because they can make the wrong ones. And because of his way of acting before and his higher intelligence the animals believe Napoleon can never be wrong, especially Boxer, who is an important figure in the farm.

When he finds animals that do not go along with what he thinks, he uses intimidation to get them to stay silent. “The four young pigs who had protested when Napoleon abolished the meetings raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs.” (p 47) Napoleon has the now grown up puppies who are only loyal to him always around to threaten any animal who dares speak up against him. The animals that are against him have no option but to live in fear because of this.

Napoleon intimidates and lies to the animals to be able to have them where he wants them to be, doing what he wants them to do.