Overall, is life is better or worse for the animals in Animal Farm since the revolution?

With 's having
written following his dillusionment with Communism, it is,
indeed, apparent that the lives of the animals have not been improved, especially afterbecomes
dictatorial. In the end, they suffer. 

• At first when everyone
  works together to get the hay in, their efforts are profitable.  However, after a time the
  animals realize that the pigs enjoy the cow's milk in their mash, and the "windfalls"
  such as the ripening apples are not shared, but brought to the harness room for the pigs (Ch.
  3).
• Then, in , the animals must engage in battle with the humans [the
  Battle of the Cowshed], and some of the sheep are killed.
• is expelled from
  the farm when Napolen has his dogs chase him. After this act,begins his propaganda, telling the
  animals that they must work harder and be very loyal and obedient, beginning his campaign of
  fear and propaganda,

Discipline, comrades,
iron discipline!  That is the watchword for today.  One false step and our enemies would be upon
us.  Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?"

• Craftily, Squealer tells the animals that Napoleon wanted the windmill, but
  he pretended to oppose it as a manoeuvre to rid the farm of Snowball. Unsure of the truth of
  this statement, the other animals do not protest because the three dogs of Napoleon growl at
  them in a threatening manner.
• opens with "All that year the animals
  worked like slaves." In order to build the windmill, they work sixty hours a week; the work
  is strictly controlled.exerts himself so much that he later become debilitated.  Later, all the
  work of the animals is for nought as the windmill is destroyed by raging winds in the
  winter.
• The food begins to run out.  When the hens learn that they must
  surrender all their eggs to be sold for grain in order to sustain the farm, they are outraged
  and roost in the rafters and lay their eggs so that they will smash onto the floor. Some of them
  die.
• When a mild uprising occurs, it is squelched by Napoleon, who forces
  some of the animals to confess, then they are all killed.

When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for
the pigs and dogs, crept away in a body.  They were shaken and miserable.

• By , the animals live in terror from having witnessed
  the execution of their fellow beasts.  Then, they are subjected to another battle against men;
  four animals die and almost all the others are wounded. Again, the windmill on which they have
  worked for two years is destroyed.
• By , Napoleon has begun drinking and
  sleeping in the house. Boxer's split hoof takes a long time, but he works every day.  Whereas
  the retirement age has been set at certain ages for different animals, no animal has yet been
  allowed to retire and draw a pension.

Meanwhile life was hard.  The winter was as cold as the last one had been, and food was
even shorter. 

• Even though the farm has a
  fairly successful year, it remains short of money. The barley is reserved for the pigs only
  while the other animals feel that their lives are "hungry and laborious."


• Having labored so on the new windmill, Boxer's lung collapses and he cannot get up;
  pretending sympathy Comrade Napoleon pretends that he calls a veterinarian, but in reality he
  sends Boxer off to the slaughterer.
• In , years have passed, but "no
  animal had actually retired."  The young animals born on Animal Farm are brainwashed by the
  propaganda and are "very stupid."