Izvestia Prints Excerpts of Banned Orwell Novel

MOSCOW — The government newspaper Izvestia published two chapters of George Orwell’s anti-totalitarian novel “Animal Farm” today and said Soviet critics were wrong to maintain for years that it poked fun at socialism.

“It is good that the prose of this great English writer reaches our readers, albeit late,” it said of the latest move in the Soviet openness drive that has led to the publication of many banned books.