Orwell wrote them as cautionary tales about the Stalinists in the West he’d seen up close and that ultimately led him to reject Communism.
The thing is, government, of ANY stripe, will strive to subjugate the people and consolidate it’s power. The Founders understood this. The Constitution provided for it. Those in power, decided, if you just, well, ignore the Constitution, anything is possible. Our first mistake was letting them get away with ignoring even one syllable. Letting them say that it was a ‘living’ document.
A side note on that, Orwell had seen the Reds up close while fighting with the Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. They and the Reds were on the same side, until the Communists decided they could do it without the Anarchists, and proceeded to purge them. Orwell barely escaped with his life due to his “allies.”
This is laid out in his Homage to Catalonia, a short but worthwhile read. His experiences in the Spanish Civil War really helped lay the groundwork for 1984 and Animal Farm.