Animal farm

Jorge Mejía Valenzuela
Mr. Michael Jeffrey Kosh
Monday March 22, 2010
Animal Farm: The Allegory of the Russian Revolution
Animal Farm is a book written by George Orwell and published in 1945. It’s the story of how some animals in a farm get their independence from the human being and struggle to survive afterwards. This resembles the Russian revolution, in which the Russian proletariatoverthrew the imposing czar Nicholas II and afterwards had a period of happiness only to get a new imposing ruler after that. Animal farm is an excellent allegory (Kosh) for the Russian revolution, as it exposes several similar events of the Russian revolution, but it however, has some content that differs a lot from the original Russian revolution, making it a good but not perfect allegory.
TheAnimal Farm course of events almost mimics the Russian revolution. The book starts with people hearing old major’s dream for an equal society and yearning that themselves, which mimics Karl Marx’s political view and how the Russians embraced his doctrine. This doctrine consists of people being neither rich nor poor, everyone being equal, and the government owning everything but at the same time thepeople owning the government (Kosh). Animalism also has equality and the same social class for everyone, and instead of people owning the government everybody owns the farm (www.kimmelskorner.com). The animals of the farm also embraced that doctrine that is basically the same as communism.
After the animalism doctrine is introduced to us, the actual animal revolution and the betrayal of Snowball onNapoleons behalf happens, which for the Russians it was the revolution and the power struggle between Trotsky and Stalin. After this there’s the rule of Napoleon and the extremely harsh work of building the windmill with failed attempts, which mimics Stalin’s harsh rule and his 5-year plans. The 5-year plans were brutal time limit goals Stalin placed in his people that consisted on doubling theproduction of the country in 5 years and then doing it again in other 5 years (Kosh). While the point of the windmill wasn’t this, the amount of work Napoleon made the animals do to be able to build it was over human and he intimidated his people by making his hounds threaten them. Even the name of the place the events take place is changed after the respective revolutions (Kosh).
The story isn’tthe only thing that mimics the Russian revolution; the characters of the story do so as well. Mr. Jones, for instance, represents the czar (www.kimmelskorner.com), as he was described as a drunk who once was good at ruling but harsh times made him become a terrible ruler, which happened with the czars in general (Kosh). Napoleon represents Stalin and Snowball Trotsky, as Napoleon led Snowballinto exile and betrayed him to get into power, and besides has his very own secret police and had complete control over the animals in the farm (Sparkntes.com). I think that Old Major represents Karl Marx (www.kimmelskorner.com) and not Lenin, because although it was his beliefs that lead to the animal revolution, he didn’t participate in the revolution and his ideas led to it, the exact thing thathappened with Karl Marx (Kosh), and besides the fact that he says he doesn’t know when it will happen. Moses, in my opinion, represents the Russian Orthodox church (www.kimmelskorner.com), as he talks to the animals of a better place beyond called “Sugar candy Mountain”, which resembles heaven (sparknotes.com) and animals cherish to go to while the rulers can’t believe the proletariat believesthat and yet do nothing to scare Moses away. Boxer represents the hard working people of Russia who only want the best for their nation, as he represents the incredible potential of the Russians and their will to do more work to get that which they yearn so much. I think he also represents the people because once he was no longer useful for his rulers’ purposes, he was just disposed and not even...