Animal farm

COMPARISON BETWEEN ANIMAL FARM AND THE SOVIET UNION’S (U.S.S.R.) COMMUNIST REGIME

The Settings
* Animal Farm, known at the beginning and at the end of the novel as Manor Farm, symbolizes Russia and the Soviet Union under the Communist Party rule.

Actually, Animal Farm represents any human society, be it socialist, fascist, capitalist or communist, because even if George Orwell was asocialist, in his novella he tried to criticize any human regime that could be seen at the beginning as a good one for the welfare of society but at the end, the power corrupts the leader and the regime becomes the opposite, or even worse than the former one.
So, though any readers think that the novella encloses a critique only against the Communist System in the USSR but instead Orwell tried toenclose the whole social phenomenon of totalitarianism, it doesn’t matter the acronyms of the political ruling parties.

Animal Farm, as the USSR, possesses the internal structure of a nation, with a government (the pigs), a police corps (the dogs), a working class (the other animals), the Church (the tame raven Moses), an anthem (Beasts of England), rituals (as military parades, the flag-raisingceremony)…

Animal Farm is also depicted as a nation (as the USSR was) amid a group of neighboring farms as if they were real nation to which Animal Farm sign or break diplomatic relationships and make business (as when they sell Boxer, the horse, in exchange of a crate of whisky).

* The windmill in Animal Farm represents all the projects that were carried out in the USSR in order to makethe country the most powerful in the world. Nonetheless, the windmill project is an example of how the pigs were exploiting the rest of the animals for their own gain. When the windmill collapsed the first time, the pigs say that Snowball (the exiled pig) was the responsible of it. This is an example of how the pigs never acknowledge their blame and always use propaganda to keep all the animalsunder control against a supposed enemy.

The characters
Most of the characters in Animal Farm are based on real ruler and participants in the Soviet Union and the previous revolution. Some of the most relevant characters are stated below with their historical real counterparts:

* Old Major (allegory of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin)
Old Major was a pig and the oldest animal in the farmthat had once a dream and when he felt his time had come he revealed it to all the animals. His dream was a vision of a socialist society in which all the animals were equal. He taught the basic commandments and the anthem of that society he encourages the animals to fight for.
We can clearly compare Old Major with both the German Karl Marx who was the “father” of Communism and the Russianrevolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.

* Mr. Jones (allegory of Tsar Nicholas II)
Mr. Jones was the drunken farmer who owned the Manor Farm before the animals carried out the revolution. He was actually a bad farmer because he didn’t treat animals well and once he forgot to feed them and this fact triggered the revolution. Mr. Jones is depicted as Tsar Nicholas II whose term of office was full ofriots until he was ousted.

* Snowball (allegory of Leon Trotsky)
Snowball is a pig that, at the beginning of the revolution is in charge of Animal Farm as well as Napoleon. Nonetheless, he was a great ideologue who was convinced that Animalism (the allegory of Socialism in the novel) was the best political ideology for the good of animals so he tried hard to spread it worldwide and to improveAnimal Farm’s infrastructures and to teach animals how to read in order for them to acquire a good level of literacy. For all of this, he was seen as a liability for Napoleon who ousts him. This is an allegory of Trotsky’s life and final fate.

* Napoleon (allegory of Joseph Stalin)
Napoleon is the pig that becomes the leader of Animal Farm after the revolution. This is why he is based on...