George Orwell was a great writer; he created a book with many different qualities. Animal Farm is an allegory, fable, and a satire. He made the characters in the novel relate to real people and events in history. Examples such allegory would be Animalism compared with Communism, Snowball compared with Leon Trotsky, and Napoleon compared to Joseph Stalin. Animalism in many ways does symbolize Communism. Animalism for the animals would be a perfect land, no rich, no poor, and everyone is equal. They all would own the same amount of the farm. No animal would be above any other animal.
As in a communistic society, they would all work the same and receive the same. The government would own everything and they people would own the government. In both Animalism and Communism, their goal was a society in which the workers, not the capitalists, owned all the means of production. To reach this ideal situation, a transition period was needed, during which the government controlled the economy. The government guaranteed hospitalization, education, housing, and pension plans, as well as jobs. In Animal Farm, the animals did receive some of those features while Snowball was with them.
The people, as well as animals, in turn, gave up every indication of freedom. Thus, everyone would share equally in the benefits of production, and everyone would have an equal share in the goods that were produced. The government (pigs), regardless of demand, determined supply. Everyone was forced to work, so there was no competition for jobs. The true costs of production were not known. Wages were completely arbitrary, as were prices of goods. Animalism was created to represent communism, and it succeeded well. Snowball represents Leon Trotsky from World War One.
Snowball was young, smart, and a very good speaker. He was idealistic, and he wanted to make life for all animals easier and happier. Leon Trotsky also wanted to improve the life for all Russian people. For most of his life Leon Trotsky was a “man without a country,” banished from one land to another. He was exiled from many different countries. He organized the famous Red Army. Snowball was the plotter for the Battle of the Cowshed. Trotsky and Joseph Stalin struggled for leadership, as did Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball was chased away by Napoleons dogs.
Trotsky was chased away by Lenins secret police (KGB). George Orwell had a great talent in creating such a character as Snowball to symbolize Leon Trotsky. As for Napoleon, he represented Joseph Stalin. Napoleon was not a good speaker, and was not as clever as Snowball was. He was cruel, brutal, selfish, devious, and corrupt. His ambition was for power. He used dogs, Moses, and Squealer to keep the animals in control. Joseph Stalin was also not a good speaker, and was not as educated like Trotsky. He and Napoleon did not follow Marxs ideas.
He cared for power, and killed all that opposed him. He used KGB, allowed church, and propagandized. Stalin was probably the most ruthless and successful tyrant the world has known. Napoleon was also very cruel to the other animals. He created in the Soviet Union a totalitarian state in which the government controlled everything–all agriculture, all industry, the arts and sciences, sports, entertainment, the media, and religion, as did Napoleon to Animal Farm. To make sure that his commands were obeyed and that no one disagreed with him, Stalin employed a vast network of secret police.
Napoleon had guard dogs around him to make sure the animals obeyed him at all times. The victims of his campaigns of political terror included some of his followers. Stalin exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union in 1929 and had him assassinated in Mexico in 1940. Napoleon had his guard dogs chase off Snowball. Having dealt with the opposition Stalin, as well as Napoleon, was then supreme ruler. In a drive to industrialize and modernize the Soviet Union, he launched the first in a series of five-year plans in 1928. He declared, “We are 50 to 100 years behind advanced countries.
We must cover this distance in 10 years. ” Napoleon continued with Snowballs original plans to build the Windmill. Stalin ordered the collectivization of farms. When peasants resisted, he ordered the state to seize their land and possessions. Well-to-do farmers, called kulaks, especially resented collectivization. Determined to root out all opposition, Stalin showed no mercy to the rebellious kulaks. In 1932-33, he created a famine in Ukraine and liquidated some 3 million kulaks through death by starvation. Napoleon also created starvation by not feeding the other animals for everyday meals.
Stalin, Claiming that a number of Red Army officers and scores of old Bolsheviks were “plotting against the state,” Stalin had them executed. Napoleon had animals killed that admitted to plotting against him. Once again, George Orwell created an almost exact duplicate of World War One legends. George Orwell surely created this book as an allegory, because of all the symbolism that was in this novel. Symbolism is a main quality of this book, and without one knowing the history of World War One, the book would just seem nothing more than a group of animals that talk and sing.
