Animal Farm Allegory: Russian Revolution and Stalinism

The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath

On its surface, Animal Farm seems to be a simple tale about talking animals on a farm—a children's story, some might think. But this surface is the allegory, or story with a hidden political meaning, of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the civil war that followed (1918–20), and the later rise of Stalin's dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Parallels Between Napoleon and Josef Stalin

The novel draws clear parallels between Josef Stalin and the pig Napoleon. To serve his own ends, Napoleon distorts Old Major's idealized dream of equality and brotherhood for all animals as he rules the farm. In the same way, Stalin distorted the ideals of Marxist communism to feed his own desire for power and control in the Soviet Union.

The Shift to Totalitarian Rule

While Marxist communism gave workers control of production, Stalin's version gave the state control of production, paving the way for totalitarian rule. Stalin was an active participant in the Revolution of 1917, which overthrew Russia's Tsar Nicholas II. Stalin remained a high-ranking member of the government under Vladimir Lenin, the first head of the Soviet Union after the revolution. Then Stalin led the Communist Party in the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953.

The Conflict Between Snowball and Napoleon

In the same way in which Napoleon finds himself in conflict with the intellectual Snowball, Stalin battled Leon Trotsky, who had essentially served as Lenin's second-in-command, for the direction of the party and the Soviet Union after Lenin's death in 1924. After driving Trotsky into exile in 1929, Stalin took full control of the party and the country.

The Great Purge and Political Control

Once Stalin took control of the Soviet Union, he focused on eliminating any perceived threats to his power, culminating in the Great Purge of the late 1930s during which he had millions of people, including his political opponents, imprisoned or killed. In 1939, he entered into an alliance with Hitler (which ended in 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union). In the meantime, Stalin and his close supporters remained comfortable while the people of the Soviet Union suffered deprivation and hardship, both during wartime and after. The government used propaganda to inspire loyalty in the populace, and as in the world of Animal Farm, where propaganda failed, fear and intimidation succeeded.