Many great works have been inspired by events in history. George Orwell's Animal Farm provides an unusual outlook on the Russian Revolution and its leaders by using animals to represent their human counterparts. Orwell criticizes communist society and points out weaknesses in its governmental figures. He calls for a close examination of the treatment of Russian citizens and questions whether they had any rights at all. Most of the characters in Animal farm can be clearly identified with figures of the Russian Revolution. The book actually carries out much like the actual revolution. It starts out with hopes of an empire where all are equal and the unfair unjust leader, the czar, is thrown out. Then it moves on to where some individuals begin to take more power than is rightfully theirs. At the end the rulers have completely taken over and the kingdom is as it was under the original rulers.
Inside the animal farm there were very specific classes among the animals. At the top were the pigs. Each pig represented the most important players of the revolution. Old Major is identifiable with Lenin. He was an ideologist who dreamed of a wonderful government where all the animals could be equal and the humans, or the czars, were pushed out. Unfortunately his dream would never materialize. Then we are left with his followers. The first is Snowball who believed blindly in Old Majors ideals. He expected all the things Old Major expected in a new government, such as the welfare of the animals. In the Russian Revolution his counterpart would be Trotsky. Trotsky believed and wanted the same things as Lenin, and wanted to continue what Lenin had started. Then comes Napoleon. Napoleon was selfish and greedy. He did not want to share the decision-making position with any other animal. This was the same for Stalin. At first Napoleon and Snowball started sharing the decision making and would have debates about what course of action they would take. This worked for a very short period of time. Then Napoleon grew weary of long debates, and he thought he was in a position to make the decisions by himself. He then forced Snowball out of the farm and started to spread falsehood about Snowball to get the entire community of the farm against him. Stalin did the same thing against Trotsky and forced Trotsky into hiding away in Mexico, where he was eventually assassinated. Both Stalin and Napoleon ruined any hopes of equal and fare government and instead set up dictatorships. Then comes the final important pig, Squealer. Squealer did not make the decisions in the government but acted more like the controlled media as in the Russian government. His job was to influence
the people by exaggerating and re-writing history and sometimes fabricating
lies to gain the favor of the public opinion. The people would listen to him, and he would always listen to Napoleon.
Other animals were the worker class type citizens. The types of citizens range from hard working to passive and lazy. Molly, for instance, only cared about her ribbons, and wasn’t much of a thinker. All she wanted to do was eat sugar, and look pretty. Benjamin was a plain critic who always said “I’ve seen that before” and “It’ll
never work.” The cat was just indolent, and was always disappearing
whenever work had to be done. The ducks were too weak to be able to get much work
done. Then there were the donkeys which worked much harder than anybody and never thought of their own needs. The pigeons acted as message carriers
spreading propaganda between farms, spreading Napoleon’s words from farm
to farm, or as in the actual Russian Revolution with Stalin, country to country.
Although all these animals are very different, they all shared one common
trait. They were all weak. They all let Napoleon take over without much
resistance. Just like Stalin took over Russia.
These animals were too frail, too scared, or just lacked the intelligence required put an end to it. This is where the fault of the people resides. They should have stood up to Napoleon for what they fought for in the first place. The people must stand up to those who intend to destroy the system or else all is lost. I think that this story was a good representation of the actual Russian Revolution. But it is even more than that. It shows how people can let certain individuals accomplish anything just
because they do not feel like standing up to them. It is the fault of the people, according to Orwell, for letting such a condition exist in Russia. What started out to be a revolution based on rather strong and healthy ideals, became an avoidable dictatorship. It’s incredibly interesting to think of how a child can read just a happy animal farm story in this book; all is needed is a bit of historical background and the story altogether resembles so clearly 20th century Russian history, this of course thanks to Orwell’s machiavellian writing.













BIBLIOGRAPHY
· George Orwell, Animal Farm, Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1994
· http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/
· http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/animf.htm