At 14 years of age, I had picked up Animal Farm from the school library, given its slim width at only 90 pages. Back then, it wasn’t anything more than a story about animals acting like human beings to me. Now that I got my hands on it again, rereading it after years, knowing the significance of depth in politics and opinions, I wonder how George Orwell so brilliantly managed to inscribe a significant piece of history with such brutal yet straightforward honesty.
To start, the short novella is an allegory reflecting the events of the Russian Revolution spanning over the six years from 1917-1923. Allegory uses symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence, or a work of art that is presented in a certain way but can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Eric Arthur Blair, or as popularly known by his pen name, George Orwell, was born in a wealthy family in the Bengal Presidency of British India but soon traveled all over to different commonwealth countries. His experiences traveling and living through both the World Wars shaped his critical views of the politics that prevailed in that era. He identified himself as an atheist and humanist. He was a devout follower of socialism, and a constant critic of autocracy, which led to these kinds of literary work to be honored in his name, as being called “Orwellian.” Being a socialist democratic, his opposition to totalitarianism was quite evident in his books and his early work in journalism.
Orwell wrote and published his first political satire Animal Farm in 1945, amidst a lot of personal loss, and soon became a global sensation as it was relatable to millions in the post-war. It was the simplicity with which the horrific tale was told, which resonated with people.
Later, Orwell followed Animal Farm’s success in 1949 with his novel titled “1984”, a nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff’s attempt to find individuality. This dystopian political drama set Orwell’s name as one of the greatest literary icons of all time.
So, how does Animal Farm rematerializes the occurrence of the Russian Revolution? Let’s find out by taking a deep dive between the lines.
*At this point, I hope you have read the book, and if not, please do. You can download the book for FREE in different formats or listen to the 3-hour long audiobook on YouTube (2 hours if you listen to it at 1.5x speed). Both the links are given at the bottom.
**You can still read the blog further without reading the book, based on the summary, but I can assure you that you’re missing out on great literature.
Mr. Jones is the owner of a farm in England named Manor Farm. Next comes Orwell’s theory of Animalism, where Old Major, the pig, describes his dream of a better world for animals, free from human tyrants, and a plot of an uprising against them. He dies soon after, but two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, are inspired by his idea and together plan the revolution against Jones and his men, in which they succeed. The farm is renamed Animal Farm, and Seven Commandments are written on a tree. The pigs, being intelligent of them all, take the reins to be the managers. Later, Jones and his men come with guns to retake the farm’s control but fail due to military planning by Snowball, which came to be known as The Battle of the Cowshed.
Mollie, a vain horse, leaves the farm after humans lure her to a nearby farm. Snowball makes a blueprint of a windmill, Napoleon opposes the plan, and being a power-hungry pig, he trains the dogs to be violent and chases Snowball away forever.
Then the story explores how regime change slowly evolved into a totalitarian dictatorship. Boxer, the strongest and focused horse, takes up the task of building the windmill, which Napoleon doesn’t oppose anymore, and even takes credit for the plan. The windmill falls due to some of the other reasons over the years during construction, and with the help of Squealer, a sly pig, Napoleon always could blame Snowball for every misfortune that was nature-caused or fault in his plannings. Napoleon and his cluster of pigs and dogs start breaking all the commandments one by one and confuse the other animals of their authenticity. Fredrick, one of the neighboring farmers, attacks the windmill and forges banknotes to scam Napoleon in a deal for Timber.
Years pass, and when the windmill is nearly ready, Boxer collapses and is sold to a knacker by Napoleon. This is all seen by Benjamin, the donkey, who never speaks, and by Moses, the raven who passes by occasionally to sit on a shed to talk about animal heaven.
In the end, Napoleon loses all senses of reality and breaks all of The Seven Commandments. This is witnessed by all other animals while watching through the window Napoleon and other pigs having dinner with humans saying, “All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others.” The animals are surprised and are unable to distinguish the pigs from the humans.
Now that you know the basic outline let’s talk about the comparisons to the Russian Revolution based on the characters.
Like Jones, Nicholas, the last Russian Emperor, was a poor leader and didn’t know the art of management. During both their reigns as the chief, their subjects suffered and experienced extreme poverty, which led to losing public confidence.
According to Orwell, the Old Major character is based upon the Bolshevik party leader Lenin as he was a believer of communism and a little bit up in Karl Marx, who was the founder of the concept of communism. Likewise, animalism is based on communism, as the theory holds that all animals are equal and must revolt against their oppressors.
Snowball is the apt counterpart to Trotsky because of his contribution to rebellions and uprisings, especially The October Revolution. He was idealistic and a puritan in following Marx’s communism to improve the lives of everyone. Other qualities include oratory skills, planning, and military knowledge to fight in battles. These all shadow Snowball’s actions. And just like Snowball, Trotsky was also exiled from the USSR after Lenin told the KGB to do so.
The power-hungry dictator Stalin is mirrored perfectly over the story in the form of Napoleon. The lack of education, corrupt and selfish intentions and devious nature led him to be a lousy leader. He used religion, Lenin’s propaganda, and the KGB to remain in power and eliminate opponents, to become one of the most brutal and crude politicians in all of the world’s history. He left no stone unturned to propagate terror while keeping the public from retaliating.
The character of Squealer is based upon the whole department which ran propaganda in favor of Stalin. These are people with big mouths and convincing skills enough to sell sand in a desert. They were severely helped by the lack of education and attention of the general population. They used to lie and manipulate people to follow Stalin blindly.
The dogs in Animal Farm take up necessary traits as a secret service, and the police would do. This was used when manipulation stops working; fear will. They are trained to devour enemies and intimidate any opponents, and just like animals, families were often killed for disobedience.
This was very subtle because, in the whole book, Moses makes an appearance only twice. But he, too, is compared directly to Christianity/religion in Russia. He is always seen talking about a magical sugar mountain, which is an allegory of the concept of heaven in religions. While Major and Snowball were against him dropping by, Napoleon used him as a figurehead to stop animals from complaining, revolting and forcing them to work hard. The same way Stalin used religion to suppress violent revolutions.
Mollie encapsulates rich and selfish people of Russia who loved themselves so much; they didn’t care who lived, who died, who ruled. The moment they saw an opportunity like Mollie, they left Russia and never looked back.
Boxer is the character everyone feels sad about because Orwell wants you to sympathize with him, as he’s the animal form of the whole loyal and robust working, middle class who turned communists for equality and justice. But with the uprising of Stalin, a fake communist with a personal agenda, they were tricked into the propaganda, and we’re betrayed by him at last, even though they gave their best.
Benjamin, the donkey, is the rest of the world looking at Russia silently and suspiciously, thinking the result of the revolution internally. The wise people who watch the scene unfold from far away and analyze the cause, the leaders, the followers, the plan, the effect, and the aftermath, to conclude with the ruling.
Mr. Fredrick is the German ally or Hitler, when Stalin, like Napoleon, believed in a deal but was backstabbed later. The confessions and executions of the animals reflect the various purges and “show trials” that Stalin conducted to rid himself of any possible threat of dissent. Finally, the Battle of the Windmill reflects the USSR’s involvement in World War II — specifically the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 when Stalin’s forces defeated Hitler (as Napoleon’s defeated Frederick).
Finally, Mr. Pilkington is the summing up of the story, just like the US and England governments’ close parallels. When in 1943, Tehran Conference, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met to discuss how to forge a lasting peace after the war — a peace that Orwell mocks by having Napoleon and Pilkington flatter each other and then betray their duplicitous natures by cheating in the card game.
There are several more character traits and event details that could be similar to that in Animal Farm. With each read, anyone with an affinity for history can analyze the similarities and parallels drawn by Animal Farm on deeper levels. I tried to compile most of the important ones who had a significant Russian connection.
The book and the actual occurrences of the wars are heartbreaking, where the losses are unascertainable to the magnitude unimaginable. But it’s stories like these that give people an outlet to express and speak out the truth, the suffering, the terror in their definition of rage. Orwell chose simplicity and satire, which is just enough serious and sufficiently emotional for us to relate to animals on a farm. Animal Farm could very well be called Russian Revolution For Dummies, and still, everyone who has read it would know what one is talking about.
Resources –
Free eBook in PDF, Kindle, Mobi, EPUB formats – https://www.openrightslibrary.com/animal-farm-ebook/
Free audiobook of the book –
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