Animal Farm – socialist Russia in animal form

On its surface a simple drama about talking animals, George Orwell’s revolutionary novel, Animal Farm, has a much deeper and darker critique of the Soviet Union within. In this piece we look at the representation of socialist Russia in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Orwell’s targets in Animal Farm are the history of the 1917 Russian Revolution the rise of communist dictator Joseph Stalin beginning in 1927, with Stalinism subjected to particularly biting focus. Where in reality the ruling Russian Tsars were overthrown by the people and replaced with government, in the book the farm animals overthrow the farmer Mr Jones, depicted as drunk and inept. The pigs then go on to form their own democracy and ruling class, especially the pigs, but events eventually turn darker as Orwell moves into his Stalinism critique.

One of the novel’s main action points is the battle for dominance between the pigs Snowball and Napoleon, Orwell’s bestial versions of Stalin opponent Leon Trotsky and Stalin himself. Like the idealistic, almost heroic, Trotsky, Snowball is less powerful than Napoleon and as such is exiled from the farm, echoing Trotsky’s own expulsion from the Soviet Union.

From executions to false confessions of misdeeds, the pigs in Animal Farm degenerate further and further to eventually come close to resembling men, their once hated overlords-turned business partners. Much like Stalin’s transformation into a tyrannical dictator, Napoleon becomes a version of Mr Jones, even walking on two legs in a complete rejection of his animal roots. Animal Farm is most effective not in simply showing the abuse of power, but the horrific and heart-breaking hypocrisy at the heart of dictatorships.

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