The executions themselves bear resemblance to both events, although their details connect them more to the Moscow Trials than to the Red Terror. For example, the executions in Chapter VII conflate the Red Terror with the Great Purge. The following Battle of the Windmill represents World War II itself.ĭespite his fairy-tale clarity in satirizing some historical events, Orwell is less specific about others.

Frederick’s trade agreement with Napoleon, and his subsequent breaking of the agreement, represents the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact that preceded World War II. For example, Snowball’s and Napoleon’s power struggle is a direct allegory of Trotsky’s and Stalin’s. The resemblance of some of the novel’s events to events in Soviet history is indubitable. These include Karl Marx (Major), Vladimir Lenin (Major), Leon Trotsky ( Snowball), Joseph Stalin ( Napoleon), Adolf Hitler ( Frederick), the Allies ( Pilkington), the peasants ( Boxer), the elite ( Mollie), and the church ( Moses). The allegorical characters of the novel represent specific historical figures and different factions of Imperial Russian and Soviet society. It was for this reason that he faced such difficulty in getting the book published by the time Animal Farm was ready to meet its readers, the Allies were cooperating with the Soviet Union. But Orwell composed the book for a more specific purpose: to serve as a cautionary tale about Stalinism. Buy Study Guide The Soviet Union under StalinismĪnimal Farm is a satire of totalitarian governments in their many guises.

Animal farm study guide