Animal Farm, George Orwell's most popular book, is a fictional story based on the 1940's rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, a.k.a. Russia. At first glance this may not be apparent to the average reader, but with a closer look each animal has a characteristic of a Communist leader. Orwell changed his story into a beast fable based on the fear of what the public would think about him criticizing Communism. He changed each Communist leader into an animal, and the Soviet Union as a country into a country-side farm. .
Much controversy came from Orwell's interpretation of the Communist leaders as pigs, since pigs are regarded as filthy and unclean animals. The two pigs represent Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Stalin's part being played by Napoleon and Trotsky's by Snowball. Many of the events that occur in the story are based on actual Soviet events. Stalin actually does over throw Trotsky, as does Napoleon to Snowball. The characteristics given to both of these animals are also amazingly similar to those of the Soviet leaders. Trotsky is truly a good speaker and a smarter individual, but Stalin showed no mercy to his counterpart and outsmarted him solely on the basis of his understanding of government. Much like Soviet events, Stalin then makes a country dislike Trotsky through a series of lies and eventually Trotsky is fleeing the country much as Snowball does in Animal Farm. Near the end of Orwell's story the other animals stumble upon Napoleon acting as a human. Or in Orwell's eyes, Stalin acting as a Communist. Something the Soviets had not initially anticipated. .
Further along, Napoleon begins to interact with rival farms for the betterment of his farm, so it would seem. Although Napoleon was actually only trying to better his own position. These rival farms can be seen as surrounding Soviet countries that Stalin often interacted with. Looking even deeper into the book, each battle can also be compared with Soviet battles, in which most of the battles were similar to those in World War II.
