George Orwell's Animal Farm is a story about rebellion. Jones, the farm owner, because of neglect. Jones, the animals immediately rejoice. The pigs gain control of the farm. They soon forget the real meaning of "Animalism" and the other animals cannot tell the difference between the humans and the pigs. Animal Farm was a best seller, making Orwell financially solvent for the first time in his life (Paley 25). Orwell's Animal Farm parallels the characters, events, and socialism of the Russian Revolution. .
The characters in Animal Farm favor the main personalities of the Russian Revolution. Mr. Jones is a reflection of Czar Nicholas II, who lost control of his reign by rapid industrialization. Workers had a low standard of living and rebelled against poor working conditions (Perry 656). Mr. Jones loses his farm in a similar way; the animals are tired of their low standard of living. Old Major is the first animal to talk of rebellion and "Animalism." The old wise pig spreads his ideas throughout the animals, and they listen to him in belief. The people of the revolution looked up to Karl Marx in the same way. In the beginning, the strikers called themselves Marxist revolutionaries. In the 1890's, they found a new leader of their revolt. Vladimir Lenin was determined to overthrow the czarist regime and the capitalist system (Perry 657). The character Snowball refers to Lenin. Like Lenin, Snowball wants the leadership of the farm to be a communist society, but he is in constant battle against a dictatorship. Leon Trotsky seized government buildings in Petrograd, and he arrested the members of the Provisional Government (Perry 661). Similar to Trotsky, Napoleon, the head of the pigs and Animal Farm, cast out the animals who disagreed with his beliefs and then began living in the house.
The events in the Russian Revolution were contradictory to the way Orwell wrote his novel. The March Revolution, as the rebellion of the animals, was unplanned.
