Animal Farm by George Orwell
Animal Farm compared to the Russian Revolution

All of the characters in Animal farm have counterparts in real life. This 
book was based on the Russian Revolution, and all the important populace 
of the revolution are symbolized. Some of the animals represent 
individuals in the Russian Revolution, and some types of animals 
represent different types of Russian citizens. The book carries out much 
like the actual revolution. It starts out with hopes of  an empire where 
all  are equal and the unfair unjust leader is thrown out. Then it moves 
on to where some individuals begin to take more power than is rightfully 
theirs. At the end the rulers have completely taken  over and the kingdom 
is as it was under the original rulers. I will compare the animals from 
top of the social class to the bottom. At the top were the pigs. Each pig 
represented someone different in the revolution. Old Major is compared to 
Lenin. He was an ideologist who dreamed up a wonderful government where 
all the animals were equal and the humans, or the czars, were pushed out. 
Unfortunately his dream would never materialize. Then we are left with 
his predecessors. The first is Snowball. Snowball believed one hundred 
percent in Old Majors ideals. He wanted all the things Old Major wanted, 
such as the welfare of the animals. In the Russian Revolution his 
counterpart would be Trotsky. Trotsky believed and wanted the same things 
as Lenin, and wanted to continue what Lenin had started. Then comes 
Napoleon. Napoleon was selfish and greedy. He did not want to share the 
power or the decision making with any other individual. This was the same 
for Stalin. At first Napoleon and Snowball shared the decision making and 
had debates about what course of action they would take. This worked for 
awhile. Then Napoleon grew weary of long debates, and he thought he could 
make the decision by himself. He then forced Snowball out of the farm and 
started to spread lies about Snowball to get the entire farm against him. 
Stalin did the same thing against Trotsky and forced Trotsky into hiding 
into Mexico, where he was eventually assassinated. Both Stalin and 
Napoleon ruined any hopes of equal and fare government and instead set up 
dictatorships. Then comes the final important pig, Squealer. Squealer did 
not make the decisions in the government but acted  more like the 
controlled media as in the Russian government. His job was to influence 
the people by exaggerating and re-writing history and sometimes telling 
plain lies all together. The people would listen to him, and he would 
always listen to Napoleon. Other animals were the worker class type 
citizens. The types of citizens range from hard working to selfish and 
lazy. Molly, for instance, only cared about her ribbons, and wasn’t much 
of a thinker. All she wanted to do was eat sugar, and look pretty. 
Benjamin was a critic who always said “I’ve seen that before” and “It’ll 
never work.” The cat was just plain lazy, and was always disappearing 
whenever work had to be done. The ducks were weak and did not get much 
done. Then there were other donkey’s which worked much harder and never 
thought of their own needs. The pigeons acted as message carriers 
spreading propaganda between farms, spreading Napoleon’s words from farm 
to farm, or in the actual Russian Revolution, country to country. 
Although all these animals are very different, they all shared one common 
trait. They were all weak. They all let Napoleon take over without much 
resistance. Just like Stalin took over Russia. These animals were too 
weak, too scared, or just lacked the intelligence required to do 
something about it. This is where it is the fault of the people. They 
should have stood up to Napoleon for what they fought for in the first 
place. The people must stand up to those who would destroy the system or 
else all is lost. I think that this story was a good representation of 
the actual Russian Revolution. But it is even more than that. It shows 
how people can let certain individuals get away with anything just 
because they do not feel like standing up to them. If you tried, this 
story could also be compared to other times in history when the people 
let dictatorships form in their own country. I enjoyed this book a lot 
but I do not think that it should be just compared to the Russian 
Revolution.