Historical Context Of The Animal Farm By George Orwell

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Animal farm
Historical context
The animal farm is a fairy story which uses animals on an English farm to tell the history of soviet communism.
When the Russia nation's workers and peasants, assisted by a class known as the intelligentsia, rebelled against the wealthy and powerful class of capitalist and aristocrats the communism arose. Their main point was to establish a socialist utopia based on the principles of the German economic and political philosopher Karl Marx. Marx also wrote a book called Das Kapital and in the book he argued that society would naturally evolve from a monarchy and aristocracy to capitalism and then to communism. He also mentioned that the poor workers that has been oppressed by capitalism would be restored and all the people would live as equal. Since the Russia wanted to establish a socialist utopia based on the thoughts of Karl Marx and the German economic, Russia became a communist country.
George Orwell wrote this novel to not only tell us about the politics in Russia but also the events that have occurred for instance:
1. The owner of the farm is getting run off the land because he did not treat the animals well is an allusion to Russian Revolution of 1917 that lead to the removal of the Tsar Nicholas II.
2. The Old major was the first leader of the animals in the farm but when it died two other pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, took over his spot as leader. This was based on a real event which was when Lenin died Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky jockeyed for control of the Soviet Union.
3. When Mr. Jones tried to retake the farm ''the Battle of the cowshed'' is analogous to the Russian Civil war.
4. When Napoleon chased away Snowball with his secret weapons is like Stalin's removal of Leon Trotsky in 19...

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...te and brainwash its citizens is also another message that can be found. In this story there is one pig, Squealer, who spread Napoleon's propaganda among the other animals in order to make Napoleon look better in the animals eyes. Together with Napoleon they also changed the history and the commandments in order to suit their increasing power. Since Squealer was a good speaker managed to manipulate and brain wash the other animals for instance, Snowball who was the hero of the battle of the cowshed became a betrayer because of the change of history and propaganda.
The other messages of the book are corruption of revolution by its leaders, be aware of history, people should not only sit back and accept everything the government do they should stand up for their rights and needs and people should question the government's decision and be aware of what it is doing.

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