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Themes of animal farm novel
Summary and theme of animal farm
Themes of animal farm novel
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Historical/Cultural Context of Animal Farm
The Russian Revolution:
In 1917, two revolutions were involved in Russia, which terminated centuries of imperial ruling. The Russian revolution was made up of two revolutions, which the first one was in February, and the second one was in October.These revolutions started political, and social changes that lead to the creation of the Soviet Union. By March of 1917, Russia who became civil turned into turmoil, which caused constant food shortages.This turned into a revolt against Czar.By the year of 1917 lots of Russian citizens lost faith in their leader Czar Nicholas II. The citizens lost faith in Czar’s leadership due to the governments corruption, Russia’s economy, and Czar constantly affecting the success of the Duma ( the Russian legislative assembly established by Czar Nicholas II in 1905) .This impacted Russia in a disastrous way, which caused Czar Nicholas II to be overthrown.A few months later after Czar was overthrown, the new provisional government was overthrown by Bolsheviks. The first appearance of the Russian Revolution was in February 1917, due to the destructive involvement in World War I. The military and imperial side of Russia, could not compare to the industrialized Germany at the time. The costly war also made Russia’s economy decline in a major way. Word count: 207
http://www.history.com/topics/russian-revolution
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml
The Bolsheviks:
Bolshevik in Russian means “One of the majority.” Bolsheviks are members of a wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. The Bolshevik party was lead by Vladimir Lenin. The Bolshevik party took control over the government in Russia in October of 1917...
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...ubject to an absolute state authority. For example when Czar Nicholas II was in power and there was a food shortage, and the economy went downhill, the nation must of been frightened, which is why he was renounced. Word count: 53
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/totalitarianism
What I found interesting in this research is that Napoleon only won one Battle and he lost most of his Grand Army in Russia, and he is still considered to be one of the best military leaders in history. One subject that surprised me in the reading was that the U.S, actually had allies even though most countries hated us. Another subject that surprised me in the research was how Napoleon lost more than ⅔ of his army. The last topic that surprised me was that Trotsky was not over the Bolshevik’s even though he was second in line, because he lossed out to Stalin. Word count: 106
Through such events Lenin was able to take full control of the Bolsheviks. The.. The Bolsheviks started off, in 1903, as the main minority of the Social Democratic Labour Party. Like all anti-tsarist groups, the party. is illegal to use. The party was based upon the beliefs of Karl Marx, a German writer and revolutionary, who believed a revolution could only be started within the workforce of the major cities.
For centuries, autocratic and repressive tsarist regimes ruled the country and population under sever economic and social conditions; consequently, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, various movements were staging demonstrations to overthrow the oppressive government. Poor involvement in WWI also added to the rising discontent against Nicholas as Russian armies suffered terrible casualties and defeats because of a lack of food and equipment; in addition, the country was industrially backward compared to countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and the USA. It had failed to modernize, this was to do with the tsars lack of effort for reforms. The country was undergoing tremendous hardships as industrial and agricultural output dropped. Famine and poor morale could be found in all aspects of Russian life. Furthermore, the tsar committed a fatal mistake when he appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces because he was responsible for the armies constant string of defeats.
It was said that the educated people, the contact with other countries should contribute to the government policy. As said in document 1 , "By 1900 there were political parties raging from far right defenders of autocracy and russian power over all other ethnicities, to far left revolutionaries calling for the overthrow of the government." The government there was autocratic, which was when the tsar had all the power/control of the government. Another cause for the Russian Revolution was the outbreak of WW1. "Even before the war urban workers all over the Russian empire had been increasingly radical, but the war brought the government's incompentence and the people's grievances into sharper relief. The first months of the war were a disaster for Russia." It is much easier to overthrow a government than to try andcreate a new government. As said in document 2,"Chaos, conflict, uncertaunty; more violence are much more common and often led to centralized, authoritarian governments." There was celebration all over the streets after the indication that the tsar was overthrown after 300 years of a tsarist government ruling. "The problem was that, after the party, governing problems arose immediately.
During the Revolution of 1905, he ordered the mass execution of over 100 and arrested several more rebels. Also, he focused on an agricultural reform in order to address the famine and ineffective use of agricultural land by canceling redemption payments and establishing land banks; creating a positive impact and increased the agricultural production. Moreover, the creation of the Duma can actually be credited to Nicholas II. Additionally, the Czar did not trusted the Duma for their ‘unrealistic’ and hostile demands, their bias towards the aristocracy, the freedom of political debate the Duma and the fact that they were allowed to pass
In 1905 , Russia had a prerevolution that was put down of the Czar. Instead of learning from this prerevolution, Czar Nicholas II, made a very big mistake by in not introducing some reforms to correct the problems. So because of his actions, the situation grew worse. In 1917, the Russians were fighting in World War I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent along with economic hardships caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards. A temporary government was set up to decide on what kind of government Russia was gonna set up. Two political parties were set up. The Bolsheviks were one of the two. The leader of the Bolshevik party was a man named Lenin. Lenin was a firm believer of the theories and ideas of Karl Marx. So with his slogan of "Bread, Peace and Land", Lenin gained the support of the peasants and gained control of Russia and setup a communist state.
Animal farm tells the story of a group of animals rebelling successfully against the previous owner, Mr Jones, who was considered to be a tyrant of animal/manor farm.
much needed relevance. Napoleon is not a just leader, or a democratic leader, nor is he even the
In February of 1917 a group of female factory workers and led a revolt in which the Tsar was dethroned, only to be replaced by a provisionary government composed of the Russian elite. When this government did not live up to its promises of an end to Russian involvement in World War I, the Bolsheviks (“majority”), a revolutionary movement led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the provisionary government in what bacame known as the October revolution.
By March 1917, disasters on the battlefield, combined with food and fuel shortages on the front, brought the monarchy to collapse. In St. Petersburg workers were going on strike. Marchers, mostly women were shouting, "Bread! Bread! Bread!" Troops refused to fire on demonstrators, leaving the government helpless. Duma politicians setup a temporary government/ Middle class liberals prepared a constitution for a new Russian republic. At the same time they continued the war with Germany. That decision proved fatal. Most Russians were fed up with the war and returned home, leaving the front. Peasants wanted land and people wanted food. Cities set up soviets, council of workers and soldiers, which worked dramatically within the government. Before long a radical social group took charge called the Bolsheviks emerged. Their leader was V.I. Lenin.
Although the creation of the Duma has promised political changes, few. of those proposals have actually become real. The Duma had little power to enforce new laws or make important decisions. The Tsar always had the final word. Therefore, the people living in Russia were not... ...
The Russian Revolutions of 1917 led to the riddance of the czarist Russia as well as the ushering in of the socialistic Russia. The first of the two revolutions forced Nicolas II to abdicate his throne to a provisional government. Lenin headed the second of the two revolutions in which he overthrew the provisional government.
In the years leading up to the revolution, Russia had been involved in a series of wars. The Crimean war, The Russo-Turkish war, The Russo-Japanese war and the First World War. Russia had been defeated in all except the war with Turkey and its government and economy had the scars to prove it. A severe lack of food and poor living conditions amongst the peasant population led firstly to strikes and quickly escalated to violent riots. Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia with an iron hand while much of Europe was moving away from the monarchical system of rule. All lands were owned by the Tsar’s family and Nobel land lords while the factories and industrial complexes were owned by the capitalists’. There were no unions or labour laws and the justice system had made almost all other laws in favour of the ruling elite. Rents and taxes were often unaffordable, while the gulf between workers and the ruling elite grew ever wider.
The government and reform; the actual character of Nicholas II hindered his time in office, for example his outlooks on situations meant he did not trust a lot of his advisors, he was also seen to have been very lazy with respects to making decisions, other observations included him being, weak, timid and lacked guts. This all adds up to a very weak leader that is vulnerable to opposition, due to his tunnel vision and un-ability to see the main needs of the country. The duma was another challenge to the tsar; after the 1905 revolution the tsar had set up an elected body called the duma, this was a way of showing the public that he could be open minded in that delegating decisions to other people, looking back in hindsight this would also be seen as a challenge to the tsar as he never gave the duma any real power, and were easily dissolved, this meant that people were further angered and he was receiving opposition from all sides, it did however hold off opposition for a small period of time in order for the tsar to retain his power. Other individuals had an influence to the challenges facing the tsar, Nicholas had brought some new people in to try and conquer some problems, these included Rasputin who he had originally appointed to become saviour of family, he managed to influence the tsar in many of his decisions, this inevitably caused there to be conflict as the he was relying on Rasputin to relay details of the state of the country, these were not accurate which meant that tsar could not act upon opposition. Other people did help the tsar for example stolypin and his reforms.
Despite of difficulties how to use human tools animals spends all summer in harvesting and gain more harvest, as the farm has ever known. Boxer is the hardworking; he always inspires himself with the words “I will work harder”. Pigs are handling everything, they teach and give directions to others. On Sundays they meet in the big barn to listen Snowball and Napoleon. They debate all the time and it seems never agree each other. Snowball tries to make labor committees, but it does not work. He also tries to educate animals and teach things according to their intelligence. Snowball reduces seven commandments in one “Four legs good, two legs bad”. The same time Napoleon tries to educate young animals. He takes newborn pups from their mother, for education purposes. One-day animals that pigs eat milk and an apple, which they don’t share with others. Squealer explains them that pigs need it to sustain themselves and work hard for benefit of other animals.
As communication was poor to the rural areas of Russia, the peasants had little or no knowledge of political parties and so did not support the Bolsheviks in their takeover. When the Bolsheviks changed to the Communist party in 1918, many peasants believed these to be a new party challenging Bolshevism and so made banners saying ’Down with the Communists, Long live the Bolsheviks!’ The national minorities currently part of the Russian empire, predominately Finland and Poland, were demanding independence and Russia’s allies, Britain, France, USA, Japan, etc. were growing ever suspicious of Bolshevism and so were set to intervene if the Bolsheviks were to pull out of World War 1.