Similarities Between Animal Farm And Russian Revolution

One could say that Animal Farm was written to portray the Russian Revolution of 1917. Many characters and events from the book are similar to the Russian Revolution. For example, Manor Farm is a model of Russia. Main characters such as old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon all represent dominant figures from the Russian Revolution.

During the Russian Revolution, emperor Tsar Nicholas ll wanted to be known as the contestable ruler of the nation. The animals under Jones had lives full of starvation, as well as the lives of millions of Russians whose lives only got worse while Nicholas was in power. Bloody Sunday marked a terrible massacre in 1905 where protesters demanding social reforms were gunned down close to Nicolas’s palace. Russia lost more men in World War l than any country in any war previously. People were desperate and started up strikes and even mutinies to put a stop to the reign of Nicholas. Just like Jones, Nicholas was removed from his reign in the civil war of Bolshevik Revolution. They both died shortly after.

Old Major is an animal that portrays V.I.

Lenin, the leader of the civil war that took down Nicholas. He believes in Animalism, a theory meaning that all animals are equal and should unite against their oppressors. This is similar to Lenin who believed in Communism. Lenin and Old Major both died before the two could witness the final results of the revolution. Old Major also hated Man, just as Lenin was uncompromising in his views. He is widely believed to be the reason Nicholas and his family where killed after the Bolsheviks gained control. Lenin changed Russia into the U.S.S.R., just as old Major was responsible for the change from Manor Farm into Animal

Farm.
An ally of Lenin’s was Leon Trotsky, another Communist, who was involved in many revolutionary uprisings. In, Animal Farm, Snowball believed that rebellions were necessary to achieve the revolution’s goals. Snowball directs the animals to repel Jones, just as Trotsky was also the leader of Lenin’s Red Army. Eventually Trotsky was killed by Stalin’s agents after being exiled from the U.S.S.R., just as Snowball was chased off the farm by Napoleon. Stalin valued power and assumed control of the Communist Party through terror. Napoleon’s dogs are like Stalin’s KGB, his secret police that he used to get rid of anyone against him.
There are a number of events in the book that are based on events that occurred during Stalin’s rule. Jones; Frederick presents the forged alliance between Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Frederick seems like an ally of Napoleon’s but his forged banknotes show that it wasn’t the case. Hitler found himself fighting Stalin’s army in 1941. Confessions and executions of the animals compares to the “show trials” Stalin conducted to get rid of any possible threat of dissention. Sailors at the Kronshdadt military base rebelled against Communist rule in 1921. They were just as unsuccessful as the hens were when they attempted to rebel against Napoleon. Lastly, the card game in Animal Farm compares to the Tehran Conference where Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt met to discuss ways to forge a peace after the war. In the novel Napoleon and Pilkington compliment each other and then cheat in the card game.