Animal Farm

In the political satire novel, Animal Farm, George Orwell describes the communist overthrow of the Tsar in Russia and the Stalin Era with anthropomorphic animals. In the story, the boar Old Major is the representation of Karl Marx. His dream, an allusion to the Communist Manifesto, basically says that the humans do nothing, yet are in charge of all the animals. Old Major dies shortly after he reveals his vision. The animals overthrow the farmer, Mr. Jones, and begin to live by the rules that Old Major had in his dream. The pigs are the main intelligence force of this revolution so they take control most of the duties. Of these, Snowball representing Trotsky, and Napoleon representing Stalin, begin to lead most of the operations. All of the animals came up with seven commandments for the new regime. Snowball and Napoleon begin to butt heads, and Snowball is driven away by the dogs Napoleon secretly trained. Like Stalin in Soviet Russia, absolute power corrupts and with his secret dogs and squealer's propaganda, Napoleon is soon the dictator of the farm. The pigs begin to change the commandments and finally change the most important one. "All animals are equal'' was changed to "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." The animals don't care though because Squealer's propaganda has convinced them that they are still better off then when Mr. Jones was the head. In the end, the pigs slowly become more and more like humans until the other animals cannot tell the difference between them. The others animals struggle is the same, the leader is different. Much like communism would do and did.