George Orwell and his work

Eric Arthur Blair (June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950), George Orwell.

- Fiction
- Polemical Journalism
- Literary criticism
- Poetry
- Essays on politics

Animal Farm is a simple fable of great symbolic value, and as Orwell himself
explained: “It is the story of a revolution that went wrong. The novel can be seen as
the historical analysis of the causes of the failure communism, or as a mere fairy-
tale”.

Terminology used in Animal Farm

- Totalitarianism
- Democratic socialism
- Socialism
- Communism
- Marxism
- Russian Revolution

Totalitarianism.- Under a totalitarian regime, the state controls nearly every

aspect of the individual's life. Totalitarian governments do not tolerate activities by
individuals or groups such as labor unions that are not directed by the state's
goals. Totalitarian regimes maintain themselves in power through secret
police, propaganda disseminated through the media, the elimination of open
criticism of the regime, and use of terror tactics. Internal and external threats are
created to foster unity through fear. 
Karl Marx

The philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary, Karl Marx, is without
a doubt the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the 19th century.
Although he was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime, his social,
economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement
after his death in 1883. Until quite recently almost half the population of the world
lived under regimes that claim to be Marxist.

Vladimir Lenin (April 22nd 1870 – January 21st 1924)

• Leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

• Head of the Bolsheviks.

• Led the Red Army.

• Follower of Marx Ideas.

• Philosopher, Lawyer, Leader and writer.

Leon Trotsky

Trotsky played a leading role, together with Lenin, during the 1917 Russian
Revolution. It was Trotsky who organized the Red Army as well as the fight back
against all the forces of reaction that were attempting to strangle the revolution in
blood. Trotsky led an implacable struggle against the Stalinist degeneration of the
Soviet Union. The Stalinist regime's response was to expel him from the Soviet
Communist Party and then exile him from the Soviet Union itself. Huge numbers of
his supporters inside the Soviet Union ended up in Stalin's camps from which they
were never to return. From exile Trotsky gathered supporters inside the
Communist Parties with which he built the International Left Opposition.
Joseph Stalin

After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin methodically went about destroying all the old
leaders of the Party, taking advantage of their weakness for standing on arcane
intellectual principle to simply divide and conquer them. At first, these people
were removed from their posts and exiled abroad. Later, when he realized that
their sharp tongues and pens were still capable of inveighing against him even
from far away, Stalin switched tactics, culminating in a vast reign of terror and
spectacular show trials in the 1930s during which the founding fathers of the
Soviet Union were one by one unmasked as "enemies of the people" who had
supposedly always been in the employ of Capitalist intelligence services and
summarily shot. The particularly pesky Leon Trotsky, who continued to badger
Stalin from Mexico City after his exile in 1929, had to be silenced once and for all
with an ice pick in 1940. The purges, or "repressions" as they are known in Russia,
extended far beyond the Party elite, reaching down into every local Party cell and
nearly all of the intellectual professions, since anyone with a higher education was
suspected of being a potential counterrevolutionary. This depleted the Soviet
Union of its brainpower, and left Stalin as the sole intellectual force in the country--
an expert on virtually every human endeavor.

Characters and Meanings

 Animal Farm

 Russian Revolution

 Mr. Jones

 irresponsible to his animals (lets them starve)

 sometimes cruel - beats them with whip

 Czar Nicholas II
 a poor leader at best, compared to western kings

 cruel - sometimes brutal with opponents

 Old Major

 taught Animalism

 workers do the work, rich keep the $, animals revolt

 dies before revolution

 Karl Marx

 invented Communism

 "workers of the world unite", take over gov't

 dies before Russian Revolution.

 Animalism

 no owners, no rich, but no poor

 workers get a better life, all animals equal

 everyone owns the farm

 Communism

 same

 all people equal

 gov't owns everything, people own gov't

 Snowball

 young, smart, good speaker, idealistic

 really wants to make life better for all

 one of leaders of revolution

 chased away into exile by Napoleon's dogs

 Leon Trotsky

 other leader of "October Revolution"

 pure communist, followed Marx

 wanted to improve life for all in Russia

 chased away by KGB

 Napoleon

 not a good speaker, not as clever like Snowball

 cruel, brutal, selfish, devious, corrupt

 his ambition is for power, killed opponents

 used dogs, moses, and Squealor to control animals

 Joseph Stalin

 not a good speaker, not educated like Trotsky

 same as Napoleon, didn't follow Marx's ideas

 cared for power, killed all that opposed him

 used KGB, allowed church, and propagandized

 Squealer

 big mouth, talks a lot

 convinces animals to believe and follow Napoleon

 Changes and manipulates the commandments

 Propaganda department of Lenin's government

 worked for Stalin to support his image

 used any lie to convince the people to follow Stalin

 benefited from the fact that education was controlled

 The Dogs

 a private army that used fear to force animals to work

 killed or intimidated any opponent of Napoleon

 another part of Napoleon's strategy to control animals

 KGB - Secret Police

 not really police, but forced support for Stalin

 used force, often killed entire families for disobedience

 totally loyal, part of Lenin's power, even over army

 Moses the Raven

 tells animals about SugarCandy mountain - Heaven

 animals can go there if they work hard

 Snowball and Major were against him

 they though Heaven was a lie to make animals work

 Napoleon let him stay because he taught animals to

  work and not complain

 Religion

 Marx said "Opiate of the people" a lie

 used to make people not complain and do their work

 Religion was tolerared because people would work

 Stalin knew religion would stop violent revolutions

Conclusion

Animal farm is an allegory of a situation which was taking place in Russia. Marx
initiated a communist movement which was followed by Lenin. However in the
process of getting a better system Trosky and Stalin appeared in the scenery. The
outcome of the new changes was not as expected.