Context, Allegory & Orwell's Purpose
Why Did Orwell Write Animal Farm?
George Orwell published Animal Farm in 1945, at a time when the Soviet Union was Britain’s wartime ally. Despite this, Orwell was deeply critical of communism as practised under Joseph Stalin. He had witnessed authoritarian behaviour first-hand while fighting in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), where Soviet-backed communists betrayed and purged their own allies.
Orwell described Animal Farm as the first book in which he tried “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.”
Orwell was a democratic socialist — he supported equality but opposed dictatorships of any kind. He saw how Stalin had corrupted the original ideals of the 1917 Russian Revolution, turning a movement for workers’ liberation into a brutal regime. Animal Farm was his way of warning readers that revolutions can be hijacked by the very people they were meant to overthrow.
What Is an Allegory?
An allegory is a story that works on two levels: the surface narrative (animals running a farm) and a hidden meaning (the Russian Revolution and its aftermath). Every major character and event in Animal Farm maps onto a real historical figure or moment.
Old Major = Karl Marx / Vladimir Lenin — the visionary who inspires revolution but dies before it is corrupted.
Napoleon = Joseph Stalin — the cunning leader who seizes power through force, propaganda, and fear.
Snowball = Leon Trotsky — the intellectual rival who is expelled and then blamed for everything.
Squealer = Soviet propaganda machine (Pravda newspaper) — manipulates language to justify the pigs’ actions.
Boxer = The loyal working class — exploited until no longer useful, then discarded.
Mr Jones = Tsar Nicholas II — the incompetent ruler overthrown by revolution.
The Russian Revolution — Essential Context
In 1917, the Russian people overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, who had ruled as an autocrat while millions starved. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, promised “Peace, Land, Bread” — equality for all workers. After Lenin’s death in 1924, a power struggle erupted between Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin won, exiled Trotsky, and established a totalitarian dictatorship.
Stalin’s regime killed millions through forced collectivisation, purges, and famine. Orwell wrote Animal Farm to expose how “All animals are equal” becomes “but some animals are more equal than others.”
Orwell had several interlinked purposes:
1. To warn against totalitarianism: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The pigs begin as liberators and end as tyrants indistinguishable from humans.
2. To show how propaganda enables dictatorship: Squealer’s manipulation of language — rewriting the commandments, distorting the truth — shows that controlling language means controlling thought.
3. To criticise the complacency of the masses: The animals’ failure to question authority allows the pigs to seize power unchecked. Orwell suggests ordinary people must stay vigilant.
4. To satirise the Soviet Union specifically: The book is a direct attack on Stalinist Russia, showing how revolutionary ideals were betrayed step by step.
The Genre: Fable and Satire
Animal Farm is both a fable and a satire. As a fable, it uses animals to deliver a moral message. As a satire, it uses irony and dark humour to expose the absurdity and cruelty of totalitarian rule. The simple, fairy-tale style makes the political message accessible — Orwell called it “a fairy story” in its subtitle, which is itself ironic given the violence and betrayal within.