What is animal farm an allegory for?

Animal Farm, a novella written by George Orwell in 1945, is an allegorical commentary on what went wrong when Czarist Russia evolved into Communist Russia. An allegory is a narrative that uses literary devices to unveil hidden meanings. Orwell wanted to show the negative side of communism when it is taken too far.

He demonstrated this by assigning the animals in Animal Farm the roles of several important figures. In Animal Farm one important figure that played a major role in the story and in World War 1 was Snowball. This was allegorical in sense that during the Russian Revolution the character depicted as Snowball was Leon Trotsky who throughout most of life, worked for Stalin to empower his image, that was until he was exiled. With Leons’ strategic military structure he could overthrow the government and established the Council of the Peoples’ Commissions. This is most relatable to the overthrow of Mr. Jones Jones and the establishment of Animal Farm. In reality, Lenin was the President of the Committee while Trotsky was Commissar.

Under the guidance of Trotsky, the revolution was going fairly well. It wasn’t until Lenin’s death where the struggle for power brought the revolution to a negative downturn. Trotsky and Stalin were in constant competition to prove themselves worthy of Lenin’s’ place. Yet as time passed by Trotsky favored the revolution while Stalin repeatedly opposed his ideas. This eventually leads to the deceitful exile of Trotsky in 1929 which secured power for Stalin. Trotsky was named the scapegoat for all Russian’s problems and those who believed it the Russian Revolution were the obvious bandwagon- blindly lead by those in power, corrupt or not. This was demonstrated in Animal Farm when Old major dies leaving the place of superiority to either Snowball or Napoleon which as predicted lead to the banishment of Snowball by force leaving the farm, and those who inhabit it under the corruptive hands of Napoleon.