Leon Trotskyism In Animal Farm

The book Animal Farm, is an allegorical novel written by George Orwell in 1944. It was written during WWII as a fable to expose the danger posed by Stalinism and a totalitarian government. The story reflects the events that lead up to the Russian Revolution and into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. George Orwell was influenced to write this novel in part by his own experiences in a Trotskyist group during the Spanish Civil War and also from his own ideas he had about relationships between social classes and how they relate to the relationship between humans and animals. Trotskyism can be generally defined as a form of socialism lead by Leon Trotsky. The purpose Orwell had for writing this novel was to expose how Stalinism betrayed the perfect conceptions of the socialist revolution in the Soviet Union. Orwell explained, “I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone

All of the characters represent real and important historical figures from the time period and the events are mirrors of actual major events in history. Also the small details such as the actual farm itself representing Russia, Animalism representing Communism, the debates, the actions, the ideas, and the conversations all parallel with what actually happened in history. However, there are a few differences, besides the obvious reasons that the story is based on animals and animal events. It is also different because some of the characters are in there to enhance the story line and do not actually parallel with a major historical figure. The actions and events in the story are very different from the real ones because of the ideas they portray but they are there to represent the deeper meanings. But overall they are mirror images of each other. In conclusion, Animal Farm is universally appealing due to its surface level story line and also its underlying messages of the