Pre-Flight (Before You Ready) for
Animal Farm

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Animal Farm stands alone. You don't have to know what follows in order to enjoy it. It's really up to you whether or not you'd rather read Animal Farm before knowing this background information. If you want to know what historical events prompted Orwell to write the novel, then you might want to read this information first. If you're more interested in just reading the story as a fable you might want to take a look at this after you read it.

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Animal Farm and the Soviet Union(1917-1945)
Terms, People and Events Important for Understanding Animal Farm

Animal Farm and the Soviet Union(1917-1945)

Of Animal Farm George Orwell wrote the “episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution.” In the early years of the book this was often not mentioned because it was unpopular to criticize the Soviet Union, particularly in England. One editor wrote to Orwell why he decided not to publish it:

“I can see now that it might be regarded as something it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs.”

Who or what do the characters represent? Here’s a list:

There are three main Russian political events represented in Animal Farm:

1. The disastrous results of Stalin’s forced collectivization(1929-33) The methods of hens dropping and destroying their eggs are like that of the muzhiks in 1929. Deutscher writes, “In desperation they slaughtered their cattle, smashed implements, and burned crops.” This resulted in the Ukraine famine of 1933 where no less than 3 million people starved to death. Cannibalism was reported and Orwell even makes reference to this. The first demolition of the windmill is the failure of the first five-year plan.

2. The Great Purge Trials(1936-38) It is estimated that 9 million people were arrested during the purges and probably 3 million were executed. In one of the trials the prosecution claimed that Trotsky “was organizing and directing sabotage in the Soviet Union, catastrophes in coal mines, factories, and on the railways, mass poisonings of Soviet workers, and repeated attempts on the lives of Stalin and other members of the Politburo.”

3. The diplomacy with Germany which ended with Hitler’s invasion in 1941.

sources:

Orwell, George, Animal Farm, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, San Diego, London, 1995.

Readings on Animal Farm, edited by Terry O’Neill, Greenhaven Press, San Diego, CA, 1998

Terms, People and Events Important for Understanding Animal Farm

collectivization: a drive by the Russian government to have Russian peasants join either collective farms(controlled by members who have pooled land and resources) or state farms(everything belongs to the state). Peasants were offered incentives(loans, cattle and agricultural implements) to do so. Many did not want to join and uprisings and resistance were widespread.

fable: 1. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like human beings. 2. A story about legendary persons and exploits. 3. A falsehood; a lie.

allegory: A literary, dramatic, or pictorial device in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas, principles, or forces, so that the literal sense has or suggests a parallel, deeper symbolic sense.

Tsar Nicholas II(1868-1918) The last Russian Emperor. He, his wife, Alexandra, and their children were executed by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.

Karl Marx(1818-1883): political theorist, sociologist and economist from whom the movement known as Marxism derives its name. He also wrote The Communist Manifesto(with Engels) and Das Kapital.

Proletariat: 1.a. The class of industrial wage earners who, possessing neither capital nor production means, must earn their living by selling their labor. b. The poorest class of working people. 2. The propertyless class of ancient Rome, constituting the lowest class of citizens.

Bourgeois: 1. A person belonging to the middle class. 2. A person whose attitudes and behavior are marked by conformity to the standards and conventions of the middle class. 3. In Marxist theory, a member of the property-owning class; a capitalist.

totalitarian: Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.

Lenin(1870-1924): founder of the Russian Communist Party(Bolsheviks), leader of the Russian Revolution(1917) and the first head of the Soviet State(1917-24).

Josef Stalin(1879-1953): secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union(1922-53) and premier of the Soviet state(1941-53). He ruled the Soviet Union for nearly 25 years.

Leon Trotsky(1879-1940): Communist theorist and agitator, leader in Russia’s October Revolution in 1917 and later commisssar of foreign affairs and of war in the Soviet Union. After Lenin’s death Trotsky was removed from all positions of power and exiled in 1929. He was the leader of the anti-Stalinist opposition until his assassination by a Stalinist agent.

Pravda (in Russian this means “Truth”): daily newspaper published in Moscow. Founded in 1912 and suppressed by the tsar’s police. Became the official party paper in 1918.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky(1893-1930): leading poet of the Russian Revolution. He wrote poems of propaganda and booklets for children. He also lectured and recited all over Russia. He committed suicide in Moscow.

Bolshevik: a. A member of the left-wing majority group of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party that adopted Lenin's theses on party organization in 1903. b. A member of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party that seized power in that country in November 1917. c. A member of a Marxist-Leninist party or a supporter of one; a Communist. Also called Bolshevist.

politburo: The chief political and executive committee of a Communist party

The Russian Orthodox Church: largest ecclesiastically independent Eastern Orthodox church in the world. Between 1918 and 1939 it was persecuted by the Communist regime.

The White Russians: anti-Bolshevik Russian forces

The Kremlin: Structure used as the center of the Russian government. First built in 1156 as fortress. Used for government after the 1620’s until 1712 and again after 1918.

The Russian Revolution: really two revolutions. The first overthrew the imperial government in March of 1917 and the second placed the Bolsheviks in power in November of 1917. Riots over the scarcity of food broke out in Petrograd on March 12. Nicholas II abdicated. A provisional government was put in the place that eventually lost power to the Bolsheviks. Their slogan, “peace, land and bread” won over many poor urban people and soldiers.

The Allied invasion of Russia in 1918-19. This invasion involved British, French and American troops. Japan also joined. It was thought the Bolsheviks could be overthrown and the Allies backed the White Army(a Russian Army headed by Alexander V. Kolchak). The invasion failed. Kolchak was tried and executed by the Soviets in 1920. By that year all Allied forces, except Japan, were out of Russia.

The German invasion of 1941: World War II invasion of Russia by Germany.

The Five-Year Plans: adopted by the Sixteenth Party Congress in April 1929 provided for a total increase in industrial output of 250 percent and heavy industry of 330 percent. Coal production was to be doubled, pig iron tripled and electric energy quadrupled.

“L’Intervationale”(written in 1871) The Communist Anthem

Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of 1939: A pact that Hitler broke when he invaded Russia in 1941.

Teheran Conference(Nov. 28-Dec. 1, 1943): World War II meeting between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin. Talks centered on the second front, but many political questions were also discussed.

Some lines from “Hymn to J.V. Stalin”(note the similarity to the poem entitled “Comrade Napoleon” in Animal Farm)

The world has no person/Dearer, closer./With him, happiness is happier,/And the sun brighter . . .

©2005-2012 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit