Animal Farm

First edition cover.

Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a dictatorial state.

According to Orwell, the story reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union.

Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union. The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers. It became a great commercial success when it did appear, partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.

In 1954, there was an animated film, in which the character Napoleon (representing Stalin) was eventually overthrown in a second revolution. In 1974, E. Howard Hunt revealed that he had been sent by the CIA's Psychological Warfare department to obtain the film rights from Orwell's widow, and the resulting 1954 animation was funded by the agency.

While obviously critical of Stalin, regarding the far leftist favorite Trotsky, the leftist BBC alleges that the book character Snowball (representing Trotsky) has many extremely good characteristics.

See also

• George Orwell
• Leon Trotsky
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Trotskyism

References

Part of this article consists of modified text from Wikipedia, and the article is therefore licensed under GFDL.