Week 15: Introduction to Animal Farm

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Historical Context of Animal Farm

In 1917, two successive revolutions rocked Russia and the rest of the world. The first revolution overthrew the Russian monarchy (the Tsar) and the second established the USSR, the world’s first Communist state. Over the next 30 years, the Soviet government descended into a totalitarian regime that used and manipulated socialist ideas of equality among the working class to oppress its people and maintain power. Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the Communist Soviet Union. Many of the animal characters in Animal Farm have direct correlations to figures or institutions in the Soviet Union.