How the Animal Farm Is Parrallel to the Russian Revolution

Topic: how are the similarities’ to the Russian revolution evident in the novel Animal farm?
Response: The book the animal farm by George Orwell has many similarities to the Russian revolution, portrayed through the plot and characters. Many of the characters and events of Orwell's novel are parallel to those of the Russian Revolution. Such as the revolutionary thinkers in Old Major and Karl Marx, the leaders who want the best for their people such as Snowball and Leon Trotsky, and the leaders who have a greed for luxuries and power such as Napoleon and Stalin. Subsequently Manor Farm is a model of Russia during the Russian revolution, and old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon represent the main figures of the Russian Revolution.
The character, Old Major is the animal version of Karl Marx, the inventor of communism, similarly Old major created Animalism which celebrated equality between all animals. This corresponds with Marx's idea of ending class distinction, creating equality. The concept of animalism is largely based on communism as it attempts to make all the animals equal. With communism, the main aim of the system is to ensure all workers will be equal. During the story of manor farm, Old major doesn’t live long enough to see his animalism theory put into action, this was the same as Karl Marx, Karl died before the Russian revolution and didn’t see what happened when his ideas were implemented. Consequently the stories of Karl Marx and Old major coincide.
Leon Trotsky emerged as a leader of the Russian revolution and like his counterpart in the novel Snowball; he felt that a number of uprisings were needed to reach the aims of the rebellion. Trotsky was also the leader of Lenin's Red Army, as Snowball leads the army of animals that repel Mr Jones. Both Snowball and Trotsky were great thinkers, Snowball planned to build a windmill in his efforts to achieve the ideals of animalism. The construction of the windmill sparks a fight between napoleon (Orwell’s counterpart for Stalin) and Snowball parallel to this, Trotsky fights with Stalin over industry. Napoleon orders the removal of Snowball from animal farm and uses the force of the dogs to chase him off, similarly Trotsky is chased off by the dog equivalent, the KGB. Thus, the political figure of Leon Trotsky is similar to the character snowball in the novel.
A number of events in the novel are linked to those that occurred during Stalin’s rule also. In the novel the Battle of the cow shed relates to the Civil War that occurred after the Revolution. In 1921, the soldiers at the Kronshdadt base attempt to rebel against the Communist rule, but failed. Similarly the hens attempt to rebel against Napoleon. The Battle of the Windmill where napoleon defeats Frederick reflects the U.S.S.R.'s involvement in World War II, especially the Battle of Stalingrad where Stalin's military forces defeated Hitler's (as Napoleon's defeated Frederick). The similarities continue in their running style and actions, they both lead in absolute power and could possibly be considered as dictatorships. Stalin introduced a five year plan to boost industry; parallel to this Napoleon introduced the 3 year plan to build a windmill which is similar to the industry boost as it was introduced to help production. Subsequently the personality and actions of Stalin match those of napoleon in the novel ‘the animal farm’
In conclusion, the novel animal farm is model of the Russian revolution. The characters such as Napoleon, snowball and Old major all correlate to major figures in the Russian revolution. Old major and Karl Marx are similar as they share the same position in the revolution as they both invented the type of government. Snowball and Leon Trotsky share the same ideas and smarts that in turn gets them chased of their country or farm they are helping. And Napoleon and Stalin the dictators of both revolutions using their secret police/dogs to chase off or kill any opposition they encounter. Subsequently the important figures off the Russian revolution and events match those that are illustrated in the novel animal farm.