Editing Animal Farm (section)

===Significance and allegory===
[[File:Flag_of_the_Animal_Farm.svg|thumb|left|The Hoof and Horn flag described in the book appears to be based on the [[hammer and sickle]], the Communist symbol. By the end of the book when Napoleon takes full control, the Hoof and Horn is removed from the flag.]]
Orwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail has political significance in this allegory".{{sfn|Meyers|1975|p=249}} Orwell himself wrote in 1946, "Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution ... [and] ''that kind'' of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters [–] revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert".{{sfn|Orwell|2013|page=334}} In a preface for a 1947 Ukrainian edition, he stated, "for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement. On my return from Spain [in 1937] I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages".{{sfn|Crick |2019 |p=450}}

The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy with the [[October Revolution|October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution]]. The ''Battle of the Cowshed'' has been said to represent the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|allied invasion]] of [[Russian SFSR|Soviet Russia]] in 1918,{{sfn| Davison| 1996|p= 161}} and the defeat of the [[White movement|White Russians]] in the [[Russian Civil War]].{{sfn| Firchow |2008 |p=102}} The pigs' rise to preeminence mirrors the rise of a Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, just as Napoleon's emergence as the farm's sole leader reflects Stalin's emergence.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://fod.infobase.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=129225|title=Animal Farm|date=2014|website=Films on Demand}}</ref> The pigs' appropriation of milk and apples for their own use, "the turning point of the story" as Orwell termed it in a letter to [[Dwight Macdonald]],{{sfn|Orwell|2013|page=334}} stands as an analogy for the crushing of the left-wing 1921 [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt revolt]] against the Bolsheviks,{{sfn|Orwell|2013|page=334}} and the difficult efforts of the animals to build the windmill suggest the various [[Five-year plans of the Soviet Union|five-year plans]]. The puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the populace in the 1930s.{{sfn|  Leab| 2007 |pp=6–7}} In chapter seven, when the animals confess their non-existent crimes and are killed, Orwell directly alludes to the purges, confessions and [[Moscow show trials|show trials]] of the late 1930s. These contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten.{{sfn|Dickstein  |2007|p= 135 }}

[[Peter Edgerly Firchow]] and [[Peter Davison (professor)|Peter Davison]] contend that the ''Battle of the Windmill'', specifically referencing the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] and the [[Battle of Moscow]], represents [[World War II]].{{sfn|Firchow|2008|p=102}}{{sfn| Davison |1996|p= 161}} During the battle, Orwell first wrote, "All the animals, including Napoleon" took cover. Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except Napoleon" in recognition of Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow during the German advance.{{sfn|Meyers| 1975 |p=142}} Orwell requested the change after he met [[Józef Czapski]] in Paris in March 1945. Czapski, a survivor of the [[Katyn Massacre]] and an opponent of the Soviet regime, told Orwell, as Orwell wrote to [[Arthur Koestler]], that it had been "the character [and] greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion.{{efn|A Note on the Text, Peter Davison, ''Animal Farm'', Penguin edition 1989 |p=xx}}

[[File:15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).jpg|thumb|Front row (left to right): [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]], [[Mykola Skrypnyk|Skrypnyk]], and [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] – 'When Snowball comes to the crucial points in his speeches he is drowned out by the sheep (Ch. V), just as in the [[15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|party Congress in 1927]] [above], at Stalin's instigation 'pleas for the opposition were drowned in the continual, hysterically intolerant uproar from the floor'. ([[Isaac Deutscher]]{{sfn|Meyers| 1975|pp= 138, 311}})]]

Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's telescoping of Russian history from 1917 to 1943,{{sfn|Meyers |1975|p= 135}}{{efn| In the Preface to ''Animal Farm'' Orwell noted, however, "although various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution, they are dealt with schematically and their chronological order is changed."}} including the wave of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions [[Hungarian Soviet Republic|in Hungary]] and [[German Revolution of 1918–1919|Germany]] (Ch. IV); the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball (Ch. V), parallelling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed pitted against one another: [[Trotskyism]], with its faith in the [[Permanent revolution|revolutionary vocation]] of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of [[socialism in one country|Russia's socialist destiny]]";{{sfn|Meyers |1975|p=138}} Napoleon's dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets (Ch. VI), paralleling the [[Treaty of Rapallo (1922)|Treaty of Rapallo]]; and Frederick's forged bank notes, parallelling the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] of August 1939, after which Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and destroys the windmill.{{sfn|Meyers|1975 |p=141}}

The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of [[rapprochement]], reflected Orwell's view of the 1943 [[Tehran Conference]]{{efn|Preface to the Ukrainian edition of ''Animal Farm'', reprinted in Orwell:Collected Works, ''It Is What I Think'' |p= 89}} that seemed to display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the USSR and the West" – but in reality were destined, as Orwell presciently predicted, to continue to unravel.{{sfn|Leab |2007|p= 7 }} The disagreement between the allies and the start of the [[Cold War]] is suggested when Napoleon and Pilkington, both suspicious, each "played an ace of spades simultaneously".{{sfn|Meyers|1975 |p=142}}

Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England" and the later anthems, parallels "[[The Internationale]]" and its adoption and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fay |first=Laurel E. |url=http://archive.org/details/shostakovichlife0000fayl |title=Shostakovich : a life |date=2000 |publisher=New York : Oxford University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-19-513438-4}}</ref>

According to [[Masha Gessen]], the metamorphosis of the eighth commandment ("some animals are more equal") was likely inspired by similar change of a party line which declared all Soviet people equal: the Russian nation and language suddenly became "first among equals" in official CPSU publications in 1936–1937.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gessen |first=Masha |title=The Future is History |year=2018 |isbn=9781594634543 |pages=77–78|publisher=Penguin }}</ref>