Animal Farm Background

George Orwell

Real Name: Eric Arthur Blair

Most famous fiction: Animal Farm & 1984

From England, served in Spanish war

Reason for writing animal farm

To expose Stalinist corruption after seeing totalitarian propaganda controlling people opinion in democratic countries

Allegory

A metaphor whose subject is a character, place, or event that represents real world issues or occurrences. Uses symbolic elements to convey meaning

Animal Farm allegory

Corresponds to Russian revolution and Soviet Regime

Satire

Genre of literature in which vices, abuses and shortcomings are ridiculed

Marxism

focuses on the exploitation of capitalism, analyzes class relations/social conflict & use reasoned argument to enact social transformation

Originated by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

OG theory published as the communist manifesto

Capitalism

Based on: Private ownership of means of production and operation for profit

Criticisms: concentrating power in a minority capitalist class (bourgeoisie) prioritizes profit over social good, nat resources, and environment. inequality and economic instability

Socialism

Based on: social ownership & democratic control of production, distribution based on contribution, production for direct use

Soviet Union: World’s firsts socialist state

Communism

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Based on: “From each according to his ability to each o according to his need” Free access and distribution of goods, capital, and services.

Works to put the class in power through social revolution.

Major criticisms: totalitarianism,

Political repression poor economic performance and cultural censorship

Russian revolution

during world war one the Russian empire under the rule of Tsar Nicolas II of the Romanov family experience famine and economic collapse

February revolution

mass protest erupted as a result of discontent against monarchy in February 1917

many military personnel: Russian army committed mutiny

After 8 days of the revolution, Tsar Nicholas was abdicated. brought an end to the Romanov dynasty

October revolution

A Bolshevik revolutionary leader, Vladimir Lenin, led a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government, capturing government buildings and driving out political members and supporters

Russian Civil War

For 5 years the Russian Civil War accounted for 7 to 12 million deaths between the two armies

The white army: represented those driven out during the revolution

The red army: represented the bolsheviks

This ultimately led to Lenin serving as the leader of the newly founded union of Soviet socialist republics USSR

Josef Stalin and his rise to power

Stalin was a member of the Bolshevik party and used his connections to gain influential positions in government.

Upon Lennon‘s death there was a power struggle between two individuals.

A. Leon Trotsky - leftist who believed that the USSR made too many concessions on capitalism

B. Stalin - rightest; formed a faction of its two other party members in an effort to gain greater influence over Trotsky

Trotsky

1927: Trotsky and supporters expelled from communist party by Stalin

1929: Trotsky remained opposed hash exiled from Soviet Union in 1929

1940: Stalin ordered his assassination in Mexico in 1940

Soviet development

In 1927, the Soviet union being enacting the 5 year development plan, which involved mobilizing resources to rapidly expand the country’s industry.

Plans were successful but extremely harsh on workers

Propaganda

The Soviet union used all forms of propaganda to promote ideology of the communist party. Propaganda can be described as: information that is not objective and used to influence an audience and further an agenda

Secret police

the Soviet Union had a secret police agency called NKVD which undertook mass extrajudicial killings on an unknown number of citizens and operated the Gulag system of forced labor camps

The great purges

In 1937, Stalin furthered his absolute power by persecuting suspected political/ideological opponents

Approximately 2 million people were killed during this time, which disrupted the infrastructure of the Soviet Union.