Orwell’s allegory parallels the events of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Many characters and events suggest real-life counterparts. Napoleon is a stand-in for Stalin, while Snowball, the idealistic pig whom Napoleon overthrows, is an analog for Leon Trotsky, who was essentially the second-in-command of the first head of Soviet Russia’s government, Vladimir Lenin. The old boar Major is a Karl Marx-like figure who inspires revolution. Mr. Jones represents the Russian Czar Nicholas II, whose mismanaged leadership led to the communist takeover. The farm dogs represent the brutal Soviet police, and the sheep represent the ignorant and unthinking masses. Neighboring human-run farms symbolize capitalist countries that either desired the downfall of the Soviet Union or sought to form alliances with it. As in the Soviet Union under Stalin, life on the farm includes show trials and executions, deceptive propaganda, and revisionist history.

Thinkers, including early 20th-century English writer G. K. Chesterton, have pointed out that the word “revolution” (literally, overturning) implies that the wheel of change will eventually turn back to its original position. Orwell plays on this pessimistic idea in Animal Farm.