But Orwell quickly realized that the communists he was fighting for could be just as totalitarian and oppressive as the fascists. Their enemy was Spanish leader Francisco Franco and his fascist followers, who believed in strong, militaristic national identity united under an authoritarian leader-think the Wizard World under Voldemort, or Mordor under Sauron. Since communism is an extreme form of socialism, Orwell actually fought alongside communists in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s. (Does that sound crazy? There are co-ops and employee-owned business today that operate in just that way.) In other words, Wal-Mart should be owned by Wal-Mart employees, rather than by the Walton family.

Let's just say that socialists believe that the means of production (like factories or businesses) should be controlled by the workers for the good of everyone, rather than controlled by a tiny subset of owners for their own profit. In fact, he was a socialist, a simple word for a complex and varied set of beliefs. When publishing house Faber & Faber rejected Orwell, an editor pointed out that it was simply distasteful to depict Stalin as 'a pig.'īut Orwell was no knee-jerk anticommunist. Stalin may have been bad, but Hitler was worse. Criticism of Stalin wasn't banned in wartime British press, but it wasn't exactly encouraged, either. You see, Animal Farm takes a blow at the Soviet Union, especially its leader Josef Stalin-but the Soviet Union was an ally in the U.S.'s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II. In fact, no one took him up on it until 1945, and even then readers weren't too keen on it. (In fact, we have a sneaking suspicion that you're here because you're being required to read it.) But when Orwell wrote the book in 1943-44, he could hardly find a publisher.

But George Orwell's Animal Farm is no Jim Henson-inspired comedy about a pig who just wants to be a sheepdog, or bittersweet tale about interspecies love-it's a biting satire about tyrannical governments and a dark warning about the perils of Russian communism.

And talking horses and birds and cows, for that matter. In fact, there are a lot of talking pigs. Move over, Babe and Wilbur: there's a new talking pig in town. Want more deets? We've also got a complete Online Course about Animal Farm, with three weeks worth of readings and activities to make sure you know your stuff.

Animal farm study guide answers