Animal Farm Amy and Ebru

Propaganda  Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.  Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was highly based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very effective.  The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into an actual philosophy, which they name Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer indulge in the vices of humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading). Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, which represents the Soviet government's revisions of communist theory to make it more a reformation of capitalism than a replacement.  The 1999 the Animal Farm film shows Napoleon's routine collapsing in on itself, as happened in the Soviet Union, taking the new political reality to the story.

World War I In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Marx’s dreams were to become reality. After a politically complicated civil war, Tsar Nicholas II, the monarch of Russia, was forced to give up the throne that his family had held for three centuries. Lenin, a Russian intellectual revolutionary, held power in the name of the Communist Party. The new system took land and industry from private control and put them under government supervision. This centralization of economic systems formed the first steps in restoring Russia to the success it had known before World War I. After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky jockeyed for control of the newly formed Soviet Union. Stalin, a crafty and controlling politician, soon banished Trotsky, an idealistic supporter of international communism. Stalin then began to join his power with brutal intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.

Hammer and Sickle The hammer and sickle are a part of communist symbolism and their usage indicates an association with communism, a communist party, or a communist state. This symbol features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them together symbolizes the unity between industrial and agricultural workers. This emblem was conceived during the Bolshevik Revolution. It is best known from having been incorporated into the red flag of the Soviet Union, along with the red star. The hammer and sickle were first used during the Russian Revolution but they did not become the official symbol of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic until Since the Russian Revolution, the hammer and sickle have come to represent various communist parties and socialist states In Animal Farm, the flag of Animal Farm consists of a green field with a hoof and a horn. The Hoof and Horn Flag is allegorical to the Hammer and Sickle of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Revolution The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia corrupt the revolution. While this novel portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution (and not the act of revolution itself), it also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved. The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government. The February Revolution (March 1917) was a revolution focused around Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament or Duma assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The Soviets (workers' councils), which were led by more radical socialist factions, initially permitted the Provisional Government to rule, but insisted on a prerogative to influence the government and control various militias. The February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War, which left much of the army in a state of mutiny. A period of dual power ensued, during which the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower-class citizens and the political left. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies and many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for the abandonment of the war effort. The Bolsheviks formed workers militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control. In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government in St Petersburg. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end the war, the Bolshevik leadership signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.