
Throughout the entirety of Animal Farm, the similarities between Napoleon and Joseph Stalin are plainly evident. For example, though Stalin painted himself to be a hero of the revolution during his time of power, he was anything but. In the book, Napoleon was nowhere to be found when the animals first revolted against the farmer. Yes, they both came up with some of the ideas for how he was going to make the country fall under his control, but when it came to the killing, neither of them were ever directly involved.

 Violence was what was mainly used during this time for the revolution to keep moving forward. Whenever Stalin had a suspicion of a person betraying him he would have them questioned and then killed. Just like in the book, Napoleon begins to consider Boxer to be an enemy because unlike the other animals he can remember the past correctly, so Napoleon sends his dogs to attack Boxer and the four pigs that had questioned Snowball’s removal. The dogs do not manage to get Boxer down, but they did get the pigs and once they confessed, Napoleon had them all killed for being traitors (Florman). Stalin also had his so called “purge”, and it included the Soviet government. Stalin would have the people involved in the government tortured until they admitted to a crime, that they may or may not have committed, and after he would kill the ones that were considered enemies (Woods). Both Stalin and Napoleon did a lot of killing, but not just by physically killing them, but by making them starve.

During the time frame of Stalin’s first five-year plan, there was terrible famine moving across the lands. Stalin got the idea for this plan of his from Trotsky’s collectivization, during this policy Trotsky only took twenty to twenty-five percent of food from the peasant’s farms. On the other hand, Stalin took everything “down to the felt boots that were dragged off the feet of the kulak’s children” (Woods). This mainly occurred during 1932 and 1933, this lack of food managed to kill millions of people across the USSR (Woods). Stalin somehow managed to cover up this tragic event, and in the book, something similar did occur (Florman).

During the winter, the farm began to run low on food supplies and Napoleon somehow manages to keep this a secret from the humans. Since Napoleon does know the truth he sends Squealer out to give out an order. He gives a speech on the glory of sacrifice, and announces that the hens would be obligated to give up four hundred eggs, and the hens refused to do this at first. Therefore, Napoleon decided that he was going to starve the hens until they gave into his demands, and if he found out that anybody disobeyed him and secretly fed the hens, he would have them killed. The hens eventually gave into his demands, but nine of the hens died from starvation before that occurred (Florman). 

After a while the memories of when the humans were in charge had just about completely faded from the minds of the original animals. They got used to the thought that life was going to be harsh and that they were usually going to be cold and hungry. All the animals (other than pigs or dogs) knew that they would always be working if they were not sleeping (Florman). Napoleon killed a lot of the animals on the farm that he did not trust, even if they were pigs. Stalin killed all the people from the Red Army that were in charge and he did not trust. The purge that involved the military lasted up until 1938. During this time, he eliminated “ninety percent of all generals, eighty percent of all colonels, and thirty thousand lower ranking officers” (Woods). Stalin believed that the way that he did all of this meant that the Soviet Union would be safe from attacks, but his actions were based on narrow-minded calculations. 

Throughout the book you see communism as an interpretation of socialism, but more specifically it tries to focus on the Soviet’s interpretation of socialism into communism. It is said that socialism has the major belief that every vision should be “just”, and that everybody should be equal. Then again it has been proven time and time again that socialism does not work, but it also refuses to cease its existence. There will always be somebody out there trying to create a new form of socialism (Pejovich). Animal Farm does show that socialism does not work.

At the beginning of the revolution the animals created their seven commandments and the first two said “1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. 2.Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.”(Orwell 73). Throughout the story you can see the pigs beginning to isolate themselves from the rest of the animals. Napoleon made all the animals worship him, and he made sure that the other pigs knew that they were privileged. All the pigs were even discouraged from playing with the other animals (Orwell, Ch. 9).  Napoleon had the commandments changed to whatever benefited the pigs.

Changing the commandments was not all that Napoleon did that should be considered morally wrong. After a while, Boxer became old and was incapable of working, and his weakness became totally apparent to all with his fall in front of the windmill while working. When Napoleon was notified of this, he told all the animals that he was going to go to the vet so that he could get better. When the van showed up and Benjamin read the label on the side of the van to the others they knew that he was going to a slaughter house and would be turned to glue. A few days later Squealer managed to convince the other animals that he was not turned to glue but instead he died in peace, and with the money that the pigs made from his death they bought themselves a case of whiskey. (Orwell ch9). 

At the end of the book Napoleon had all the animals believing that the only way that they will reach true happiness is through work. Which should have given the animals a clue that he had always been the tyrant of the farm. If the animals did not know that throughout the book, then they knew at the end. All the pigs began to walk on two legs and the first one that they saw was Squealer then followed Napoleon and all the other pigs. Napoleon even had the saying changed to “four legs good, two legs better” (Orwell 335). That was not the only thing that changed, the commandments changed one last time to “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others” (Orwell 337). This led to the animals to the inevitable realization that the pigs had become no better than the farmers and this became truly clear when the pigs were having dinner with the neighboring farmers and the animals could not tell the difference between the farmers and the pigs.

That proved that socialism will never work because the main point of it is for everyone to be equal, and that every vision that they have must be fair for everyone (Pejovich). The pigs did not make anything fair for any other animal, they only cared about themselves. Stalin did the same he did not look out for the well-being of others, he only cared about himself and getting his vision to play out. There will always be that person that is power hungry wanting more than what they already have which is why socialism will fail.
