Animal Farm

"e;Animal Farm"e; is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described "e;Animal Farm"e; as a satirical tale against Stalin ("e;un conte satirique contre Staline"e;), and in his essay "e;Why I Write"e; (1946), wrote that "e;Animal Farm"e; was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "e;to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole"e;. The original title was "e;Animal Farm: A Fairy Story"e;, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like "e;A Satire"e; and "e;A Contemporary Satire"e;. Orwell suggested the title "e;Union des republiques socialistes animales"e; for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for bear, a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, "e;Union des republiques socialistes sovietiques"e;.