Animal Farm is a short allegorical novel depicting events on a farm somewhere in England. Chaffing under the injustice and mistreatment of the past, the animals are provoked into revolution by the teachings of a wise old pig.
The animals, led by a younger generation of pigs, are successful in overthrowing the farmer, and they proceed to build a communist utopia at the farm. But the animals quickly learn that the more things change the more they stay the same. The events of the novel are an allegory for the Soviet Revolution and the communist regime under Joseph Stalin. Orwell was a democratic socialist who became disaffected with Stalin during the Spanish Civil War. The work was written in 1943-44 during the height of popular opinion for Stalin in the United Kingdom, as Russia and the UK fought side by side against Nazi Germany. It has a distinctly anti-Stalinist message. By the time Animal Farm was published, public opinion in the UK and United States had turned against Stalin as the Cold War began to set in.