Animal Farm

Numerous events in the novel are based on ones that occurred during Stalin's rule. The Battle of the Cowshed parallels the Civil War that occurred after the 1917 Revolution. Frederick represents Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), who forged an alliance with Stalin in 1939 — but who then found himself fighting Stalin's army in 1941. Frederick seems like an ally of Napoleon's, but his forged banknotes reveal his true character. The confessions and executions of the animals reflect the various purges and "show trials" that Stalin conducted to rid himself of any possible threat of dissention. In 1921, the sailors at the Kronshdadt military base unsuccessfully rebelled against Communist rule, as the hens attempt to rebel against Napoleon. The Battle of the Windmill reflects the U.S.S.R.'s involvement in World War II — specifically the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, when Stalin's forces defeated Hitler's (as Napoleon's defeat Frederick). Finally, the card game at the novel's end parallels the Tehran Conference (November 28–December 1, 1943), where Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt met to discuss the ways to forge a lasting peace after the war — a peace that Orwell mocks by having Napoleon and Pilkington flatter each other and then betray their duplicitous natures by cheating in the card game.