George Orwell – novelist, journalist, and critic – is one of the best-known political writers of the 20^th Century. Two of his novels, Animal Farm and 1984, are widely taught in schools as thoughtful commentaries on political systems and the impacts they have on the people they govern.

Of all of Orwell’s writing, Animal Farm (1945) has inspired a particularly strong response. Though the short animal fable has an elegantly simple plot, it is also a multi-layered allegorical critique of the early history of Soviet Russia and its leader, Joseph Stalin. The novel’s pointed politics have earned it enduring notice in the years since it was published, especially during the cold war when political tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union made critiques of Russia and communism especially welcome.