Leon Trotsky = Snowball

Similarity between Trotsky and Snowball

- He was a leader with Stalin after the Russian Revolution- He was well educated comparing to Stalin- He was overthrown by Stalin and exiled away from Russia- His honors were removed, and a bad reputation was planted into the people’s head by the hand of Stalin- He was then never returned to Russia

- He was a leader with Napoleon after the overthrown of Mr. Jones- He was more intelligent than Napoleon- He was overthrown by Napoleon and exiled away from the farm- His honors were removed, and a bad reputation was planted into the people’s head by the hand of Napoleon- He was then never seen after he was exiled from the farm

Brief Biography of Leon Trotsky:

Leon Trotsky was born on November 07, 1879 in Yanovka, Ukraine

He was born as Lev Davidovich Bronstein

During his last year of school in 1896, Trotsky started to get attracted by Marxism

In 1897, Trotsky joined the South Russian Worker Union and was arrested for 3 years and then was exiled to Siberia for 4 years

In 1902, he escaped from Siberia from only serving for 2 years, he changed his name to Leon Trotsky and met Vladimir Lenin in London, England

In 1905, Trotsky became one of the leader of the rebellion, but he was arrested again and exiled back to Siberia. He then escaped from the prison and spent the following 10 years exiling in different cities around the world

Trotsky returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917

Trotsky was appointed as the leader of the Red Army to fight against the White Army during the civil war

In the late 1920s, the red army won the civil war, Trotsky was elected as a member of the Communist Party central committee, he was positioned as the number two in the party, after Lenin

Trotsky was isolated after Lenin’s death on January 21, 1924; as Stalin is gaining more and more power being the general secretary

In 1927, Trotsky was exiled by Stalin Kazakhstan and two years later, he was exiled again to Turkey and France and at last he settled in Mexico

After Trotsky continue to criticize the Soviet Union by his writing

On August 20, 1940, an Soviet Union’s secret police attacked Trotsky with an ice pick, a day later Trotsky died at the age of 60

Trotsky in Animal Farm.

Leon Trotsky was one of the most important person in the creation of the Soviet Union [7], being the first leader of the red army, he helped the Bolshevik party to become the victor of the Russian Civil War. In the novel Animal Farm, Trotsky was represented by a character called Snowball. Snowball was a very good speaker just like Trotsky, the narrator in the book introduced Snowball to us with ‘ a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character’ [1] . After the death of Old Major, although Snowball shared the leader spot with Napoleon, he was the one who actually did all the work, the overthrown of Jones, the creation of the seven commandment, the windmill project, without Snowball, the revolution will never be able to success. Similarly, Trotsky was the one who was deeply involved in the planning of the October Revolution and the one who leaded the Red Army to defeat the White Army when the Russian Civil War broke out [8].

The similarities between Trotsky and Snowball become clearer as Snowball was chased after the the nine dogs. In the novel, Snowball was attacked and chased away from the farm by nine dogs who were controlled with the order of Napoleon. After Snowball was exiled, Napoleon turned Snowball as a symbol of enemies, other animals were forced to make up story to criticize snowball and whenever something happened in the farm would claim to be caused by Snowball. In the other hand, Trotsky were kicked out from the Communist party and exiled away from Russia in 1927 [8][9][10]. Similar to Snowball’s situation, all of Trotsky’s honors were removed and transferred into Stalin’s hand, a bad reputation was planted into the people’s head by the hand of Stalin. Snowball was then ‘seen no more’[0] after he left the farm, and Trotsky was then assassinated by an Stalin’s secret police 13 years later after the exile [8][9][10].

Why did Orwell represent Trotsky through the character Snowball?

Orwell described Snowball as ‘a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character’ [1], this is the first and biggest hint that gave to the readers. A more vivacious pig is the first hint in this quote, more vivacious meaning that Snowball will be more active and passionate in the participation of future activities comparing to Napoleon. Quicker in speech telling us that Snowball is a greater speaker than Napoleon. ‘Was not considered to have the same depth of character’ was the biggest hint hidden in this quote, it is hard to get what Orwell is trying to say here before you read the novel, but as you read on you will realize that Orwell was saying that Snowball was not as ambitious as Napoleon and he did not realize what Napoleon was planning at the back. Orwell chose to make a big difference between the appearance of Napoleon and Snowball, Napoleon was a berkshire boar, and Snowball was just a normal pig. As I have mentioned on the Stalin page, boar s labelled as an animal with leadership and lust, where pig is just a symbol of highly intelligent animal [11].

How successful do you think it is?

I think Orwell did a successful job on putting these hidden hints to tell us how Napoleon and Snowball would be opponent by comparing them straight away as they were introduced and how they were different from each other. I do not think other author will spend how a hard work trying to create a contrast and plant these much hidden hints just on the appearance of the character.

I think Orwell did a good job on portraying Leon Trotsky onto the character Snowball. Throughout the novel, many similarity between the two can be easily spot, such as being the successor of the original leader, their speaking skills, their active action during the revolution, how they are doing things for the all of everyone, how they got exiled by their opponent. Anyone with a basic understanding of the Russian Revolution would able to spot the similarity between Trotsky and Snowball with no doubt.