How far is the film animal farm an accurate portrayal of russian history?
For Russian history as a whole, woefully inadequate. For the Bolshevik’s uprising and consolidation of power, accurate to an extent. Under Lenin, it was more of an authoritarian regime than a communist one, where the peasants and general populace were oppressed originally in order to eliminate the party’s “internal enemies” and win the civil war. Urban workers and peasants were conscripted equally into the army, though obviously some were left to tend the farms and work the factories. The party leaders obviously reserved food for themselves – this is the ‘pigs are more equal’ aspect. The film does not portray Lenin’s controversial New Economic Policy, under which communism was scaled back slightly to allow the peasants more freedom, particularly to sell their grain for profit to non-governmental and even foreign organisations. As far as I can remember, the other animals stage an uprising at the end and overthrow the oppressive pigs. This is also false – there was a peaceful transfer of
