Animal Farm

George Orwell wrote a critical pig story without once using a swine insult. His scathing allegory on the corruption of revolution is so effective because it can be read equally to apply to Stalin's Soviet Union as to Prague's city hall. Old Major, the majestic-looking boar who fomented the revolution on Animal Farm, could just as easily be Havel as Marx. Snowball, the liberated farm's rightful lord, is shunted into exile as much like Tůma as Trotsky. Napolean, who usurps full power and promises more food and less work, might be Stalin or he might be Svoboda. Squealer, the propaganda minister, is as much Molotov as he is Šťastný, who will no doubt soon be ordering Spontaneous Demonstrations to defend democracy. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege?" Šťastný will declare. "It is for your sake alone that we drink all the city's milk and eat its apples."