To George Orwell, Joseph Stalin was always a "disgusting murderer". But, when the Soviet Union became Britain's ally against Nazi Germany, this became an uncomfortable truth that few wanted to hear. Orwell felt an urgent need to forcefully remind people of Stalin's brutality. An essay would never reach a wide audience: a novel would take too long to write. He hit on the inspired idea of combining the moralism of the 'beast fable' with the satire of Gulliver's Travels. A group of farmyard animals overthrow their human masters. Their revolution is inspired by ideals of liberty and equality, but when Napoleon the pig takes command, he creates a new tyranny worse than the old. Published in 1945, this little book became a seminal text in the emerging 'cold war' (a phrase Orwell coined). Today, Animal Farm remains a powerful fable about the nature of tyranny which applies for all ages.