As a parallel for Leon Trotsky, Snowball is made to have more ideas than most and as a result, uses his ample vocational skills to back them up. His aim to spread Animalism and improve the lives of the animals would have worked, had it not been for his expulsion from the farm. Snowball’s own naivety can be shown as one of the reasons that he ultimately fails in this goal. Relying only on words and ideas, he lacks the guile needed to succeed, as shown when he was evicted due to Napoleon’s brute force.
When he changed the 7 commandments into the more simple ‘4 legs good, 2 legs bad’, he showed a greater understanding for the nature of the other animals on the farm, meaning that he had the ability to make the other animals on the farm believe in him. During this period, Napoleon stays silent, presumably in the knowledge that he would soon take over the farm. This is shown by the passage in pg32.
‘Napoleon produced no schemes of his own, but said quietly that Snowball’s would come to nothing, and seemed to be biding his time’
This demonstrates that Napoleon only wished to propel himself further into a position of power and not to aid the greater majority of the farm.
From reading on further into the book, we can tell that this scheming would later lead to him trying to erase the memory of Snowball through the charismatic Squealer who uses the naivety of the pigs in order to portray the views of the leader, Napoleon onto the other pigs living on the farm. To leave all persuasion up to one man who can essentially swing the majority of the farm to believe in him means that Napoleon is very confident, justifiably so given the nature of the regime that he governs, i.e. based on fear of the dogs.
Snowball’s rhetoric attitude meant that in a way he was more in tune with the true feelings of the animals, but this meant that he was somewhat oblivious to the nature of activities that the pigs were doing whilst pledging to strive for a better farm. In allowing the milk and apples to be given to Napoleon and the other pigs, he was coercing with them and the start of the inequalities had begun. Yet still Napoleon leaves it up to his spokesman Squealer to carry it out.
The building of the windmill raises many questions about the attitudes of the two leaders. We can tell that they are a source of conflict as Napoleon could not been seen at the time to back Snowball as that would give him the upper hand, however he chooses to bide his time and then when he has power, back the project anyway. This would suggest that Napoleon knows Snowball has a good idea, but knows that supporting it would be political suicide. Snowball’s willingness can lead to be over-exuberant and this can be exploited as it means he is almost too willing to help when it comes to the farm.
In the end, Napoleon becomes like Jones, the tyrant to whom they were trying to escape. His expulsion of Snowball was the opportunity to show the animals that Snowball is reason tat they suffer and he becomes a scapegoat and the enemy of the Animalist state. Napoleon uses this relationship with Snowball to take power through the common enemy, similar to that of Stalin using Trotsky and the old Bolshevik leaders to propel himself further ahead. Overall, the leaders both had good ideas but the only way that power could be shared between the 2 would have been if Snowball was in charge and the strong Napoleon could have done the dirty work.
