In fairness, before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the USSR were trying to form alliances with the western allies throughout the 1930s. Maxim Litvinov worked hard to form an alliance with the UK and France, but both governments were more concerned with suppressing communism, and in France’s case, directing Nazi Germany eastwards suited them better.

The ideal outcome for the UK/France was for Nazi Germany and the USSR fight each other to a standstill, which would weaken both Fascism and Communism.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was made by necessity for the USSR and convenience by the Germans. It is no more an endorsement of Nazism than the Munich Agreement was.

The Russian military was never strong enough to face the full focus of German advancement, and in 1938/39 they were in no position to take them on.

While it’s obviously not a history of the USSR, the book very closely aligns with historical fact (plus Orwell’s opinion on Stalinism)

The farmer is the Tsar and bourgeois of Russia, and they are opposed by Old Major (Lenin and/or Marx) who inspires Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky) to rebel.

Old Major and Snowball are shown to be genuinely interested in Animalism (Communism) while Napoleon only uses it as a method to consolidate his own power.

Old Major is realistically more of a representation of ‘ideal’ communism than a real person. The corruption of Old Majors commandments by Napoleon is one of the central themes of the novel.

Snowball is also treated far more sympathetically in the book than Trotsky. In real life, Orwell had little time for Trotsky or Trotskyism, but here Snowball is used to show how Stalin used Trotsky as a scapegoat for all his policy failures.

Squealer and the dogs are representative of Stalin’s propaganda and secret police. Boxer is used to represent the true believer working class who carried the Bolsheviks to power.

The hens broadly represent kulaks (small farmers) and Ukrainians who were forced to give up grain, starved and brutally oppressed by Stalin.

The sheep are used by Orwell to depict the Russian people too stupid to realise they’re being oppressed, or too cowardly to stand up for themselves.

Later in the novel, Napoleon carries out fake trials, accusing opponents of ridiculous, over the top crimes and claiming they admitted to them before executing them. This is a very real parallel to Stalin’s show trials.

Mr Whymper is the west/capitalism and Napoleon’s dealings with him is Orwell accusing Stalin of doing business deals with capitalists to make money. George Orwell himself was a very ideological socialist who felt that Stalin completely abandoned communism and pandered to the west.

So while the book isn’t a play-by-play historical recount of Stalinism, it is a broadly accurate depiction of Stalin’s time in control of the USSR