Animal Farm is a cutting satire on Stalin's regime in Russia and warns against totalitarianism. It is an excellent novel that allows young people to evaluate the effects of dictatorial rule and see how language can be used to control the minds of people within society. George Orwell stated that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried "with full consciousness", of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole". Orwell claimed that "the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude". He stated that every line of serious work he has written since 1936, stood directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.
George Orwell's Animal Farm is a multi-level novel. On one level it can be read as a children's story as the language is simple and the plot is easy enough for a child to follow.  It can also be considered a beast fable in the sense that its characters are animals, each with its own personality and the story comments on the corrupting influence of power. On another level the novel can be read as a political satire. The novel blends wit and humour for the purpose of mocking or ridiculing the follies of man's political behaviour and institutions.
As is the case with most fables the novel is set in an unspecified time period in an imaginary farm land in England.
Though it is set in South of England, it is not stressed in the story and only serves as a background. Although the novel is free of historical references that would not allow the reader to date the action precisely, it can be fair to assume that Orwell intended for the fable to be contemporaneous with the object of its satire - the Russian Revolution.
While Orwell believed in revolutions he came to the conclusion that if man were not extremely careful said revolutions would be doomed to meet the same fate the animals faced - instead of achieving equality, humanity would find itself exchanging one tyrant for another.