1984 should be read in conjunction with Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia In Animal Farm Snowball the opponent of Napoleon is quite obviously Trotsky The pun in Napoleon s name is that Stalin was viewed by Trotsky as a Buonapartist Homage to Catalonia is an account of Orwell s adventures in Spain including his time in the P O U M militia One of the leaders of P O U M was Andres Nin who was one of Trotsky s secretaries Orwell was radicalised by Spain and also made into a bitter opponent of both Fascism and Stalinism