Lord Of The Flies vs. U.S.S.R leaders

The events in Lord of the Flies seem to model what happened in the struggle for power in the U.S.S.R. in the mid-1920's. Both show what happens when dissension grows and people get desperate. There is an obvious battle between good and evil. In the beginning of the novel, there is one group, where all the boys essentially work together, and there is order and peace. As the book progresses, a split and this rift grows until there are two completely separate groups. There are two boys who each lead a group, Ralph and Jack. Ralph with the help of Piggy, lead the group of boys who are almost civilized, who work to be rescued, who do sensible things such as keeping the fire going. Jack leads a group of wild boys, who don't spend time trying to do constructive things. As the book progresses they become blood thirsty, and end up killing Simon, who comes bearing a message about "The Beast."

Jack and Piggy can be compared to Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, the first communist leader of the U.S.S.R, there was a power struggle between these two people. Trotsky was an intelligent man, who thought out what he was going to do, he didn't believe in unnecessary violence. He can be compared to Piggy, who's the leader a more conservative group, also an intellectual. Stalin was a powerful leader, and was prone to fits of violence. Both Stalin and Jack were blood thirsty, Stalin killed millions of his own people, particularly intellectuals, who he found threatening; Jack and his crew killed pigs and then Simon and Piggy. They became crazed at the sight or even thought of blood and death: "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in." and "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" Trotsky was second in power and should have assumed Lenin's position as leader, but lost to Stalin.

Both Piggy and Trotsky, and Jack and Stalin were the same types of people, but they also experienced the same types of situations. In both Lord of the Flies and the U.S.S.R there was a power struggle in which the intellectual lost to the more dynamic leader. Trotsky had the support of Lenin just as Piggy had the support of Ralph. Both Trotsky and Piggy should have assumed the leaders role, but the evil, more attractive candidate won in both instances. In the U.S.S.R, Stalin, after winning the country, saw Trotsky as a threat, and had a professional stalk him and eventually kill him in his fortified villa in Mexico. In the book, Jack saw that Piggy still had some power. He found this threatening and decided to dispose of him so he rolled a boulder onto his head and knocked him off a 40 foot cliff.

There are many parallelisms between the Lord of the Flies and the struggle for Lenin's position. Both are both examples of a good vs. evil battle where evil prevails. In both cases the more intelligent candidate loses to the more charismatic. The new leaders jealously destroy their opponents.