Oh yeah Animal Farm is absolutely a massive part of the propaganda. We were essentially taught in school that Stalin just kind of tricked everyone into giving him absolute power and then they couldn’t do anything when he turned evil. It’s actually insulting how Orwell portrays the non westerners as stupid animals who can’t realise when they are being exploited.

After reading it people either think “fighting for a better world always leads to things getting worse” (ie becoming liberal), or they don’t resolve the contradiction and think “I can make true communism because I would make sure there’s no evil dictator running things”