George Orwell who was a socialist and was opposed to dictatorship (rule by one person). In particular, he did not like the communist government of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. In 1936 and 1937, Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War. He had watched as democratic left-wing rebels were pushed out by pro-Soviet communist rebels. In the introduction to the 1947 Ukrainian translation of "Animal Farm", Orwell said he wrote it because he wished to destroy what he called the "Soviet myth".