"The Guardian" on 24 August 1945 called "Animal Farm" "a delightfully humorous and caustic satire on the rule of the many by the few". Tosco Fyvel, writing in "Tribune" on the same day, called the book "a gentle satire on a certain State and on the illusions of an age which may already be behind us." Julian Symons responded, on 7 September, "Should we not expect, in "Tribune" at least, acknowledgement of the fact that it is a satire not at all gentle upon a particular State – Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years time perhaps, "Animal Farm" may be simply a fairy story; today it is a political satire with a good deal of point." "Animal Farm" has been subject to much comment in the decades since these early remarks.