George Orwell wrote this shortly after (Possibly even during, I am not entirely sure) World War Two, during the communist/'socialist' vs. capitalist frenzy as well as everything else that I know we all know about to some extent (if for some reason not, Google is your best friend.) This is a book directly about the Communist/Socialist vs. Capitalist issue at hand at the time, just under a very loose, very thin veil. George Orwell was fantastic in writing this book - he kept it just veiled enough that no one could prove anything about the book and have him imprisoned and most likely killed for it, but he also made it obvious enough that if you know anything about the history of Socialism, and how it turned into Communism in most places - well, you will get pretty much everything in this book. You will get everything that Orwell thinly disguises, from the who is who, to the what place is what place, what symbolizes what, etc., etc.
I am one of those people who could probably talk about this topic of Socialism and Communism for a long time (I have literally once taken a quick 5 minute break from class to do an errand that turned into an hour long conversation with the principal about this very subject), talking about the what ifs, the theories, and the if onlys of it all. But in the end, I do not think Socialism could work that well - there is not much incentive to work, peoples skills are not (usually) taken into account in job assignment, and eventually someone does have to take power, and those with power, especially in such a situation, can't always be trusted, and the Socialist community ends up a Communist dictatorship, which I feel Orwell displayed rather well in Animal Farm, despite, from what I have heard, his being a Socialist.
This is a very good read - I can't even attempt to describe it furthermore (and I guess I have not really described it that much already...), but I seriously recommend you this book.
Once again I hope you are all enjoying this Easter weekend!
-Jason