Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plan was created with the intent of revolutionizing the Soviet Union and improving the general quality of its productivity. Looking at the history books shows that Stalin's five-year plan (and the four other five-year plans that followed) had the tendency to repeatedly fail. Stalin's dedication to creating a better and more efficient five-year plan after the first failed mirrors the animals' dedication to building a second windmill once the first was destroyed.

If the windmill is a symbol of Stalin's five-year plan, Napoleon the pig represents Joseph Stalin himself. His creation of the windmill (the five-year plan) was initially developed in order to sincerely aid the citizens of the country, though the moral justification quickly erodes as power and influence become more important to the dictator than actual progress. Once the windmill is destroyed, Squealer, one of Napoleon's main supporters, says, "What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we have done."

Once Stalin's five-year plan disintegrated, a second was proposed, and then a third, and as the people are led into battle to defend their way of life, many of the ordinary citizens—like Boxer the horse in Animal Farm—become disillusioned with what they'd been fighting for. But just like Squealer, there will always be supporters of each tyrant, praising their successes and failures alike.

In Chapter 6, the animals begin to work relentlessly on the windmill. This represents the first of Stalin's five year plans. The goal of the plans was to bring the Soviet Union into the 20th century. Orwell mirrors Stalin's pattern of taking complete control of industry by having Napoleon take complete control of the building of the windmill. The animals do succeed in building the windmill, but similar to Russian history, they do not benefit personally from all their work. The animals suffer shortages and are forced to do "voluntary" Sunday work. But the windmill, like Stalin's heavy industry, still doesn't provide them with the basic things they need.

The building of the windmill is the event which parallels the introduction and eventual collapse of Trotsky's Five Year Plan (later claimed by Stalin to be his own idea!).

Snowball (Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin) argue about the possibility of building a windmill and industrialising the farm (the Five Year Plan): Snowball argues that the windmill will increase productivity when constructed, but Napoleon doesn't think there is enough food to sustain its construction.

The windmill (the Five Year Plan) is at the centre of the split between the two factions (representing Trotskyist and Stalinist Communism). Then Napoleon exiles Snowball and his Animalism is adopted generally, Napoleon convincing everyone that the windmill was always his idea, just as Stalin did with Trotsky's theories.

The destruction of the windmill represents the collapse of the plan.