CHESAPEAKE — It’s putting the Stalin era of Russian communism in the middle of a courtroom drama as the eighth grade talented and gifted students at Chesapeake Middle School use George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” as the basis for this year’s mock trial.

Written around the time of the end of World War II, the novella attacks Stalin’s version of communism, the then new social order in Russia, with animals representing the main historic characters of this international real-life drama.

“The book is based on a loose interpretation of the Russian revolution,” Terry Montgomery, TAG teacher, said. “At the animal farm there are seven rules of animalism and two of the leaders, representing Lenin and Stalin, did not follow their own rules.”

In “Animal Farm” the pigs take on the role of the leaders with Napoleon the pig symbolizing Stalin with his sidekick Squealer.

“The pigs are the elite even though the rule says all animals are equal,” Montgomery said. “The horses, goats, all the rest of the animals are suing the pigs. They feel they have violated the rights of the animals, where all are equal.”

The Ohio Center for Law-Related Education is responsible for turning the Orwell’s book into a court case for use in schools.

“I had never done ‘Animal Farm’ before,” Montgomery said. “This particular class is really sharp and they tend to get innuendoes. I felt this would be a good time to introduce the book. They were also learning about Russian history. They were kind of evaluating the idea of communism, the true idea of communism and how it actually played out.”

Seventh graders will present a second mock trial based on the book, “Roll of Thunder, Hear Me Cry,” by Mildred Taylor about an African American boy in rural Mississippi in the 1930s, accused of killing a shop owner.

“In Chesapeake we don’t have a lot of racism,” Montgomery said. “I felt that reading this book would expose them to the problems that happened in the early 1930s in the rural South and put things in a different perspective.”

The mock trial for “Animal Farm,” starts at 9 a.m. at the Chesapeake Middle School library in Chesapeake. The second trial begins at 12:30 p.m. Both will be performed on Wednesday, March 23. The event is open to the public.