'no cats (= communists?) in america' (?)

It is a bit silly, if you think about it... I hate to sound neurotic, but, you wouldn't believe some of the pathetic outlets people use for propaganda. I grew up with this film too. I thought it was depressing when I was younger. Actually, I thought all of Don Bluth's (American Tail is a Don Bluth film, right?) films were comparably dark in contrast to Disney etc. But I loved them. Now it's all starting to make sense! I now realize why I'm so twisted!

wow i'm loving all this stuff because i find it all really interesting...having grown up loving the film but always wondering if it was based on anything more i just want to thank you loads because well..now i can look big when me and my mates watch it!!!

Highly interesting topic, but I think I'm going to side with kris on this one just because the setting of AT was in 1886, well before communism even took a stand in the Russian government starting in 1917 with Vladimir Lenin.

I just re-watched this two days ago so I felt I should stop by over here.
~Meeko

The cats in Russia were cossacks who would later align themselves with the Anti-Bolshevik White movement. So you could say they would become enemies of communism but that is oversimplifying.

Exactly! Tsar Alexander III was a huge Anti-Semite who inherited his power after his father (Alexander II) was assassinated by an anti-tsarist underground movement (which by the way, did birth the likes of Lenin, whose older brother was executed for an attempted attack on Alexander III) in 1881. Yes, there were Jewish Russians involved in the scheme to get rid of the Tsar and his power, predominantly because those who were not Christian and worship at the Russian Orthodox church regularly were seen as outsiders. Alexander III sent out his secret police (the Okhrana) who would send the Tsar's army (often comprised of Cossacks, who were often seen as the "barbarians" due to their heritage) to basically steal the lands and livelihoods of Jewish settlements (the act called pogroms).

Most of these were held 1881-1884 due to Alexander III's vengeance and what he felt he had to prove to the ruling classes. Another set of pogroms was in 1903-1906 under his son Nicholas II, due to him trying to appease the ruling class and under bad advice from his counselors who urged him to be more like his father. This directly led to strong immigration rates to the US, Europe, and other countries and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 due to the injustices of the nobles over the peasant classes and instilled Communism as a form of government. This, however, allowed for further pogroms post-1917 in a much harsher way and to a more gruesome result, which in turn led to the failed Anti-Bolshevik Revolution (run mostly by displaced Jews, by the way) or the White Army (anti-communists) vs. the Red Army (communists). Much of 19th century Russian history is the Russian peoples going from one war to the next.

Fiddler on the Roof was set during the latter pogroms, just as American Tail is set during the earlier ones. (And on a Spielberg note here: just as Schindler's List is set during the German pogrom, to use the above terms!)

Part of not repeating history's mistakes is really knowing and understanding them. So what's going to stop the next pogrom? You! So educate yourself!

Nothing about Communists. The movie is dated in 1885. The Russian-Communist movement wasn't until 1917. That's over thirty years away. And, under the Czars, Russia was a fantastic place. We have this view of it now as desolate and broken, but that's only since the middle of the Communist rule. Now, of course, right before World War 1 Russia lost a lot of money fighting the Japanese in a small war, and so the support in Czar Nicholas was lost, but before that it was a fine place to live.

I think it's more the struggle of a simple family who was getting by in Russia, but dreamed of more. They went to America hearing it was the promised land, not because things in Russia were overly horrible, although the movie seems to paint it that way, but simply because they desired an easier life. Some got that when they moved, some didn't.

Wrong.

The timeline of the story takes place well before Communism. The cats just represent the oppression any minority wants to escape from.

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I fully agree with the person who says that the mice representing the Jews and the cats representing the Czar and pogroms was correct as I was thinking the exact same thing as soon as I saw the topic of this post, so it's good to know that I am not alone. At the time when the movie was set there was a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism in general Russia and they were probably fleeing from that to America. But again it is a children's film so I don't think there was too much to be read into it, although I do definitely see that allegory there.

I do think it would be awesome if they made a movie version of Maus as I thought about that a lot when I was watching this. But I still couldn't see it happening, at least not as a children's movie anyway, as that is far too dark to be a children's movie. But it would be a great movie to make and would probably remind me a bit of a movie done in the style of Persepolis. But yeah I don't think you can make a real strong Holocaust allegory film for children without making it fairly obvious. I think to make something like that for children you would have to tone it down way too much.