LOL. George Orwell (not his name, really Eric Arthur Blair) fought actual fascists, so for a brief period he thought Communism was the good guy.
George Orwell was certainly a socialist, and certainly not a Soviet-style communist. When he signed up for the Spanish Civil War, he was rejected by the International Brigades specifically because of his anti-communist sentiment, and fought instead under Poum, which was pro-socialist and fervently anti-Stalinist.
Soon he learned, and guess what, he fought Commies too! He was no Socialist. He even wrote a book about the dangers of Communism/Marxism called Animal Farm! Orwell was anti-totalitarianism, not anti-capitalism.
It doesn't make sense to conflate socialism and totalitarian communism; they are very different to one another. Animal Farm was pro-socialist and anti-Stalinist. You are right that it was a critique of totalitarian communism, in that it was a more or less overt attack on Stalin. The Stalin vs Trotsky angle is represented in the novel by Napoleon vs Snowball. It's quite clear.
Here's a photo of Orwell literally fighting for socialism in the 30's.
https://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/library/digest20014_jacobs1.jpg
