Arthur Koestler

Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler's modern masterpiece, Darkness At Noon, is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s. During Stalin's purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of liberation. A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, Darkness At Noon is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary.

A Novel

Darkness at Noon

Michal

Rubashov repeated to himself for the hundredth time that Gletkin and the new Neanderthalers were merely completing the work of the generation with the numbered heads. That the same doctrine became so inhuman in their mouths, had, as it were, merely climactic reasons. When Ivanov had used the same arguments, there was yet an undertone in his voice left by the past by the remembrance of a world which had vanished. One can deny one’s childhood, but not erase it. Ivanov had trailed his past after him to the end; that was what gave everything he said that undertone of frivolous melancholy; that was why Gletkin had called him a cynic. The Gletkins had nothing to erase; they need not deny their past, because they had none. They were born without umbilical cord, without frivolity, without melancholy.

History put me where I stood; I have exhausted the credit which she accorded me; if I was right I have nothing to repent of; if wrong, I will pay.

The horror which No. 1 emanated, above all consisted in the possibility that he was in the right, and that all those whom he killed had to admit, even with the bullet in the back of their necks, that he conceivably might be in the right. There was no certainty; only the appeal to that mocking oracle they called History, who gave her sentence only when the jaws of the appealer had long since fallen to dust.

We have thrown overboard all conventions, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic; we are sailing without ethical ballast.”

Perhaps the heart of the evil lay there. Perhaps it did not suit mankind to sail without ballast. And perhaps reason alone was a defective compass, which led one on such a winding, twisted course that the goal finally disappeared in the mist.

"Honour was to serve without vanity, without sparing oneself, and until the last consequence."

°dorothea°

Misha

Worth reading for EA/LW types with authoritarian/unmoderated tendencies. h/t Sasha

linda

Quick summary: Rubashov, an old Bolshevik member of the Communist leadership, is arrested for ideological deviances during the “Moscow Trials”. During his time in prison, he reflects on his brutally faithful adherence to the Party ideology and the ambiguous morality of his actions. Ultimately, he confesses to the false charges against him and is executed.

There is so much of this book that I did not understand. I picked up some but not all of the references to the Bible, European and Roman history. The writing was lucid and philosophical; I liked it. 

There were several ideas in this book that I felt interesting, one of which is the ideological discrepancy between the older and younger generations - the older generation is portrayed as more civil and gentlemanly, but seen by the younger generation as philosophizing dilettantes; the younger generation is more Machiavellian and less humane, but also more efficient. Here is a passage that illustrates that idea: “With what right do we who are quitting the scene look down with such superiority on the Gletkins?...the Neanderthaler devoured raw meat, he slaughtered animals and his fellows. He cut down trees which had always stood, moved rocks from their time-hallowed place, transgressed against every law and tradition of the jungle. He was uncouth, cruel, without animal dignity—from the point of view of the highly cultivated apes, a barbaric relapse of history. The last surviving chimpanzees still turn up their noses at the sight of a human being. ...”

Another interesting and pervasive theme is the morality of the end justifying the means, or in Rubashov’s words, “sailing without ethical ballast.” The communist party justifies its repression of free speech, the starvation of its citizens, and brutal purge of the leadership with the belief that those actions are necessary for creating a socialist utopia, albeit at a great cost. Gletkin raises the question “Nature is generous in her senseless experiments on mankind. Why should mankind not have the right to experiment on itself?” He also argues that renouncing violence or becoming too soft is the reason revolutionaries like Spartacus, Danton, and Dostoevsky have failed. 

Lastly, I enjoyed thinking about how history is created. Whom does history absolve, and whom does history tread into the dust? How much of what we believe is merely a “useful truth” to appease the masses? How do we determine objectivity and subjectivity?

This book has made me eager to learn more about political science and government. I can’t wait. :)

Darkness at Noon A Novel

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