Darkness at Noon
Encyclopedia
Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...

, first published in 1940. His best known work, it tells the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik , also Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for those who were members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of whom were either tried and executed by the NKVD during Stalin era purges or died under suspicious...

 who is cast out, imprisoned, and tried for treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

 against the very Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 he once helped to create.

The novel is set in 1938 during the Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

 purges
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

 and Moscow show trials. It reflects the author's personal disillusionment with Communism; Koestler knew some of the defendants at the Moscow trials. Although the characters have Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n names, neither Russia nor the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 are actually mentioned by name as the location of the book. Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 is described as "Number One", a barely seen, menacing dictator.

The novel was originally written in German and translated into English by Daphne Hardy
Daphne Hardy Henrion
Daphne Hardy Henrion was a British sculptor, a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and an intimate of the writer Arthur Koestler.-Life:...

, while living with Koestler in Paris in early 1940. Koestler and Hardy fled Paris in May 1940 just ahead of the German army. Koestler attempted suicide in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

 after hearing a false report that the ship taking Hardy to England (along with the only manuscript) had been torpedoed and all hands lost. Koestler described the episode in Scum of the Earth
Scum of the Earth (book)
Scum of the Earth is the title of a book by Arthur Koestler in which he describes his life in France during 1939-1940, the chaos that prevailed in France just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War and France’s collapse, his tribulations, internment in a concentration camp, and eventual...

, his autobiography of that period. On reaching England, Hardy arranged to have the manuscript published and chose the title "Darkness at Noon".

Since the original German text has been lost, German versions, published under the title Sonnenfinsternis (literally "solar eclipse") are back translations from English. Darkness at Noon is actually the second part of a trilogy, the first volume being The Gladiators about the subversion of the Spartacus
Spartacus
Spartacus was a famous leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable...

 revolt, and the third Arrival and Departure
Arrival and Departure
Arrival and Departure is the third novel of Arthur Koestler's trilogy concerning the conflict between morality and expediency . The first volume, The Gladiators, is about the subversion of the Spartacus revolt, and the second, Darkness at Noon, is the celebrated novel about the Soviet Show trials...

about a refugee in World War II. The Gladiators was originally written in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

 and Arrival and Departure in English. Of these two, only The Gladiators has had much success.

In 1998, the Modern Library
Modern Library
The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...

 ranked Darkness at Noon eighth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century

Setting

Darkness At Noon is set in a Russia during the 1938 purges, as Stalin consolidates his dicatorship by eliminating potential rivals within the communist party, the military, and the professions. Almost all of the novel occurs inside of an unnamed prison and in the recollections of the central character.

Koestler drew on his own experience of being imprisoned by Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

 during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 described in his memoir Dialog with Death. Like Rubashov, he was in solitary confinement, expected to be executed, paced his cell constantly, was permitted to walk in the courtyard in the company of other prisoners, and was not beaten himself but knew that others were beaten.

Characters

The central character is Nicholas Salmanovitch Rubashov, a man in his fifties who is based on "a number of men who were the victims of the so-called Moscow trials," several of whom "were personally known to the author." Rubashov is a stand-in for the Old Bolsheviks as a group, and his story is essentially Koestler's explanation of their seemingly strange actions at the 1938 Moscow Show Trials. Since joining the Party as a teenager Rubashov has lead soldiers in the field , won a commendation for "fearlessness", repeatedly volunteered for hazardous assignments, endured torture, betrayed other communists who deviated from the Party line, and in short proven in almost every way imaginable that he is loyal to its policies and goals. Recently he has had doubts, however. Despite twenty years of unrestrained power, millions of deliberate deaths and executions, and all his personal sacrifices, the Party does not seem to be any closer to achieving the goal of a socialist utopia than it was when he joined. If anything, that vision seems to be receeding. When Rubashov is introduced, he stands at a crossroads, between a lifetime of devotion to the Party on the one hand, and his conscience and the mounting evidence of his own experience on the other.

Secondary characters include Rubashov's fellow prisoners. No. 402 is a czarist army officer and veteran inmate with whom Rubashov communicates by tapping in code against the wall between their cells. He also communicates with Rip Van Winkle, an old revolutionary from central europe who has been broken by twenty years of solitary confinement followed by imprisonment in Russia. A third prisoner is Hare-Lip, who is occasionally tortured, and who "sends his greetings" to Rubashov, but insists on keeping his name secret. Two other secondary characters who never make a direct appearance in the story, but who are mentioned frequently in the background, are No. 1 and the other Old Bolsheviks. No. 1 is another name for Stalin, who has steadily eliminated the Old Bolsheviks throughout the 1930s in a series of purges and show trials. Both characters are symbolized by a picture: No. 1 by a "well-known color print, which hung over every bed or sideboard in the country and stared at people with its frozen eyes", and the Old Bolsheviks by a picture that appears only in his "mind's eye, a big photograph in a wooden frame: the delegates to the first congress of the Party" in which they sat "at a long wooden table, some with their elbows propped on it, others with their hands on their knees, bearded and earnest." Rubashov frequently thinks of No. 1's portrait, as if trying to decipher No. 1's thoughts, and fondly remembers the men in the portrait of the delegates to the first party congress, as if trying to recall a lost age.

While in prison Rubashov must confront two interrogators. The first is his old friend Ivanov, a comrade from the civil war who lost a leg during the fighting. He adopts an informal manner, gives the impression that he is still Rubashov's friend, and implies that he can lighten Rubashov's sentence if he will cooperate. The other interrogator is a young man named Gletkin, who starches his uniform so heavily that it cracks and groans whenever he moves. Gletkin is "the brutal embodiment of the state," a "neanderthaler" whom Rubashov despises, but eventually becomes reconciled to. Unlike Ivanov, Gletkin does not rely on persuasion, but instead on a combination of sleeplessness, humiliation, and endless questioning to wear down his victim.

The First Hearing

The novel begins with Rubashov's arrest in the middle of the night by two men from the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

. When they came for him, they woke him from a dream where he was being arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

. One of the men is about Rubashov's age, the other is somewhat younger. The older man is formal and courteous, the younger is chauvanistic and brutal." The difference between them introduces the first major theme of Darkness At Noon - the passing of the older, civilized generation, and the barbarism of their successors.

Once in prison Rubashov finds himself strangely relieved. He does not seem surprised at his arrest, and he is expecting to be held in solitary confinement until he is shot." Nevertheless he is able to communicate with No. 402, the man in the adjacent cell, by using a tap code. Rubashov quickly realizes that they don't have much to discuss, however. Unlike Rubashov, No. 402 is no intellectual; he just wants to hear the details of Rubashov's latest sexual encounter. Rubashov humors him for a little while, but in the end is too embarrassed to continue. "

His thoughts drift to the Old Bolsheviks, No. 1, and to the the Marxist Interpretation of History
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...

.
Throughout the novel Rubashov, Ivanov, and Gletkin speculate continually about historical processes and how they fit into them as individuals and as a group. Each of them hopes that, no matter how vile their actions may seem to their contemporaries, history will eventually absolve them. This is the faith that makes the atrocities of the Stalinist regime conscionable to them, for what does the suffering of a few thousand, or even a few million people matter when weighed against the happiness of future generations? If they can bring about the socialist utopia which they believe is possible, all will be forgiven.

Rubashov also spends a great deal of time reflecting on his past. He recalls his first visit to Berlin in about the year 1933, just as Hitler has come to power. He has been given the assignment of "purging and reorganizing" the German Communists. As a part of this mission, he meets with Richard, a young communist cell leader who has distributed material with a message contrary to the Party Line. In a museum, underneath a picture of the Pieta
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...

, as the light is fading, Rubashov explains to Richard that he has broken Party Discipline, become "objectively harmful," and must be expelled from the Communist Party. All the while a Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 man hovers in the background with his pretty girlfriend on his arm. Too late, Richard realizes that Rubashov has betrayed him to the secret police. He begs Rubashov not to "throw him to the wolves," but Rubashov just wants to get away from him as quickly as possible.

His first interrogation is conducted by an old friend, Ivanov, a man that Rubashov once talked out of suicide. Ivanov tries persuading him to consider signing a false confession
False confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental disorder or incompetency of the accused...

 — a confession in which he admits to conspiring to assassinate No. 1, the new leader of the regime. In due course, Rubashov becomes aware that he has been implicated in the plot by another prisoner, Hare-Lip, the son of an old friend of Rubashov. (Hare-Lip himself has confessed under torture.) Ivanov implores Rubashov to sign a confession and Rubashov shows willingness to consider his proposition.

However, Ivanov is arrested in the meantime, ostensibly for being "too soft" on Rubashov. He is eventually executed. Rubashov is then ruthlessly interrogated by Gletkin, a brutal man of peasant stock who seemingly resents Rubashov's education and former class privilege. Gletkin, a representative of new Communist party officials, unflinchingly advocates the use of torture to wring confessions from prisoners.

Once Gletkin takes over the interrogation of Rubashov, he resorts to methods like sleep deprivation and making Rubashov sit in front of a glaring lamp for hours on end. Worn down, Rubashov finally capitulates.

As Rubashov confesses to the false charges, he thinks of all of the times he betrayed agents in the past — the young German Richard, Little Loewy, who hangs
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

 himself, and Arlova, Rubashov's own secretary-mistress. Rubashov recognises that his treatment is carried out with the same ruthless logic as that which he himself employed. Ultimately, his commitment to following his logic to its last conclusion—and his own lingering dedication to the Party—lead him to confess fully and publicly.

The final section of the novel is headed with a four-line quotation ("Show us not the aim without the way ...") from the German socialist Ferdinand Lasalle. The novel ends with Rubashov's execution.

Influence

The novel's French title is Le Zéro et l'Infini ("Zero and Infinity"). Like the English title, "Darkness at Noon", it reflects Koestler's life-long obsession with the meeting of opposites, and dialectics. Le Zéro et l'Infini sold more than 400,000 copies in France.

American screenwriter and Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

 member Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...

 boasted to the The Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...

that party members in the film industry had prevented Darkness at Noon, among other anti-Stalinist books, from being produced into a Hollywood movie.

According to George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

, "Rubashov might be called Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...

, Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist...

 or some other relatively civilised figure among the Old Bolsheviks". Orwell drew on Darkness At Noon when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

(especially the segment where Winston Smith
Winston Smith
Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with"...

 is interrogated by O'Brien). In 1944 he wrote a review of Koestler's work to-date, which included a discussion of Darkness At Noon.

In 1954, at the end of a long inquiry and a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...

, Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

 sentenced to death former high-ranking Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...

 member and government official Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...

. According to his collaborator Belu Zilber, Pătrăşcanu read Darkness at Noon in Paris while envoy to the 1946 Peace Conference
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...

, and took the book back to Romania.

External links

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