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Darkness at Noon, Scum of the Earth
1. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts the the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community --which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb." This passage from Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon (Random House 1941) suggests the danger of Nazi and Communist governments which place the survival of the State above the value of human life and dignity (Koestler 157). Darkness at noon, death in light, suffering in the twisted guise of progress, all suggest the perverse regimes during the height of German and Soviet dictatorship. Koestler's novel recounts the final days in the life of Party member Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, who, after forty years of faithful service, is denounced and imprisoned by the people's Commisariat of the Interior for unknowingly taking a position against the Party leader No. 1 (258). The protagonist describes the officers as the Praetorian guards of the German Dictatorship" who wore " on their caps and sleeves . . . the aggressively barbed cross" (5) and addressed one another as "comrade" (9). As the officers transport Rubashov to prison, the main character thinks to himself that "History will rehabilitate" him; however, such is not the case (14). Ironically, Koestler says, "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" (15). In fact, the author scorns those who use history for their own deterministic purposes, saying that "history was more of an oracle than a science," and that subjective rather than objective factors influenced the development in the second quarter of the twentieth century [which] led to the triumph of the totalitarian principle in the East of Europe" (17). In the narrative, the author traces the protagonist's psychological quest for truth as he attempts to justify his past actions for the Party with the government's rationale for liquidating him. Rubashov spends day after day in a small cell six and one-half steps across, between a bed and a bucket and hearing scream after scream of the inmates condemned to die (17). From the onset, the hero thinks to himself, "They will shoot me. My motives will be of no interest to them" (24). Awaiting his fate, Rubashov recalls a Monday afternoon in 1933, in a picture gallery in southern Germany, a location which he later realizes was a place of his betrayal. There, the outstretched hands of the Pieta represent an "imploring gesture" of compassion and understanding ( 31). Koestler, in this recurring image, also contrasts the beauty and underlying faith of the Pieta with the barbarism of the country's government (31). In another image, Rubashov holds an edition of Goethe's Faust, which the author uses to contrast the spiritual and metaphysical tension the hero undergoes (33). Another prominent symbol Koestler uses is Rubashov's pince-nez, which represents his lack of an accurate vision of truth. Repeatedly, the protagonist drops his glasses or they fall from his face, in a manner suggesting his lack of insight or moral perception (238). Ironically, just before his execution do the glasses fall from his face and are recovered by the guard following him, thus suggesting that at last he sees the truth, yet only as he faces death (265). Koestler also uses a religious allusion when the porter Wassilij compares Rubashov to Peter who betrayed Christ "thrice " before the day ends (248). Rubashov's walk down the corridor to the place of his execution, the porter compares to Christ's walk "into the hall called Praetorium . . . where they clothed him in purple . . . beat . . . and spit upon him" (246).
2. Koestler creates of tragic tone of loss and betrayal as the hero realizes how the interrogator focuses on the minor details of his early life to destroy him, details and remarks that only other victims of similar oppression would fabricate to save themselves or their families. In the cold, dark prison cell, Rubashov suffers the fear, suspicion, and injustice of a totalitarian regime bent on his destruction, not because of his disloyalty but because of his earlier popularity with the people, a popularity that endangers public support for the current regime because his current views differ with the Party leader and cannot gain the public 's acceptance in any other manner than by denouncing him as a traitor. For the first time, the protagonist senses an enormous burden of guilt as he recalls his actions of violence against all opposition, and his failure to support fellow Party members at times when they most needed his testimony to save their lives, condemning acts of omission which subsequently destroy the fabric of his soul and spirit. Koestler also ironically suggests that Time itself changes History, as the achievements of one generation pales into obscurity and another forgets. This tragic set of circumstances serves to destroy the hero. A member of an earlier regime, Rubashov now faces a new, younger leadership which does not value nor respect the successes of the past, and because of their ineptitude, the new government has eliminated most of the protagonist's early associates, those who have ironically struggled and given their lives for their country and the cause of freedom (228). Rubashov criticizes Gletkin, his prosecutor, for this youthful disrespect and lack of forethought in the following passage: "How he [Gletkin] had raged in the great field of experiment, the Fatherland of the Revolution, the Bastion of Freedom! Gletkin justified everything that happened with the principle that the bastion must be preserved. But what did it look like inside? No, one cannot build Paradise with concrete. The bastion would be preserved, but it no longer had a message, nor an example to give to the world" (259). Stability at all costs forfeits creative leadership, compassion, and cooperation.
3. Koestler's protagonist terms the cycle of history as a "swing" metaphor in which he describes the upward and downward swing from absolutism to freedom, and then back again to dictatorship, all according to the maturity level of of the masses. Rubashov describes the French Revolution in these terms and compares his own circumstances to it by calling it "the pendulum movement in history" (167). The degree to which a government provides its citizens individual freedom depends upon what he calls "political maturity," a process which requires that the masses understand the technological changes and demands of the time, and furthermore, recognize the need for national interests before personal ones (168). Both Nazi and Communist doctrine commit the heinous crime of forcing their people to suffer in the name of future peace and progress, a process which has not and will never occur. Koestler criticizes this delusion through the reasoning of Rubashov's persecutor who describes the process as "tearing off the old skin of mankind and giving it a new one" (160). In essence, this shedding will no more occur than Marx's withering away of the state. Koestler also discusses the consequences of"arbitrary power," the totalitarian use of terrorism, sabotage, and torture as a means to an end. The author voices a warning to future generations through the character of Ivanov, the only Party leader that sympathizes with Rubashov (162), when he says that Christianity and politics cannot effectively co-exist and that Christian morality is only employed when it proves politically expedient; otherwise, nations continue the race for power and "material self-defense" instead (155-156). In a totalitarian regime, one must not concern himself with his conscience or what he calls "mystical intoxication" (154). The greater good of the State must always supersede the needs of the individual (156). Through the persona of Rubashov, Koestler criticizes the twisted determinism of the totalitarian rationale for progress through suffering in his comparison of apes who scorn the cruelty and brutality of Neanderthals who can no longer climb trees. Koestler says, "The apes looked down on him amusedly from their tree tops and threw nuts at him. Sometimes horror seized them . . . the Neanderthaler devoured raw meat, he slaughtered animals and his fellows. He cut down trees which had always stood . . . He was uncouth, cruel, without animal dignity--from the point of view of the highly cultivated apes, a barbaric relapse of history" (229). This "relapse" Rubashov compares to the savagery of the current authoritarian regime. The author also repeatedly refers to the totalitarian leadership as the "Neanderthaler mentality" (208).
4. Toward the end of his imprisonment, after days of tiring around-the-clock cross-examination, nightly interrogations, and hours of blaring bright lights in his face, Rubashov agrees to confess that his motives were not always in line with the Party's, and looks back on a life seemingly wasted, along with the lives he has taken or failed to support as they faced execution (220-221). Koestler repeatedly alludes to Rubashov's aching tooth as a symbol of the rotten condition of the Party and the guilt that the protagonist experiences over the inhumane deeds of his past, all in the name of future Party success (193). The pounding and throbbing of the tooth parallels the intensity of his suffering, both at the hands of his torturer and within his own heart. In his novel Scum of the Earth (Cape 1941), Koestler alludes to this tooth metaphor when he says, "It is the old story of going to the dentist to have a tooth extracted --at the moment of ringing the bell it stops aching, and one wonders whether it is worth while suffering the agony of the operation. Yet if we do not, the infection will gain the jaw, and eventually the whole body." There was always the temptation to just let the invaders have their way and leave the people alone; however, the spread of such a moral disease could never be mitigated or contained. Such was the threat of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism (Koestler 35-36). In Darkness at Noon, the"broad scar on [the] shaven skull " of the orderly attending the protagonist also suggests the violence and corruption of a regime that depends upon cruelty and insensitivity of its workers (21). The protagonist repeatedly alludes to Arlova, a young secretary who idolized him and with whom he was on intimate terms, yet neglected to testify on her behalf, even as she implored his help (156). Placing all personal interest aside, Rubashov "sen[t] Arlova to her death ," and rationalized the act by saying that he only at the end realized the cruel torture and death she would undergo, and that he felt at the time that she was a mere "abstraction," a minor player in the Party's ultimate destiny (193). Rubashov also feels guilt over Professor Kieffer's son known as the Hare-lip who reports him to the authorities and falsely accuses him of plotting to poison the Party leader, a confession which ultimately costs the young man his life, though at his tender age, he more than likely misinterpreted the words of Rubashov and his father Professor Kieffer when he overheard the conversation of the two men that day (223). Hare-lip also suffers a similar fate, as he sends his best wishes to Rubashov from Cell 402 just before the protagonist's execution( 261). Bogrov, another of Rubashov's early revolutionary companions is executed for his opinion on the use of submarines internationally rather than domestically, much like Rubashov's dilemma (150). As Bogrov is marched down the hall of the prison to be executed, he shouts "Rubashov!" in defiance of the new regime. Bogrov is, as Koestler notes, another who would "only have created confusion amongst the people. There was no other way possible than to liquidate him administratively" (151). The main character also suffers guilt over the death of young Party critic named Richard whom he criticized over the suggestion that the Party was undergoing " a severe trial" (42). Similarly, Ivanov, the one leader who sympathizes with Rubashov, dies as result of his suggestion that they free rather than execute the protagonist, a decision handed down form Party Leader No. 1 (219-221). In a nearby cell, an aged twenty-five year prisoner lives as a testimony of a lost and forgotten life; he is called Rip Van Winkle because he has little or no knowledge of the changes that have occurred in the world for the last quarter century. Koestler uses the allusion of Rip Van Winkle to suggest how archaic and out of touch the current regime is from the truth, the dignity of man, Sand love of one another. Ironically, Rip's slogan "ARISE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH" is one final plea for justice, honor, and brotherhood (124). Another prisoner in Cell 402 gives Rubashov his final words of encouragement as the protagonist walks his final time to execution; this inmate also voices Koestler's concern as he wishes to replace the doomed man rather than spend another eighteen years in prison (264).
5. Koestler also uses irony to intensify the tragic tone of the novel. On two earlier occasions, Rubashov had been tried and pleaded guilty, saying that his motive had been solely in support of the Party, and that he had been released and chosen to serve the party again. His devotion, however, meant little to his superiors (191-193). This third time, however, Gletkin, the Party examiner, would not permit his release because the circumstances would complicate matters for the masses, and that could not be allowed. Despite their insignificance as individuals, the masses wielded a substantial influence in the decision-making policies , or at least the image that the Party wished to project. Any circumstance that would cause the masses to doubt the integrity of the Party could never be permitted, despite the honor, character, or truth underlying the issue. At one point, Rubashov alludes to the one word over the entrance of the cemetery at Errancis where Robespiere, Saint-Just and "their sixteen beheaded companions lay buried ": Dormier, as the only condition that truly ensures peace and rest (210). Koestler quotes Saint-Just in the opening of the novel by saying, "Nobody can rule guiltlessly."
Scum of the Earth
In his book Scum of the Earth (1941), Koestler expresses his personal feelings about the rise of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism in the following passage when he says that he had "believed that Russia was the only promising social experiment in this wretched century" and that he himself "had been a Communist for seven years" but had "paid dearly for it. " Koestler says, "I had left the Party in disgust just eighteen months ago. Some of my friends had done the same; some were still hesitating; many of them had been shot or imprisoned in Russia. We had realized that Stalinism had soiled and compromised the Socialist Utopia as the Medieval Church had solid and compromised Christianity; that Trotsky, although more appealing as a person, was in his methods not better than his opponent; that the central evil of Bolshevism was its unconditional adaptation of the tenet that the End justifies the Means; that a well-meaning dictatorship of the Torquemada-Robespierre-Stalin ascendancy was even more disastrous in its effect than a naked tyranny of the Neronian type; that all the parties of the Left had outlived their time, and that one day a new movement was to emerge from the deluge . . ." Scum of the Earth was written in January-March 1941, before the German attack on Russia, yet Koestler says that he "sees no reason to modify his observations on the psychological effects of the Soviet-German pact of August 1939, or his opinion on the policy of the Communist Party in France" As Koestler himself said, "Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears." In another passage Koestler said, "The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums." (Author's Notes in Introduction of Scum of the Earth 1941).
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Works Cited
Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon. Daphne Hardy, Translator. New York: Modern Library, 1941.
Koestler, Arthur. Scum of the Earth. London: Eland Publishing Limited, 2006.