Darkness at Noon essays

Darkness at Noon essays Rubashov, himself an aging Bolshevik revolutionary and one of the few survivors from Lenin's old guard, is brought to a confrontation of his own past during his imprisonment and interrogation. The period is Stalin's Russia of the 1930s, a time when Stalin systematically eliminated all opposition to the new ideology of collectivism,' and his own rule. As a result, Rubashov is forced to undergo the same experience of suffering and psychological torture that he himself had been party to inflicting on many an innocent individual, including his own friends and even his lover, in the name of the revolution. This leads him to a great deal of introspection and soul searching on his personal value system and indeed, the ideology followed by the Party. Reflecting back on his own life, Rubashov slowly reaches the conclusion that the end does not justify the means. Now that Rubashov finds himself in the shoes of his own victims, he begins to re-examine the justification used by the Party in inflicting suffering on many individuals who betrayed even a hint of individualism or opposition to the cause. For instance, he recalls the case of Bogrov, a naval engineer: "advocatedsubmarineslarge range of action. The Party is in favor ofsmall rangenot have been enough to put him out of the wayhad to be discredited." (Koestler, 122) Slowly, Rubashov realizes just how much the Party has acted only in its own interests and not the interests of the masses. Truth and progress have no role to play. As Rubashov records in his diary, "leading agriculturistshot with thirty of his collaborators because he maintainednitrate artificial manure was superior to potash." (79). With imprisonment bringing Rubashov to the receiving end of the Party's policies, he realizes that he has spen...