A Period of Darkness

THAT history fascinates could be a trite observation. But if the period under review is close say by only a couple of generations, the allurement can get an equal doze of incredulity as well. Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler, which I just finished reading, gives such moments with an occasional stomach churn as one goes through it. The novel is a much celebrated work and finds mention in most top-100 lists of books from the 20^th century.

It’s a fictionalized account of the period of Great Purge and the Moscow trials of Stalinist Russia. Koestler himself was a member of the Communist party during this period, only to turn a heretic and escape first to France, then to England via Portugal. For the record, Russia is not named. Neither is Stalin. But all characters bear Russian names and the dictator is called No. 1 as an allusion to Stalin.

Through the protagonist, N S Rubashov, Koestler paints a narrative that though focusing on Stalin’s regime, presents the deep conflict that Communism was going through only two decades into its life. The title itself underscores the short life span of the ideology as the dark period came too early, within the life time, and to the mortal shock, of starry eyed Bolsheviks, represented by Rubashov.

A former central committee member of the party who commanded a division of the Revolutionary Army, Rubashov is executed for his political deviations, of course only after extracting a confession. Soviet Russia was seen such a miracle of planned economy that it inspired a whole generation from Nehru to my granddad. Yet, seen through the eyes of Rubashov, the material culture post revolution still presents a picture of second world. The police is using American cars, drivers crib about bad roads, power supply is low voltage and prone to fluctuations, and ah the comrades smoke American cigarettes!

After Rubashov is picked up and lodged in solitary confinement the narrative turns into a dialogue of sorts between the new and the old order. Rubashov finds his young tormentor Gletkin as distant and uncouth as to call him a Neanderthal. Increasingly, he finds that the people for whom they brought about the revolution are least concerned, and only tolerate the party just the way they had the feudals and the czars.

Koestler’s work gives a peep into the Marxist theoretical construct as well. For the upholders of the ideology, there is almost an obsession to treat history as some kind of science. It’s variously called arithmetic, physics, or algebra with equations, where people can be put on x-axis and played around. History is supposed to have empirical laws. Like it says in one of the pages, History knows no scruples and no hesitation. I have seen this kind of fixation to treat history without any moral compass in some of my left leaning friends here as well.

The only difference between a communist dictatorship like Stalinist Russia and the ones in Germany or Italy was that of national romanticism. But while the former could be justified as an empirical construct of history, the latter were to be scorned and despised for attaching sentimentality to fatherland. Essentially, sentimentality of any kind is to be eschewed. That’s why perhaps, sex, like all pleasures in much of communist literature, is treated perfunctorily. Though in one of the most innovative usage read by yours truly, Rubashov compares the shape of his secretary Arlova’s breasts to that of champagne glasses.

On death row, Rubashov asks questions of himself that prince Siddharth would have asked before he became Buddha. What is suffering? Is the world infinite? Should we not believe in the relative maturity of the masses (religion?) over ideology? From science, history becomes metaphysics. Exactly the opposite of first commandment of communism: the world is not to be seen as a metaphysical brothel for emotions.

And how can as intense an internal conflict as this, miss out on Gandhi as one of the frames of reference. The Mahatma, still alive in those times, is termed the greatest catastrophe, his inner voice a criminality that prevented liberation of India by the still enthusiastic Ivanov. That is what perhaps makes some of our left leaning intellectuals in India speak of cow-eating and Gandhi in the same breath. No elaboration is made beyond this on Gandhi. But Koestler makes a point through Rubashov’s confession in which he talks about the relative maturity of the masses. Was it not a Gandhian idea to let villages rule themselves? Well no ideology was needed for them. That’s why perhaps Marxism is dead. And an inconvenient Gandhi living through Panchayats.