Fabricating reality: Soviet "truth"-making in Darkness at Noon

[Warning: contains some spoilers]

It's been over a year since I actually finished reading this book (yes, I am very behind on all of the things I wanted to write about), but in all that time I have never managed to come up with something clear to say about the novel. The main reason for this, I believe, is that the book is so conceptual in nature; while there is a narrative, the bulk of the book is taken up with internal monologues and interrogation discussions surrounding ideas about the morality and contradictory nature of the Soviet Union's actions.

In an interesting coincidence, however, I find myself sitting down to write this after having recently gone through a personal experience that has helped me to look at this book in a somewhat new light.

See, someone thought it would be funny to convince me that something was a joke when, in actuality, everything they were telling me was true. While I had originally questioned the truth of their claims, I became convinced that it was simply a joke because of the things they said and did afterwards. There might have been a seed of doubt, but more than anything I was simply uncertain about the truth. I was pretty sure that the joke was an actual joke, but that meant that the real story was being kept from me. Nonetheless, I believed that I could trust my own belief in the fact that the story I was being told was false.

Sadly, I was wrong. But that made me realize just how easy it is to be convinced of an untruth, especially when the person proclaiming it is someone in whom you have placed your trust.

Creating a new "truth"

Darkness at Noon is written by Arthur Koestler, a communist who came to realize—while watching the Stalinist regime's operation—that the party's policies and actions tended to contradict themselves. He realized that there was no way to reconcile the cult of personality with the communist belief in the rights of the group above the individual, or the amount of violence done and deaths sacrificed for the sake of progress.

The novel describes the arrest of a fictional party member, Rubashov, who finds that his lack of total blind faith in the party has made it necessary for those in charge to silence him before he can contest the narrative that they have created.

As he looks back on his life, reflecting on the people he has known, the things he has done, and the accusations that have been brought against him, it becomes clear that one of the party's greatest goals is to maintain control over the historical narrative, assuring that all of their people believe their proclamations about the backwardness of the past. He knows several people who have faced punishment for refusing or failing to obey the government's orders to replace old histories with those created by the party. Furthermore, he has had to report "friends" for spreading party messages in their own words instead of sticking to the script that they were given. Even his interrogators continue to request that he admit to treason, despite his clear innocence. No matter what, the party is determined to affirm the story that it is telling.

True belief

Interestingly, the older members (including Rubashov and his original interrogator) attempt to negotiate the truth. Having been a part of the group that built the ideology and began the operation, these men know that the charges against Rubashov are false. However, they understand the necessity of maintaining the party narrative, and so they are willing to act as though the charges are true.

One of the greatest differences between Rubashov's older generation and the younger party members in the books is the acknowledgement of the fact that "truth" in the Soviet Union is fabricated. It shocks the prisoner to see that the younger officials actually seem to believe that what the party tells them is true. And I wonder: is it because the party had so effectively crafted and disseminated their "truth" that the younger generations were oblivious to this behind-the-scenes work, or was it that they had so much trust in those leading their cause that they were convinced—despite the fact that they may have had potential doubts—that they weren't being lied to? Did they, like me, believe that there was a mutual trust and allow themselves to be deceived precisely because they assumed that such a trick would never be played on them?

Before, I believed that these characters must have been lying to themselves, unless the party had truly been effective in brainwashing its followers and rewriting its history. Now, however, I realize that they may have been pawns, manipulated by their blind faith and loyalty to the cause. That doesn't change the fact that they did a lot of wrong because they believed these "truths," but it does cause me to reserve a little bit of judgement now that I understand that there may be more to this situation.

When I look at it this way, I wonder whether the ending is somewhat fitting. It's not that I think that Robashov deserved to die, or that his captors were in the right. On the contrary, he truly did come to regret his actions and I sympathized with his character, while the loyal pawns of the party were often unnecessarily cruel and terrible. However, knowing that Robashov was aware of the party's manipulations, it makes his actions as a member all that more despicable, because he brought punishment upon people who he knew did not deserve it. Perhaps that is actually why he caves at the end—not because of the torture and the endless convincing of false narratives, but because he realizes that he is guilty of the exact kind of injustice that is now being carried out on him.

In light of my knew perspective, I might just have to go read this book again and try to understand this character anew.