This book was written by Arthur Koestler in German and was translated into English by his companion, Daphne Hardy. It is considered a classic novel, and was considered in the selection of the “greatest legal novels.” The book gives an insight into the Stalin show trials that resulted in the execution of his enemies, most of his friends, and a large number of people who were just trying to stay out of trouble and alive. Very few members of the “first Congress of the Communist Party” who were included in a group photograph from early in the revolution were still alive by the beginning of the book. The efforts to erase those who had been executed had ended, and the only remaining evidence was the light rectangle on the walls where the picture had once been displayed. Comrade Nicholas Salmanovitch Rubashov was a senior official of the Party, but his time had run out. He had demonstrated willingness to sacrifice lovers, friends, and comrades who were designated by central authorities as the enemy. The book begins with his arrest and imprisonment, and he knew and accepted that his years of loyalty would not save him from charges that he had violated official edicts of the Party. We normally do not review fiction books on this web site. The prelude says the characters are fictitious but the events described for Rubashov “…is a synthesis of the lives of a number of men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials.” The book begins with the cell door slamming behind Rubashov. He never exhibits any hope that he will escape execution. He worries more about a toothache, his supply of cigarettes, and keeping his pince-nez glasses clean.

Rubashov is soon communicating with the prisoner in the adjoining cell with tapping in a code that apparently is well-known by people who have had lengthy experience of being in prisons. When he reveals his identity the other prisoner eventually responds angrily “…RVES YOU RIGHT” (shorthand for serves you right). The other prisoner eventually reveals that he was a supporter of the Czar and expressed the opinion in the tapping code, “BRAVO! THE WOLVES DEOUR EACH OTHER.”  The anger is tempered when the prisoner wants to know when Rubashov was last with a woman and begs for descriptions. The book proceeds to flash backs to events involving loyal party members and a compliant lover Rubashov abandons for real or imagined violations of complete loyalty to the party to save himself.

His first interrogation is with a man named Ivanov, who was an “…old college friend and former battalion commander.” Ivanov arranged for Rubashov to be given cigarettes and not be tortured. He told a subordinate named Gletkin that Rubashov would understand all was hopeless and would sign the required confessions without mistreatment. Rubashov was taken to a barber who slipped a small piece of paper under Rubashov’s collar that advised, “Die in silence.”

There are descriptions of people who were executed because they had the audacity to want to convince No. 1 (the euphemism for Stalin) that a better policy was warranted. For example, one man who was a combat hero was executed because he advocated larger attack submarines should be constructed instead of the smaller defensive submarines ordered by Stalin.

There are disturbing discussions of how official policy ordered by Stalin resulted in the death of millions of people. For example Rubashov mentions “…that in the just distribution of land we deliberately let die of starvation about five million farmers and their families in one year.” That conversation references the starvation of millions of Ukrainians, but probably understates the actual results. Rubashov often gives lengthy discussions of Communist philosophy in inserts from his diary. He mentions that “…the people’s standard of living is lower…labour conditions are harder, the discipline is more inhuman, (and) the piecework drudgery worse than in colonial countries…” However he then tries to justify that outcome by writing, “We whip the groaning masses of the country toward a theoretical future happiness…”  He later wrote, “Yes, we liquidated the parasitic part of the peasantry and let it die of starvation.” Those writings eliminated any compassion for Rubashov; I agreed with the prisoner in the adjoining cell who sent the message, “serves you right.”

The next part of the book describes how Gletkin, who had disagreed with Asimov on how to interrogate Rubashov, becomes the primary interrogator. Rubashov is sleep deprived for several days and nights as he is questioned non-stop by Gletkin and told to sign a variety of confessions in order to be allowed to sleep. He signs all the confessions including one that he had plotted the assassination of “No. 1” He inexplicably refuses to sign one confession that he had planned sabotage.

There is a daunting description of how the prisoners use their communication code to inform one another when a prisoner is being taken to execution. They all begin pounding on their doors as the condemned person is being led to the execution area in the basement of the prison. Rubashov recognizes some of those being led past, but he is not given the opportunity to give a signal to Ivanov, the friend who had judged Rubashov would sign confessions without harsh treatment. Rubashov learned that Ivanov had been executed because he had not reacted as Ivanov had predicted. He seemed to have less guilt about the execution of his friend Ivanov than when he was confronted with evidence that he has guilty of allowing the execution of his completely compliant lover, Arlova, who was guilty of nothing, to save his own life.

Rubashov was loyal to the party to the end. He followed the Party mantra to “…keep silent in order to do a last service to the Party, by letting themselves (himself) be sacrificed as scapegoats…”  Predictably, his pince-nez glasses fell from his face and are broken underfoot as he descended the stairs to the execution chamber and he is left virtually blind.

As an aside, there is a historical dispute about Stalin commenting on the numbers of people executed. Some sources say he responded to a question from Lady Astor about when he intended to stop killing people. He is said to have responded, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” A second (among many) version is that he said at a different time, “If one man dies of hunger, it is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.” I found no dispute about the general validity of the quotes attributed to Stalin. As another aside, at the height of the media attention during the Lewinsky scandal, President Bill Clinton referred to the Koestler novel while telling an aide, “I feel like a character in the novel ‘Darkness at Noon’…”