---
product_id: 159991971
title: "Darkness at Noon: A Novel"
brand: "arthur koestler"
price: "14 zł"
currency: PLN
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 10
url: https://www.desertcart.pl/products/159991971-darkness-at-noon-a-novel
store_origin: PL
region: Poland
---

# Darkness at Noon: A Novel

**Brand:** arthur koestler
**Price:** 14 zł
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Darkness at Noon: A Novel by arthur koestler
- **How much does it cost?** 14 zł with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pl](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/159991971-darkness-at-noon-a-novel)

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## Description

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    History repeats itself
  

*by H***M on Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2020*

The novel explains why Koestler gave up his communist beliefs by dissecting the details of the show trial of the real-life Bukharin, who was one of the main progenitors of Bolshevism along with Lenin and Trotsky.  Stalin had Bukharin executed after forcing him to confess, in a trial that the whole world watched, to being a Fascist sympathizer.Koestler's book is like a more detailed version of the story of how Winston in Orwell's 1984 was interrogated for a confession.  The tragedy is that Bukharin was a real person.  But before you feel sorry for him you should consider that he very much was a Bolshevik revolutionary and they weren't very nice people at all either and Bukharin was probably the most powerful Bolshevik leader helping Stalin crush his enemies as he consolidated power.  Bukharin was also the editor of Pravda, which lied in print for the sake of preserving the gulag system where hundreds of thousands of people were worked to death in the freezing cold with near-starvation level food rations.  There are almost no good guys in the history of Russian/Soviet Communism.It is extremely difficult not to draw parallels with our current political situation, where all of the mainstream media sources seem to be following the Stalinist playbook when it comes to information, viz. the media is acting like The Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984.  Joe Biden is a great unifier etc etc.  It is hard to see how we are not being set up for a similar fate to what happened under Stalinism in Russia.  Right now there are a lot of optimistic, naive young people like how Bukharin and his fellow bolsheviks were when they first got the revolution going.  It will end in the same way because, as you see explained in a book like this one, they are being used for their hopeful enthusiasm to further the aims of ruthless people who want absolute global power.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A Brilliant Political Classic.........needs to be read again
  

*by D***7 on Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2015*

I have for many years known of this book and what it portrayed; that, similar to Orwell's "Animal Farm "and "1984", it's a condemnation of communism from a disillusioned, former party-member, but now having read it for the first time only recently, I can say how delightfully impressed I am with the brilliance of the writing and the incisiveness of the political and psychological analysis. If you're familiar with the "Red Terror" in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, with Stalin's purge and liquidation of hundreds of thousands including many in the party leadership (Lenin's old comrades), and with the public show trials many were forced to undergo, you might have wondered, as I have, why did almost all the old communists (Bolsheviks) publicly confess to such unbelievable crimes as participation in vast conspiracies, some involving foreign powers, to assassinate Stalin and his cronies, or to "wreck" whole industries, or to link with Trotsky and overthrow the Soviet government. You might think the NKVD's application of physical torture is sufficient to answer this question, but Koestler  and "Darkness at Noon" reveal other reasons, perhaps more troubling and fearful, that might explain why former revolutionaries and convinced Marxist-Leninists would debase and humiliate themselves in such a public manner.The novel has three main characters: Rubashov, a high-ranking and influential member of the party who's arrested at the beginning of the novel, Ivanov, his former friend and colleague and high-ranking security official who's appointed to interrogate him, and Gletkin, another interrogator who contrasts Ivanov's cynicism with an apparatchik's "true believer" mentality. The focus of the novel is Rubashov's imprisonment, his reminiscences, and primarily Ivanov's and Gletkin's efforts to get him to confess to conspire to assassinate "No. 1" and other disloyal crimes against the state. What makes "Darkness" work so well for me is that Rubashov is no admirable, "closet" liberal. He has in fact sacrificed party members in the past who have deviated from the "party line" and believes, even up to the end, that "personal liberty and social progress are incompatible." But he's intelligent and has seen enough of Marxism-Leninism in power, or the Stalinist variation of it, to be aware of its human costs, although he seems to think, like Ivanov, that these human costs are transitional. After all, the party has taught him, and they all seem to agree, that "the only morality refers to social utility" and the end justifies the means. But for some reason he's perceived as dangerous and part of the "opposition" within the party (Lenin eliminated the opposition outside the party), and so he's arrested.Ivanov is also intelligent, and a cynical high-ranking security official, and it's fascinating to see his almost gentle, but very psychological and political, approach to secure Rubashov's confession. Rubashov knows he's a dead man once he's arrested and seems to have a fatalistic view and no fear of physical distress. Rubashov's initial disinclination to confess is mocked by Ivanov; he tells him that personal heroism is personal vanity and he seems to agree since Marxist-Leninists only recognize social utility as a moral or positive goal. The party's hold on Rubashov is unending; he has taken "the vows of his order" (i.e., the party) and even his death must not subvert the party's goals but enhance them. I found the dialogue between Rubashov and Ivanov in the "Second Examination" to be evocative of the dialogue between Ivan and Alyosha in Dostoyevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor" and almost as brilliant. In both dialogues, one side advocates improving the future well-being of the "masses" at the cost of the present, and of human freedom as well as the need to eliminate heretics, both religious and political, while the other side seems to be wary of human utopianism and social engineering; of course, Rubashov lacks Alyosha's innocence and religious faith. But hear the  cynical Ivanov denounce human feeling: "One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions. That is the first commandment for us (i.e., party members). Sympathy, conscience, disgust, despair, repentance, and atonement are for us repellent debauchery." That's writing!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    This book is by no means a simple piece of ancient history.
  

*by Z***6 on Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2018*

What an extraordinary piece of writing. And although impatience may cause you to quit reading, perseverance will open your eyes to the horrors of humanity. A reminder of how destructive men in power can be. And one of the  most chilling concepts - “the ends justify the means.” And what powerful nation is next on the road to adding a fascist dictator to world history?? Why America silly. Because we now have the smartest man ever to walk the earth as our President. And if you don’t believe it just ask him...modesty is not a quality of future dictators.

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*Store origin: PL*
*Last updated: 2026-01-28*