ABSTRACT
Rubashov always dealt with external things and historical processes. For the first time Rubashov sees the Revolution from the standpoint of the White Guard and he realizes that no one can feel justified in the eyes of those on whom he has inflicted violence. In Rubashov’s mind and in Koestler’s version of communism, history is no longer what it was for Marx: the manifestation of human values through a process which might involve dialectical detours but at least could not entirely ignore human purposes. History is no longer the living element of man, the response to his wishes, the locus of revolutionary fraternity. One passage among all the others in Darkness at Noon shows what little understanding Koestler has of Marxism. It is where, after going back to his cell, Rubashov begins to explain his confession in terms of the “theory of the relative maturity of the masses.”
