BOOKS
103
modern
mind
in the face of historical problems and its call for a new
deity, is intellectually gross. For the book has not even raised the problem
of socialism versus fascism which it pretends to exhaust. It does not
criticise the particular political philosophy of Peter-he might as well
have been a heroic Protestant minister. It merely argues that heroism
is always the result of infantile guilt feelings, that the political always
violates the personal, and that any reasoned political action involving
sacrifices is therefore always wholly neurotic.
The notion that psychoanalysis gives plausibility to these conclusions
is extremely superficial. The analysis is shbwn to have destroyed Peter's
ability to make a judgment of fascism, whereas, actually, by removing
his dream interpretation of the enemy, analysis should have deepened
his consciousness of what fascism means. Koestler has all but left himself
in
the position of trying to demonstrate the contradiction that without
neurotic compulsions man cannot behave intelligently.
Koestler approaches politics with a fixed philosophical dualism that
distorts his understanding of the trap;edy of the left intellectual of the
past decade. In
Darkness at Noon,
also a novel of atonement, he did not
attack the jailers of Rubashov for specific violations of socialist values,
but placed the responsibility on Rubashov himself as representing with
them a metaphysical absolute-"the logic of history"-opposed to the
individual by the nature of things. The effect of this mechanical dicho–
tomy (which also appears in Koestler's essays) was to cause Rubashov,
introduced as one of the revolutionary founders of the USSR, to con–
ceive his political life as nothing more than a series of crimes against
the individual-it was the guilt he incurred in "representing history"
that he expiated in confessing at the trial. Such a criticism of The Trials
is a metaphysical not a political or historical criticism, and in effect it
accepts the political and historical claims of the Communists while re–
jecting their moral ones.
But without concrete politics, no concrete political characters. Un–
like Silone, whose fascists are living types, Koestler's novels of guilt talk
about characters more often than they reveal them dramatically. The
scene between Peter and Radich, Chief of the Political Department, is a
marvellous dramatic opportunity-utterly missed. The same is true of
Koestler's Communists; they remain invisible behind their "ideas."
No doubt the ex-Communists are baffied in the face of the present
world situation. Koestler's prophecy that ·'a new god is about to be
born" has no other content than this bafflement. The new god is a reli–
gious or mythological device which fills his hero with serene enthusiasm
by ending his need to understand what is taking place. In this shape
confusion is positive and homeopathic. The trouble is that it makes
"Here we go" identical with "After all-why not?" and political action
into a sexual experience.
HAROLD
RosENBERG
