The Conflict Between Individual And State And — страница 2

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“silent partner”, the free-thinking individual within himself. His conscious self had been founded in the ?we?, until he was imprisoned. Facing death, Rubashov realizes the destructiveness of a political system that doesn?t account for the individual. No longer confused by his apathy for the Party, Rubashov?s final hours are marked by a fatalistic mindset and an internal sense of peace. In Rubashov?s conversation with Ivanov during Rubashov?s second hearing, Ivanov states: “The greatest temptaion for the like of us is: to renounce violence, to repent, to make peace with oneself”. Ivanov represents rubashov?s former viewpoint. However, no longer subject to the repressive Communist order, Rubashov does find reconciliation with himself: He was a man who had lost his shadow,

released from every bond. He followed every thought to its last conclusion and acted in accordance with it to the very end. The hours which remained to him belonged to the silent partner, whose realm started just where logical thought ended. He had christened it the ?grammatical fiction? with that shamefacedness about the first person singular which the Party had inculcated in its disciples. At this point Rubashov rests. The inner turmoil he had from being torn between two avenues of thought had ceased. He has realized the futility of the Party?s actions, and in his own way repented of those actions by dissociating himself from the Party. Although the Party had essentially banished Rubashov first, Rubashov?s conflict had resulted from his mental loyalty for the System to which he

fell victim. Having lost his faith in Communism, Rubashov devotes the remaining part of his life to the “grammatical fiction”, and finds contentment. Rubashov is no longer afraid of death because death is imminent, and not even the most logical thought or powerful dictator can alter the natural law of death. After enduring emotional and mental torment, he realizes he has “earned the right to sleep” and die peacefully. Rubashov?s experiences in prison altered his view of the communist system and upturned the faith he had for it. The idea that a doctrine in which the individual is not accounted for becomes an absurdity. The appearance of the grammatical fiction in Rubashov?s case, is representative of the larger conflict between the individual and the State. Rubashov?s

experience is a microcosm of the people who suppressed their own individual thought and reason for that of the Party and Stalinist dictatorship. The idea expressed by Koestler in Darkness at Noon is that the Communist system?s ultimate failure lies within its idea that the individual is a “sacrificial lamb” for the Party. Instead, it is the individual that is the essential factor in making a society. An individual can survive without a government, but a government can not survive without the support of the individual, and it is for this reason that no form of Communism has ever reached the utopian peak in which Marx and Engles expressed in The Manifesto of the Communist Party. 3ba