Does Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon more persuasively critique authoritarian collectivism than George Orwell praises anarchistic collectivism in his Homage to Catalonia? Anonymous College

In both Arthur Koestler’s anti-Stalinist novel Darkness at Noon, and in George Orwell’s memoir of his time fighting for Spanish Republicans in Homage to Catalonia, both authors contend with similar political and historical questions pertinent to contemporary European society. In implicitly critiquing Stalinist authoritarianism, both authors explore the meaning of collectivism in their respective texts, with Koestler criticizing the authoritarian connotations and Orwell highlighting its positive anarchist iteration. In this way, as far as defining ‘collectivism’ goes, we can distinguish authoritarian collectivity as being of the dialectical Marxist, ‘ends justifying the means’-type of scientific leftism, versus the local and decentralized (Gerstein, 4-2-18) anarcho-syndicalist view of class-free egalitarian leftism. Although George Orwell in fact validly expresses his views on both strains of collectivism and is more aware of the deeper divisions within left wing politics, Koestler is more persuasive in denouncing the statist kind with his Nazi-Soviet Pact historical contextualization, his use of motif to express humanist sentiments (i.e. anti-party line and anti-reason), and by exploring the psychological implications of...