Rubashov, an old Bolshevik, is arrested and interrogated by the Party he helped create, and eventually confesses to crimes he did not commit. Koestler wrote this as a former Communist, and the novel explains what the Moscow show trials could not: why dedicated revolutionaries confessed to absurdities. The logic of history, the Party as the only meaning: Rubashov argues himself into submission. The novel was translated into dozens of languages and became the great anti-Stalinist novel. The cell is small. The logic is relentless. Rubashov walks to his execution understanding everything and nothing.