The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That Shaped the Cold War

The Anti-Communist Manifestos focuses on four influential books that informed the Cold War: Darkness at Noon (1940) by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian journalist and intellectual; Out of the Night (1941) by Jan Valtin, a German sailor and labour agitator; I Chose Freedom (1946) by Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet engineer; and, Witness (1952) by Whittaker Chambers, an American journalist. All were ex-Communist Party members. The books altered the course of history; the lives behind them have the dark fascination of fiction. Koestler was imprisoned in three countries in as many years, Kravchenko was forced to live like a fugitive in America. Chambers was a prophet without honour in his own land. Three of the four had been spies for the Comintern. All contemplated suicide and two of them achieved it. John V. Fleming’s humane and ironic narrative of these grim lives reveals that words were the true driving force behind the Cold War.