“I was ripe to be converted”

Arthur Koestler

“I was ripe to be converted”

Thesis: Arthur Koestler describes his conversion to Communism as a not only a political idea that he decided to favor but as an entire new way of thinking caused by his own struggles in life with capitalism.

· Arthur Koestler, born in Budapest of Jewish ancestry and educated in Vienna

o Worked as newspaper correspondent for leading Berlin newspaper chain

o Joined communist party in 1931

o He broke with the party in 1988 because of Stalin’s liquidations

· In the passage written by Arthur Koestler he recounts the attraction communism held for him, written 1949

o Arthur describes his conversion to communism as a long process that began in his childhood and produced by his disintegrating society

o Arthur then describes the fall his family had to endure from middle-class prominence to financial ruin as a result of the first world war and capitalistic economy that forced him to become the only financial support for his family

o Explains his dislike for the rich as not because his jealous because the rich don’t have a guilty conscience

o Arthur now describe his own guilt further, the guilt he feels for his family providing for him at a young age things they could not afford and the guilt he feels for those around him who are poorer than himself.

o At this point in his personal conflict Arthur says he was ripe to learn of the food burned during depression years to keep food prices up and gives us the quote; “Woe to the shepherds who feed themselves, but feed not their flocks.”

o Arthur describes the polarization, which occurred as a result of the disintegration of the middle class strata into the Right or Left.

o Arthur again states he was ripe to be converted as a result of his previous history to left.

o Arthur describes the state of Germany as it was becoming Nazi Germany could only be stopped by Communism

o Describes his conversion experience as magical and very much like a religious conversion.