Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165
be defending” (83). No matter how hard the rebel works, his or her utopia will never arrive. Not
content with eliminating the most egregious elements of the old system, the utopian rebel will
continue to look for ways of creating the world anew, whether by eliminating stubborn peasants
or by brutally killing recalcitrant natives. Though fueled by a positive vision of what could be,
the utopian rebel becomes an actor trapped in constant negation: “Not being able to atone for
injustice by the elevation of justice, we choose to submerge it in an even greater injustice, which
is finally confounded with annihilation.” This is the philosophical explanation for Stalin’s
action, and the essential idea embodied in Conrad’s depiction of Kurtz’s reign in the Congo.
Kurtz’s vision of utopia was ideologically different than the ones held by Stalin and the
others mentioned in Camus’ The Rebel. As Lackey makes clear, Kurtz was working from a
vision that would impose traditional European civilization upon every corner of the planet.
Kurtz saw this process of imposition as ultimately benevolent, as a way of bringing the light of
civilization to the darkness of barbarity. As he puts it in his report to the Society for the
Suppression of Savage Customs, “by the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for
good practically unbounded” (45). These are the words of a utopian dreamer. Kurtz expresses
the dream of a theory, of an ideology, that can impose benevolence upon reality without
constraints. In this sense, though depicted as a man who believes in tradition, Kurtz still rebels.
Someone who holds on to a utopian dream unblemished by contact with the world is in rebellion,
struggling against what is in the name of what could be.
The frenzy of insisting upon the utopian dream in the face of chaotic reality explains
much of the eloquence and charisma of rebels like Kurtz and Stalin. Though depicted as a man
of the nineteenth century, Kurtz’s magnetism anticipates the charismatic, demagogic leaders who
dominated the twentieth century. Many characters in the novel speak about Kurtz’s talent for
holding people’s attention and their loyalty. The Russian admirer of Kurtz insists to Marlow,
“You don’t talk with the man – you listen to him” (49). This talent for rhetorical hypnotism
leads the acolyte to excuse Kurtz’s murderous rage against him because “You can’t judge Mr.
Kurtz as you would an ordinary man. No, no, no!” (51). The fictional Russian sounds like a
predecessor of the nonfictional Vyacheslav Mikhailovic Molotov, Stalin’s longest surviving
associate, defending the reputation of the long deceased dictator until his own death in the mid-
1980s, despite the fact that Stalin arrested and exiled his beloved wife, Polina. Kurtz’s old
journalist colleague elucidates the underlying political and psychological advantages of a
charisma that can enthrall its victims: “He electrified large meetings. He had faith—don’t you
see? He had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything – anything. He would have been
a splendid leader of an extreme party” (67). The rhetorical justification of the genocidal actor,
whether from the left or the right, must carry the poetic power to make the ongoing act of
murders palatable to himself and to his followers. Thus, mass murder necessitates charisma.
Though Stalin is said to have lacked the rhetorical flourishes attributed to a Kurtz, it was
in part the cultivated simplicity of the Bolshevik’s language that garnished the trust and loyalty
of the lower cadres of the communist party against the more bombastic Trotsky. Stalin’s triumph
over his rival shows us the truths of that common admonishment of composition instructors who
tell us, simple language can be more effective and powerful than complex linguistic flourishes.
Stalin, furthermore, didn’t lack in other attractive qualities. After all, if he didn’t have the
quality to attract and maintain the loyalty of others, his reign would have come to a short end at
the hand of the powerful comrades he set to persecute. Montefiore describes Stalin as
“mercurial—far from a humorless drone: he was convivial and entertaining, if exhaustingly
intense” (49). This description could have easily been worded by Marlow regarding Kurtz.
Vol. II. Issue. III 54 September 2011