The Hungarian-born author Arthur Koestler, himself a former communist, based Rubashov, the main character in his 1940 novel "Darkness at Noon", on victims of the Moscow Trials; according to George Orwell, Rakovsky's fate was a possible direct influence: "Rubashov might be called Trotsky, Bukharin, Rakovsky or some other relatively civilised figure among the Old Bolsheviks. If one writes about the Moscow trials one must answer the question, «Why did the accused confess?» and which answer one makes is a political decision. Koestler answers, in effect, «Because these people had been rotted by the Revolution which they served», and in doing so he comes near to claiming that revolutions are of their nature bad".