John Steinbeck’s wrote The Moon Is Down to inform Americans and inspire people in the formerly free countries of Europe—Norway, Denmark, Holland, France—occupied by Hitler’s forces in 1941. A March 1, 2022 op-ed in The Washington Post, by a literary-minded diplomat named Charles Edel, uses Steinbeck’s 1942 novella-play to educate another generation, and inspire resistance to another invasion and another dictator, eight decades later. “President Zelensky’s leadership of Ukraine’s resistance is a testament to democracy” profiles the Ukrainian president as a modern-day Mayor Orden, the fictional character Steinbeck likely modeled on the exiled mayor of Narvik, Norway. The op-ed’s subtitle—“How John Steinbeck’s ‘The Moon Is Down’ inspired resistance to occupation”—might give away the lede. But it will please fans of Steinbeck’s writing, which also includes A Russian Journal, Steinbeck’s 1948 nonfiction work in which Ukrainians emerge as victims of central planning and Russian belligerence. But that’s a subject for another op-ed on John Steinbeck’s continuing relevance.
Photo of Theodor Broch, the exiled mayor of Narvik, Norway.
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This diplomat is insightful. I still think The Moon Is Downis an amazing accomplishment, written about a foreignb culture yet so convincing and making such powerful points. Should draw more attention, too, to Don Coers’ superb boook John Steinbeck as Propagandist: The Moon Is Down Goes to War. It cewrtainly did and is needed again.
I loved this book and believe it clearly demonstrated the difference between a population that had been living in a nation where individual freedom and liberty were the norm verses one that had a very vertical dictatorship, like Russia. Doctors in the Russia can expect to be paid $750 per month. The average Russian employee brings home about $400 per month. They are slaves who enjoy an allowance under the oligarchy, Putin dictatorship. If the Ukraine loses to war, they can expect the same pay scale.
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The Moon is Down was the first work of Steinbeck I ever read, plucked from my father’s bookshelf. He had fought in the European Theater in WWII, ending his duties by writing official letters home to parents and families whose children would never return, and collecting a copy of the widely-translated and -disseminated story after he was demobilized. The book is as moving now as ever, and will always illuminate the human predicament of confrontation with raw and cruel power–and the quiet heroism that might just save a community, a province, a nation.
In a SteinbeckNow publication April 11, 2014 titled, “Was John Steinbeck the First Social Ecologist” I wrote the following as part of the the full article which has a direct relation to Russia (formal system) and Ukraine (informal networks):
“How Owning The Moon Is Down Became a Capital Crime”
“In The Moon Is Down John Steinbeck describes his fictional town’s informal network system, the characters in that system and the roles they play, and the bewilderment and frustration of the invaders with the villagers, who don’t behave as expected. The following passage reflects the dramatic difference between a top-down authoritarian type in a position of power, Colonel Lanser, and the informal horizontal system represented by Mayor Orden, a community that is supposedly powerless:
Lanser: “Please co-operate with us for the good of all.” When Mayor Orden made no reply, “For the good of all,” Lanser repeated. “Will you?”
Orden: “This is a little town. I don’t know. The people are confused and so am I.”
Lanser: “But will you try to co-operate?”
Orden shook his head. “I don’t know. When the town makes up its mind what it wants to do, I’ll probably do that.”
Lanser: “But you are the authority.”
Orden smiled. “You won’t believe this, but it is true: authority is in the town. I don’t know how or why, but it is so. This means we cannot act as quickly as you can, but when a direction is set, we all act together. I am confused. I don’t know yet.”
Lanser said wearily, “I hope we can get along together. It will be so much easier for everyone. I hope we can trust you. I don’t like to think of the means the military will take to keep order.”
Orden was silent.
“I hope we can trust you,” Lanser repeated.
Orden put his finger in his ear and wiggled his hand. “I don’t know,” he said.
Steinbeck’s statement about the “authority being in the town” is profound. To Lanser’s amazement, power resides not in a person but in the phalanx. Without analyzing its nature or origin, Orden articulates the insight that something beyond himself exists in the community that would make the silent decision to resist rather than capitulate. Steinbeck’s fictional representation of the power of the phalanx had political consequences. European translations of The Moon Is Down ultimately became operational handbooks for French, Italian, Norwegian, and other resistance movements during World War II. The Germans understood the book’s power. Possessing a copy was punishable by death.”
Putin should have read Steinbeck before setting out on his disastrous campaign in the Ukraine. Seems like he should have studied the informal systems that were prepared but invisible to the outsiders until he invaded. Oh wait…this is what authoritarian systems always do as Steinbeck noted in his other works including the Grapes of Wrath.
Jim Kent