“He who establishes a dictatorship and does not kill Brutus, or he who founds a republic and does not kill the sons of Brutus, will only reign a short time”

This epigraph, taken from Machiavelli’s Discorsi foreshadows the book’s examination of the brutality of power. Machiavelli’s The Prince is also mentioned, as No. 1 keeps a copy on his bedside table. Machiavelli’s work provides the source for the logic that “the ends justify the means”, that accounts for the highly repressive tactics of the Party’s leadership.

“Man, man, one cannot live quite without pity”

Set against Machiavelli’s endorsement of brutality is a quotation from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment that speaks to the limitations of the precept “the ends justify the means,” as it reminds us of the necessity of pity for the human condition.

“Stop this comedy”

Rubashov first says this to Ivanov and repeats a version of it later. The “comedy” he refers to is the result of thinking things through to their “logical conclusion.” Logic in the absence of ethical or moral touchstones leads to absurd conclusions, or a “grotesque comedy,” within which Rubashov and those like him are trapped.