ABSTRACT
Dostoevsky had a clear idea of the philosophical background of utopian socialism and predicted its political consequences in Devils (Besy, 1871-72), also translated as The Possessed. The novel is based on his knowledge of Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Cabet, as well as Russian materialist philosophers such as Chernyshevsky and Pisarev; and, in particular, on documentation about the radical activities of Sergei Nechayev. In Dostoevsky’s fictional reconstruction of the political debate of the 1860s, one of the main characters, the conservative Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, tries to understand his radical son Peter by reading Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat’?, 1863). Verkhovensky considers this novel a catechism of the radical movement and wants to know it in order to be able to counter its pernicious influence. We, too, if we wish to understand the background of Dostoevsky’s repudiation of nihilist politics, cannot circumvent What Is to Be Done? It is an early expression of philosophical materialism and explores its ideological consequences, which were totally rejected by Dostoevsky.
