Notes to CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Radical-left Doctrines in the Novel: Utopian Socialism, Utilitarianism, Nihilism

Utopian Socialism, Utilitarianism, Nihilism

Dostoevsky the journalist and fiction writer was always deeply concerned with the social and political ideas of his time. In his younger days, he himself had been caught up in the fervor of Utopian Socialism—with its lofty ideals and conviction that human life on earth could be bettered for all. But after his return from Siberian prison and exile he spent the remainder of his days fighting a variety of political notions and social ideas—all of which, so he thought, depended too much on reason, and all of which were imported to Russia from Western Europe. 

He saw Western ideas as, basically, alien and dangerous on Russian soil, capable of producing highly unfavorable social and political changes. As it turned out, he was right, since the political system of Marxism-Leninism, which fueled the establishment of the new Soviet Union, ended up being a disaster for the Russian people, and even more of a disaster for peoples in a minority position in the U.S.S. R.

The Russian social and political situation in 1863-1865 was extremely complicated. For an in depth treatment of all its ramifications, the best place for the Anglophone reader to go is to Joseph Frank’s literary biography of Dostoevsky, Vol. III: Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871. Suffice it to say here that Raskolnikov’s deranged mind is much influenced by both (1) French Utopian Socialism (2) English Utilitarianism and (3) Russian Nihilism.

The spokesman for Utopian Socialism in C and P is the fatuous Lebezyatnikov, described as “a singularly commonplace and silly person.” In his empty-headedness he resembles the caricatures of radicals who are Bazarov’s “disciples” in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (Kukshina and Sitnikov). Lebezyatnikov espouses views that were already somewhat old-fashioned in Russia by the mid-sixties of the nineteenth century: glorification of the common people, free love, the necessity to organize communal living, beyond the restraints of traditional marriage. 

He also mouths the theory about how the environment that people live in determines their behavior. Dostoevsky uses one of the most positive characters in the novel, the generous, intelligent and impulsive Razumikhin, to criticize the environmental theory:

“they explain everything by the ‘deleterious influence of the environment’—and that’s all! Their favorite cliché . . . from that it follows that if society is properly organized all crimes will instantly disappear. . . Nature is not taken into account, nature is banished, nature is not supposed to exist! . . . . . . They have no use for the living soul. The living soul demands life, the living soul will not submit to mechanism, the living soul must be regarded with suspicion, the living soul is reactionary!” (Part 3, Ch. 5).

Here we have Dostoevsky’s insistence that the irrational ways of life often take precedence over the rational, that an overemphasis on reason can pervert life’s natural processes. His spokesman for such a view is a character whose very name reeks with reason: Razumikhin (Russian razum=reason).

At one point the dull-minded Lebezyatnikov explains to Raskolnikov modern methods of curing the mad by using logical persuasion: “madness is, so to speak, a logical mistake, a mistake of judgment, an incorrect view of things” (Part 5, Ch. 5). Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova, who raves and rants all the way through the narrative, could be calmed (opines Lebezyatnikov), would stop crying if only she would listen to reason:

“what I mean is this: if you convinced a man logically that he had nothing to cry for, he would stop crying. That’s clear. Or are you of the opinion that he wouldn’t stop?”

“’That would make living too easy,’ answered Raskolnikov,” (Слишком легко тогда было бы жить).

Porfiry Petrovich, the police inspector, frequently emphasizes that evidence “cuts both ways” in the investigation of a crime. The Russian expression is “a stick with two ends” (палка о двух концах). But anyone reading much of Dostoevsky’s fiction soon discovers that the formula of the stick with two ends operates consistently. Despite his denigration of what he sees as a simplistic environmental theory, Dostoevsky does not deny the influence of the environment in motivating human behavior. 

One of his most intelligent characters, Porfiry Petrovich, assures Razumikhin at one point that environment can have a good deal to do with inspiring crime. Dostoevsky clearly illustrates how the squalid conditions in which Raskolnikov lives and the stifling, poisonous atmosphere of underclass Petersburg exacerbates his morbid state of mind. Frequent reference is made to his room, a horrible, cramped little cubbyhole that is compared to a coffin [see the cover art to the Norton Critical Edition of C and P, which depicts the view out the window from that room]. Environment is indeed important, but human beings cannot get away with rationalizing all their conduct by blaming it on their surroundings.

As for the ideas of English Utilitarianism, very popular in Russia in the mid-nineteenth century among the radical intelligentsia, Lebezyatnikov also mouths a few of these. Their most vocal spokesperson in Russia was Chernyshevsky, who was convinced that utilitarian theories could solve all problems of ethics and personal conduct. As Joseph Frank has written, “This has caused a great deal of confusion because only in Russia do we find the peculiar blend of French Utopian Socialism, with its belief in the possibility of a future world of love and moral perfection, held conjointly with a view of human nature stemming from the egoistic individualism [utilitarianism] of Bentham and Mill” (Norton Critical Ed., p. 563).

His “friend” Luzhin, perhaps the most despicable character in the novel, sniggers at Lebezyatnikov’s lectures on the utilitarian: “Everything that is useful to humanity is honorable, I understand only one word, useful!” (Part 5, Ch. 1). But Luzhin preaches the same utilitarian principles, using them to justify his own utter selfishness: “by the very act of devoting my gains solely and exclusively to myself, I am at the same time benefitting the whole community” (Part 2, Ch. 5).

Russian radicalism of the mid-1860s had advanced beyond the principles of Utopian Socialism. Utilizing the ideals of Utilitarianism and a love for the scientific method (positivism), the new radicals had arrived at so-called “Nihilism.’ The first important Nihilist in Russian literature was Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, a man who has no great love for the common man, or for anyone else as well. He disdains what he sees as the sentimentality of Utopian Socialism; he sneers at over-idealization of the common man. He is an elitist who worries little about whose feelings he tramps on in his single-minded effort to change the social and political system.

While brought up with a Christian view of brotherly love, Raskolnikov has long since left the Orthodox religion behind. At the moment that C and P begins he is an atheist who has already gone beyond socialism and utilitarianism to his own nihilistic theory of the amoral “great man,” who can change the world if he is willing to trample upon generally accepted human morals.

Of course, one of Raskolnikov’s motivations for the crime is strictly utilitarian. He claims that he will make good use of the money he steals upon committing murder, devoting his life to serving humanity and changing the world for the better. But the error of his thinking—this being only one of many errors in his confused mind—is apparent in his own subconscious when he tells Luzhin what Luzhin’s doctrines of utilitarian “rational egoism” will lead to ultimately: “Carry to its logical conclusion what you were preaching just now, and it emerges that you can cut people’s throats” (Part 2, Ch. 5).

Such is the confusion of radical ideas that were in the air in the middle of the Russian nineteenth century, ideas that battle for ascendancy in the deranged mind of the main protagonist of C and P. The author Dostoevsky viewed all of these ideas as alien and dangerous. His great hope was that Russia and Russians could return to their roots, embracing the Russian earth and the Russian Orthodox doctrine of love, suffering their way through to a non-rational enlightenment.

"Cuts Both Ways" Caricature of Dostoevsky Sitting on an Axe, by Eugene Ivanov

                                                        Luzhin and Porfiry Petrovich