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PARTISAN REVIEW
can it be denied that he was dedicated to what he conceived to
be
the true destiny-and therefore the spiritual freedom--of the Russian
people. The philosophy of Herzen, Turgenev, and the early socialists
(all of whom looked to the West and to an international social revolu–
tion), was undoubtedly a more wholesome one. But it is also true that
Dostoevsky was in some ways a more indigenous figure, reflecting in
his apocalyptic vision of the human community the very backward–
ness of old Russia. And in such retarded countries as India, China,
and Italy, the most advanced social outlooks have not uncommonly
been grounded in religiosity, non-violence, and a substitution of spirit–
ual for political action.
Of even greater importance, however, is the fact that Dostoevsky's
recoil from the socialist principle was couched in terms that have be–
come wholly relevant to political thinking. One can only speculate
whether it was his backwardness or his insight that brought him to
formulate so dramatically the vital issue of the relation of means to
ends in the realm of social action. But the fact is, that this has be–
come the central problem of contemporary politics; and the theoreti–
cal dilemma that agitated Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov, and
inspired the human conflicts in
The Possessed,
has now become
strangely pertinent. The radical movement has itself made the painful
discovery through actual historical experience, that its most cherished
ends have foundered on the choice of means.
III
All these stresses of Dostoevsky's thinking are embodied in the
"underground man," the new human type created by Dostoevsky, and
undoubtedly his prime achievement. Though foreshadowed as far back
as
Poor Folk,
Dostoevsky's first work, and greatly ramified in his later
writings, this type first appears in full bloom in
Notes from Under–
ground.
Cast in the characteristic form of a confession, this revolution–
ary novelette literally disgorges the state of mind of its protagonist.
Meek, tortured, uprooted, and living in the labyrinths of the pathologi–
cal, he has all the proportions of an "anti-hero," a deflated man, with
an overwrought consciousness, who cannot cope with his predicaments.
We immediately recognize in him the tragic man of sensibility of mod–
ern writing. But Dostoevsky has gone even further, intensifying him to
the point where he becomes a pure object of feeling, and then cutting
him open to reveal his clinical foundations. We see him suffering from
paranoia, masochism, manic exaltation; and a split personality car-
