DOSTOEVSKY'S SOCIALISM
421
Ghrist with Dostoevsky. And it is only in this perspective that we can
truly interpret one of Dostoevsky's most misleading and yet revealing
comments.about these arguments.
. , "As
a Socialist," Dostoevsky writes, "Belinsky could not help but
demolish the teaching of Christ, declaring it a false and ignorant
chelovekolyubie
[literally: love of man, philanthrophy] condemned
by
contemporary science and economic first principles." By 1873,
when Dostoevsky wrote these words, he had long since been convinced
that "the teaching of Christ" and Socialism were totally irreconcilable.
But no such opinion prevailed in the forties, when Utopian Socialism,
on Dostoevsky's own testimony, was looked on as an "improved"
Christianity, and when the "teaching of Christ" had been taken by
the Utopian Socialists as a guide.
It
was this "teaching of .christ"
which was then being attacked everywhere in Europe, exactly as
Belinsky was doing in Russia, in the name of "contemporary science
and economic first principles." It was only
this
"teaching of Christ,"
based on the pure spirit of equality and brotherly love taught by the
Gospels, .which Belinsky could possibly have described as a
chelove–
kolyubie.
Besides, since the attack in question was directed against Dostoev–
sky,
it would be ridiculous to imagine that the latter, the author of
Poor Folk,
was upholding any' of the dogmas of Christian theology
or any of the official teachings of the Church. Dostoevsky was ob–
viously arguing exclusively in a socio-political context, on the side of
the "teaching of Christ" as he
then
understood it-on the side of
religiously inspired, pro-Christian, French Utopian Socialism. And
once we see the passage in this light we can understand why Dostoev–
sky
should have felt that Belinsky
really
introduced
him
to Socialism
(even
if
this, as we know, was not literally the case). For Belinsky
did
introduce Dostoevsky to
atheistic
Socialism, the only kind Dostoev–
sky
later recognized as truly consistent-a Socialism which rejected the
"teaching of Christ" as irrelevant and even harmful for the solution
of social problems.
Moreover, the evidence of Dostoevsky's life in the next few years
would indicate that, regardless of whether he succeeded in making
Dostoevsky an atheist, Belinsky certainly did succeed in converting him
from the "teaching of Christ" as embodied in Utopian Socialism.
For Belinsky's influence probably gave Dostoevsky the first impetus
