To “Complete” the Tower of Babel? Dostoevsky and Socialism

In recent years, numerous attempts have been made to somehow “embed” Dostoevsky’s axiological principles into the theory and practice of socialist construction in our country. At the same time, the cardinal differences between these principles, which are based on an Orthodox foundation, and the atheistic (anti-God) views of the leaders and ideologists of the socialist state are leveled. Using the writer’s fiction and journalistic texts, the article reveals the opposition between the Orthodox worldview and outwardly different, but deeply similar deviations from it. It also demonstrates that the “concept of socialism” attributed to Dostoevsky by some post- Soviet philosophers, which they directly integrate with Soviet state practice, is erroneous. The reason is that the latter not only dispensed without Christ, but also, as the records of contemporaries of such practices (M. A. Bulgakov, A. F. Losev, I. R. Shafarevich) show, was so openly anti-Christian (with violent state suppression of Christian human freedom) that it allowed to draw radical conclusions about the embodiment of the Satanic spirit. However, militant de-Christianization is what brings together both Western “capitalism” and Soviet “socialism.” This return of humanity to the pre-Christian (and after the advent of Christianity in the world — anti-Christian) state was prophetically predicted by Dostoevsky. The article argues that both are in fact opposed to Dostoevsky’s “Russian idea” and his cherished convictions.