Dostotevsky

The importance of social "feeling" is pointed out in "The Devils" (or "The Possessed") by Dostoyevsky, which is considered a prophecy of the 1917 Russian Revolution, written in 1871. In it Peter Verkhovensky states: "The next powerful force is, of course, sentimentality. You know, socialism among us spreads chiefly because of sentimentality [....] And well, finally, the main force—the cement that holds everything together—is their being ashamed of possessing an opinion of their own [....] I tell you they'll go through fire for me. All I have to do is to raise my voice and tell them that they are not sufficiently 'liberal'" (p. 387, in the Penguin Classics edition).