Totalitarianism and C&P

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Abdur Rehman Khan

Incipient Modernities

Dr. Sambudha Sen

End Term Paper

Totalitarianism and Crime and Punishment

Though the setting of Crime and Punishment, St. Petersburg of 1861 is not a part of Totalitarian

state per se, in strictly political terms and sense. However, Totalitarianism as a concept can be

observed at various levels throughout Dostoyevsky’s psychological thriller. In this paper, I will

bring forward how the protagonist of the novel, Raskolnikov, time and again uses the concept of

Authoritarianism (and in most cases of Totalitarianism) to justify his project, which is to kill a

parasitic member of the society in order to bring a juster society. I will also discuss how two of

the major characters Razumihin and Porfiry Petrovitch interprets and understands Totalitarianism

and its effect on society. In doing so we will get a glance of incipient modernity in the making,

especially in the case of Lebeziatnikov. In the essay, we will see how Crime and Punishment

paved a way for the 20th century Totalitarian leaders like Lenin and Stalin. The essay will cover

two of the recurring themes of power and loneliness in the case of Raskolnikov and his

seemingly foolproof plan which initiates with accidents and in the end faces the questions of

irrelevance, absurdity and fruitlessness. I will conclude with the outcome of the use of

Totalitarianism by Raskolnikov in justifying his killing, does it work for him or

not.
Adam Augustyn defines Totalitarianism as “In the broadest sense, totalitarianism is characterized

by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through

coercion and repression.”1 However one cannot talk about the rise of Totalitarianism without

mentioning Napoleon Bonaparte, a recurring figure in Crime and Punishment mainly used by the

protagonist Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov. In Napoleon and Russia Michael Adams 2 writes,

“Napoleon, ‘upstart’ and moderniser as he was, was never as fierce an antagonist of the ancien

regime as the revolutionary radicals who had executed Louis XVI and overseen the Terror in the

1790’s- he did, after all, repress the ‘dangerous’ idea of democracy, make peace with the Church,

and re-establish a form of monarchy and (in 1808) nobility”. Just like Napoleon, Raskolnikov

was an upstart as he had no prior possession of power of his own. Through his arguably flawed

logic, he finds himself in a position where he desperately needed a position of power so that he

could ‘modernize’ and hence liberate his immediate surroundings. After reading his mother,

Alexandrovna Pulcheria’s letter in which she had written that his sister Dounia is going to marry

Luhzin, he realizes that Dounia is essentially sacrificing herself for Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov’s

meeting with Marmeladov coerced this idea even more because he started drawing a parallel

between Marmeladov’s daughter Sonya and his sister Dounia. As Sonya was forced to do

prostitution in so that her family could survive financially, and Raskolnikov thinks that his sister

Dounia is only marrying Luzhin so that Raskolnikov can have a job under him. He could not let

this happen, he needed to bring a juster society where his sister should not waste her life. The

only plausible option for him was to gain power by killing a useless member of society so that he

could use the stolen money to jumpstart his career. He justifies his project in this manner:

1 Adam Augustyn, Totalitarianism, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019


2 Michael Adams, Napoleon and Russia, Bloomsbury, 2006, p. 194
“It was like this: I asked myself one day this question-what if Napoleon, for instance, had
happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont
Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there
had simple been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be murdered too to get
money from her trunk (for his career, you understand). Well, would he have brought himself to
that of there had been no other means?... he would not have seen that there was anything in it to
pause over, and that, if he had had no other way, he would have strangled her in a minute without
thinking about it...murdered her, following his example.” (p 441)

What is interesting to know is the fact that Raskolnikov considers killing of the innocent as a

criminal act, however, he justifies being criminal as a virtue attained by ‘extraordinary people’.

These extraordinary people, just like an authoritarian, have the power to transgress the laws and

moral conducts in order to bring their cause to fruitfulness. Though in the above passage, which

is from the latter part of the novel, he mentions that Napoleon ‘would have strangled her in a

minute without thinking about it’, in the starting however he seems to have a slightly different

stance where he seems to held the authoritarian figures responsible of bloodshed and carnage:

“I maintain in my article that all well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon,
Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that,
making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held
sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed- often of
the innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law- were of use to their cause. It’s
remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were
guilty of terrible carnage.” (p 280)

This guilt precisely haunts him throughout the novel, in subconscious state as in the case of

Raskolnikov’s dreams such as brutal murder of the horse, as well as in conscious state which

ultimately makes him confess his crime on the street and in the end at the police station. It should

be noted that in the opening parts of the novel Raskolnikov does not admit that he is Napoleanic

figure as he says: “I don’t consider myself a Mahomet (Muhammad) or a Napolean, nor any

personage of that kind.” (p 286)


The incipient modernity in crime and punishment lies in its anticipation of the Soviet regime as

Razumihin forebodes the authoritarian figures such as Lenin and Stalin as he hints “That’s why

they (the socialists) so dislike the living process of life; they don’t want a living soul! The living

soul demands life, the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion,

the soul is retrograde” (p 275). He builds his argument that the socialists believe that all crime is

nothing but a revolt against the unequal division of society:

“Everything with them is the ‘influence of environment’ and nothing else. Their favourite phrase!
From which it follows that, if society is normally organised, all crime will cease at once, since
there will be nothing to protest against and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human
nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist!” (p 275)

The very notion of not taking human behaviour into account is a criticism which Socialist and

Communist parties are generally accused of, which was later carried forward by Totalitarian

figures like Lenin and even more so by Stalin, much after the publication of Crime and

Punishment. The shedding of light on this very topic by Dostoyvesky can be counted as incipient

modernity. Dostoyvesky’s another attempts can also be understood in the light of incipient

modernity such as contempt for feelings and emotions towards people by characters like Andrey

Semyonovitch Lebezyatnikov, who does not only tries to dismantle the traditional values but also

has little regard towards religion as can be seen in his behaviour of “abstain from christening his

future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so

on.” (p 386)

The one recurring theme of Crime and Punishment is of power and loneliness, Raskolnikov can

be seen in a constant search of incidents where his murder can be unveiled so that he can
establish his repressed desired power. What follows this particular desire is crushing loneliness

as can be seen in the following examples. His incident with the police officer Zametov at the

tavern is of utmost importance as he gives suggestions to him he is the murderer, by first

establishing his nefarious detailed plan of how he would have done the deed of murdering and

stealing money and pawned trinkets. Then he goes to the extreme length by simply saying “ And

what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta” (p 183). And to make himself look

even more suspicious he gives the wrong impression to Zametov of his newly received money

which was actually given by his mother, by saying :

“And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he held out his shaking hand
to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and blue, twenty five roubles. Where did I get them? And
where did my new clothes come from? You’ve cross-examined my landlady, I’ll be bound...Well,
that’s enough! Assez cause! Till we meet again!” (p 183)

It is extremely clear here that he wants his murder to be acknowledged by a police officer so that
he can attain a vital characteristic of a Napoleanic figure or to say an authoritarian figure, that is
of power. But what immediately follows is sheer loneliness and all the accompanying similar
feelings, as just after this incident he encounters this:

“He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an
element of insufferable rapture. Yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted after a
fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his
energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was removed.” (p 184)

This particular behaviour can be noticed in his encounter with the painters when he asks them “Is

there no blood? The woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a perfect pool

there.”(p 190). Then he avoids going near that building altogether. Another example is a

conversation between Raskolnikov and Razumihin , whereas Razumihin is disgusted by the very

idea of suspecting an ex-student, such as Raskolnikov, of murder; Raskolnikov however gives

more and more reasons to Razumihin as to why he can be a suspect as the facts were fitting
perfectly. Raskolnikov’s complicated relation of power and loneliness can be best described with

his long complaint to Razumihin to leave him alone:

Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm—“can’t you see that I don’t
want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who... curses
them, who feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness?
Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that you were torturing me,
that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously
hindering my recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just
now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness’ sake! What right have you,
indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How,
how can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be
mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!” (p. 185)

Raskolnikov makes such requests time and again to Nastasya, the servant of his landlady, his

mother and sister, and countless other people. The absolute tragic resolution of this relation of

power and loneliness is Raskolnikov’s confession to Sonia. When Sofya Semyonovna

Marmeladov, the only person with whom Raskolnikov shares a meaningful relationship, hears

his confession, and does not agree with his justification he starts hating her, which can be

interpreted as repressed desire to cut off his last resort, as a desire to become even more lonely:

He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in his pale smile. And
suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred for Sonia passed through his
heart. (p 435)

But it is her who saves him from this very loneliness, as she suggests: “Go at once, this very

minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then

bow down to all men aloud, I am a murderer!” (p 447). It is only after doing this public

repentance Raskolnikov ceases to suffer from the loneliness of power, but such a public act

cannot be performed by a man of stature, rendering such redemption unattainable to the

totalitarian figures like Lenin and Stalin.


Values of enlightenment especially of rationality, science and logic are a vital part of

Raskolnikov’s initial plan, but it becomes a contingency driven on nothing but accidents, the

most obvious being Raskolnikov’s overhearing of Lizaveta’s upcoming whereabouts and the

eventual murder of Lizaveta . But there are more such noticeable accidents, for example

Raskolnikov’s passing out near the canal where by a case of mere chance he stumbled upon the

unsuccessful suicide of a woman by jumping from the bridge. This particular accident affects

Raskolnikov’s general attitude towards life, as he realizes :

He was standing on the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in. “Enough, he
pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done with fancies, imaginary terrors and
phantoms! Life is real! Haven’t I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman!
The Kingdom of Heaven to her- and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now the reign of
reason and light...and now we will see! We will try our strength!” (p 208)

Raskolnikov’s plans which are rooted in totalitarian ideology, which he thinks as bulletproof are

first rendered irrelevant then absurd and in the end fruitless. The case of irrelevance can be

noticed by a general response of the detective Porfiry Petrovich, who after hearing Raskolnikov’s

Napoleon theory says:

“One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the pyramids, Waterloo, and a
wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with a red trunk under her bed- it’s a nice hash for
Porfiry Petrovitch to digest! How can they digest it! ( p 295)

The point of absurdity can be best understood in the ending when Raskolnikov gives money to

the beggar. His realisation of all his suffering and the things went through ultimately becomes

absurd as he meets the beggar, laughing at the absurdity of it he notices :

There’s a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she
is. I might give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five copeck piece left in my
pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my good woman!” (p 558)
This particular absurdity haunts him throughout the novel, even more so than his horrible deeds.

The absurdity of trying to work through this vastly complex world and society full of accidents

full of control. And among this absurdity there is a clear irony in his plan which he seems to go

unnoticed, as he claims that by killing the pawnbroker, he was helping others, he says:

" Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old
pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was
sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime?" (p 551)

The most tragic part of Raskolnikov’s totalitarian plan is when his justification fails to be

understood by the person who he cares about the most, Sonya. As in the end, when he confess to

Sonia, in a very clear words expresses his desire to become a totalitarian figure:

“Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her...Do you
understand now?”
“N-no,” Sonia whispered naively and timidly. (441)

I argue that this clear rejection to understand and accept his theory to use a Totalitarian figure

topples Raskolnikov’s world, and in a way renders his whole plan fruitless.

Bibliography:

Fyodor Dostoyvesky, Crime and Punishment, The Unabridged Garnett Translation, Createspace

Independent Pub, 2014

Michael Adams, Nepoleon and Russia, Bloomsbury, 2006,

Adam Augustyn, Totalitarianism, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019

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