Demons

Demons is a darkly prophetic novel about the destructive power of revolutionary nihilism, a work in which Dostoevsky foresaw with uncanny precision the totalitarian horrors that radical ideology would unleash upon the twentieth century. Through its portrait of a group of conspirators who descend into murder, manipulation, and moral chaos, the novel exposes the spiritual void at the heart of political extremism.

Based on the real-life Nechayev affair of 1869, in which a revolutionary cell murdered one of its own members, Demons was published in 1872 and has since been recognized as one of the most prescient works of political fiction ever written. Albert Camus cited the novel as prophetic of the Soviet totalitarian state, a judgment that the twentieth century amply confirmed.