METAMORFOZE REVOLUCIJE: TOKVIL I DOSTOJEVSKI
THE METAMORPHOSES OF REVOLUTlON: TOCQUEVlLLE AND DOSTOEVSKY

Summary/Abstract: The author considers the transformation of the Bolshevik revolution and in that context reviews the relationship between the ideas of Alexis de Tocquevile and Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. ln his opinion the essence of the chapter about the Grand lnquisitor consists not so much in the deformation of the Catholic betrayal of Christ and the true faith, its deception of the people, as much as the exposure of the logic of the development of the postrevolutionary societies. lt is a matter of the achievement of freedom for all turning out to be impossible not because of anyone's malice, but for natural and objective reasons — everyone is not ready for that or wants that. This leads to strange metamorphoses, which Dostoevsky discusses through the characters of the Grand lnquisitor and Shigalyev. Seeking freedom, society and the masses end up in ruthless despotism and slavery. The author concludes that Demons, especially The Grand lnquisitor chapter in Brothers Karamazov, represents a brutal warning for all reformers and revolutionaries regarding attempts to realize abstract rational shmes for „new world” in life, which devastate and destroy the values that humankind had previously accumulated.

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