/edu/ - Education

Writer worth reading or reactionary garbage?

Lenin apparently wasn't a fan; from "The Other Lenin" by Alexander Maysuryan:
> ["Demons" is] Evidently reactionary filth, like Krestovsky's "Flock of Panurge", I have absolutely no desire to waste time on it. I have no need for such literature; what could it possibly give me? […] I have no free time for this garbage."
Demons isn't the only book he doesn't like:
>I am familiar with the content of both these pungent works, and that is more than enough for me. I just about began reading the "Brothers Karamazov" and then dropped it: the scenes in the monastery made me sick."

However, Stalin apparently enjoyed Dostoevsky greatly. He had a heavily annotated copy of "The Brothers Karamasov" and at least once referred to Dostoevsky as a "great philosopher." Quote:
> [Dostoevsky is] a great writer and a great reactionary. We don't publish him because he is a bad influence on the youth. But he is a great author.international_brigadeInternational Brigade