Crime and Punishment mind. Dostoevsky's letter to Katkov reveals his immediate inspiration, to which he remained faithful even after his original plan evolved into a much more ambitious creation: a desire to counteract what he regarded as nefarious consequences arising from the doctrines of Russian nihilism. In the novel, Dostoevsky pinpointed the dangers of both utilitarianism and rationalism, the main ideas of which inspired the radicals, continuing a fierce criticism he had already started with his "Notes from Underground". Dostoevsky utilized the characters, dialogue and narrative in "Crime and Punishment" to articulate an argument against westernizing ideas. He thus attacked a peculiar Russian
Crime and Punishment success. Although the remaining parts of the novel had still to be written, an anonymous reviewer wrote that "the novel promises to be one of the most important works of the author of "The House of the Dead"". In his memoirs, the conservative belletrist Nikolay Strakhov recalled that in Russia "Crime and Punishment" was the literary sensation of 1866. The novel soon attracted the criticism of the liberal and radical critics. G.Z. Yeliseyev sprang to the defense of the Russian student corporations, and wondered, "Has there ever been a case of a student committing murder for the sake of robbery?"