âThe Possessedâ (also known in English as âThe Devilsâ and âThe Demonsâ) is the greatest novel ever written about the politics of revolution. It is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large scale tragedy. Published in 1871, Fyodor Dostoevskyâs novel foretold with uncanny prescience events that would occur almost fifty years later during the Bolshevik Revolution and the Communist tyranny that followed. Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Dostoevsky conceived of âDemonsâ as a ânovel-pamphletâ in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. The novelâs relevance, however, is not limited to Russia and its revolution. With its cast of idealistic murderers and suicides, seductive madmen and glamorous fanatics, âThe Possessedâ is a novel for our time as well.