SOURCE: “Isaiah Berlin and Russian Thought,” in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 3953, December 30, 1977, pp. 1523-4.

In the following introduction to Russian Thinkers, Kelly explains Berlin's insights into the conflict between iconoclasm and the need for an overriding belief which dominated nineteenth century Russian intellectual activity.

Do not look for solutions in this book—there are none; in genral modern man has no solutions.—Alexander Herzen, introduction to From the Other Shore.

In an attempt to explain the Russian Revolution to Lady Ottoline Morrell, Bertrand Russell once remarked that, appalling though Bolshevik despotism was, it seemed the right sort of government for Russia: “If you ask yourself how Dostoevsky's characters should be governed, you will understand.”

The view that despotic socialism was no more than Russia deserved would be accepted by many Western liberals as not unjust, at least with regard to the “devils” of Dostoevsky's novel, the Russian...