 Dostoevsky utilized the characters, dialogue and narrative in "Crime and Punishment" to articulate an argument against westernizing ideas.He thus attacked a peculiar Russian blend of French utopian socialism and Benthamite utilitarianism, which had led to what revolutionaries, such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky, called "rational egoism".The radicals refused to recognize themselves in the novel's pages, since Dostoevsky pursued nihilistic ideas to their most extreme consequences.