The reading of Proudhon's works was even undertaken as a duty by the most important of these societies, the so-called "Association of Petraschewski." The extent to which his teaching impressed the thoughtful members of this society, which included among others Dostojewski, cannot easily be determined, since the companions of Petraschewski, like the Nihilists of to-day, have always liked to preserve a certain electicism. However, one trace of the influence of Proudhon's doctrines upon its members is distinctly visible. Thus, an associate, Lieutenant Palma of the Guards, had designed a book of laws, in which we are surprised to meet the following passage, quite in the Anarchist vein: "The chief distinctive feature of man is that he is a being endowed with a personality, _i. e._, with reason and freedom, which is an end in itself, and ought not under any circumstances to be regarded as a means or end for others. From the idea of personality is derived the idea of right. I may do everything that I please, because each of my actions is the result of my reason." Petraschewski himself, in a satirical _Dictionary_ which he published under the pseudonym of Kirilow, praised as one of the merits of early Christianity the abolition of private property and so on. We can easily recognise here the elements of Proudhon's and Stirner's Anarchism. In spite of the severe prohibitive system that came in force after 1848, the teachings of English and French Socialists penetrated into Russia even in this period, and were disseminated by such eminent men as Tschernichevsky, Dobrolinbow, Herzen, Ogarjow, and others, to wider circles, and again we see that interest is chiefly taken in Proudhon's doctrines. These found their way deep into the heart of the masses, even to the peasants. It must not be forgotten that to the Russian peasants, with their already existing collectivist village communities, Proudhon's ideas were far more easy to understand than an educated Frenchman or German found them. There is probably no country in the world where the principles of "federative Socialism," as taught by Proudhon and later by Bakunin, were better understood than in Russia, and Bakunin even denied the necessity of a Socialist propaganda among Russian peasants, because he said that they already possessed a knowledge of its elements.