In late in 1860s Russia there was an unusual level of political unrest caused by student groups influenced by liberal, socialist and revolutionary ideas imported from Europe. In 1869, Dostoevsky conceived the idea of a 'pamphlet novel' directed against the radicals. He focused on the group organized by young agitator Sergey Nechayev, particularly their murder of a former comrade at the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy in Moscow. Prior to this, Dostoevsky had been working on a philosophical novel examining the psychological and moral implications of atheism. The political polemic and the psychological novel were merged into a single larger scale project, which became The Possessed.