 Chernyshevsky asked for and received permission to write the novel in prison and the authorities passed the manuscript along to the newspaper "Sovremennik", his former employer which also approved it for publication in installments in its pages.Vladimir Lenin, Georgi Plekhanov, Peter Kropotkin, Alexandra Kollontay, Rosa Luxemburg and also the Swedish writer August Strindberg were all highly impressed with the book and it came to be officially regarded as a Russian classic in the Soviet period.Within the framework of a story of a privileged couple who decide to work for the revolution and ruthlessly subordinate everything in their lives to the cause, the work furnished a blueprint for the asceticism and dedication unto death which became an ideal of the early socialist underground of the Russian Empire.