old record from jj

 Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy—they all fought this "beast" (the system, the corrupt government wielding absolute power).

Unsuccessfully.
To lose this battle means to become a tool of this "beast" system. You obey, submit and serve.
First, they were not aware of scale - this is 2.5k years history and attempts to invent without using previous blood, pain, failures does not leave you a chance.
Second, they thought it is about system of government, about politics. The scale is much bigger.
And the failure of those people can give you idea - they were not fighting for the country, for the nation, for the people, for someone else.
This is the fight for the own identity ( the soul in old-school religious terms ), there is no art, no creativity without identity if you have lost smallest piece of your identity, your mind, integrity, if the smallest piece of yourself "I" became corrupted.

https://eil.livejournal.com/243435.html