The Palm-Durov circle The growth of the circle led to the formation of a number of satellite groups, most notably the Palm-Durov Circle which met at the shared apartment of the writers Alexander Palm and Sergey Durov. According to Dostoevsky, the original purpose of this group had been to publish a literary almanac. Speshnev follower Pavel Filippov convinced them to actively produce and distribute anti-government propaganda, and two works of this kind were in fact produced, both of which were later discovered by the police. The first—a sketch entitled "A Soldier's conversation"—was an exhortation of the popular uprising in France aimed at a peasant audience, and was written by another Speshnev associate, the army officer Nikolay Grigoryev. The second, by Filippov, was a re-writing of the Ten Commandments that characterized various acts of revolt against oppression as being in conformity with the will of God. When a plan was made to reproduce the articles on a lithograph, Palm and Durov became anxious about continuing the circle, and its activities wound down. When Petrashevsky heard about the plans he too voiced his opposition, arguing that revolts could lead to despotism and that judicial reform should be their primary goal. The conflict brought into the open a clear division in the circle between activists and moderates. Belinsky's letter to Gogol Two of the best known writers associated with the Petrashevsky Circle, Valerian Maykov and Vissarion Belinsky, died before it was broken. Valerian Maykov was very close to Petrashevsky and took a large part in the compilation of Kirillov's work Dictionary of Foreign Words, which became part of the corpus delicti of the trial process. Belinsky, the author of Letter to Gogol, would have been classified as a dangerous criminal, since many of the Petrashevsky Circle members' only fault had been participation in the dissemination of the text of the letter. The letter was a passionate and extreme denunciation of Gogol's loyalty to the autocracy and the Orthodox Church. It claimed, for example, that the church "has always served as the prop of the knout and the servant of despotism." The letter was read aloud by Dostoevsky, producing a response of universal approval and excitement that transcended the deepening divisions within the circle. Filippov and Mombelli made copies and began distributing them, although Petrashevsky again tried to calm the rising sense of urgency by insisting that judicial reform was the best way forward