20 April 2001
“We the Living is not a story about Soviet Russia in 1925. It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time, whether it be Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or – which this novel might do its share in helping to prevent – a socialist America.” These words, written by Ayn Rand herself for the foreword to the 1959 printing of her 1936 novel We the Living, convey not only Rand’s direction to the reader to keep in mind the universality of the book’s theme, but also her opinion of communism in 1925 Russia and her suspicion that the United States might be headed down the same erroneous path. During her lifetime, Rand would write prolifically both fiction and non-fiction, and found a philosophical movement whose widespread appeal would spark both loyalty and controversy. However, We the Living is Rand’s first, and possibly most-accessible, statement on the nature of communist oppression and the immorality associated with man’s tolerance of it.
Born in Russia in 1905, Ayn Rand (nee Alice Rosembaum) immigrated in 1926 to the United States where, after a short visit with a cousin in Chicago, she proceeded to find work almost immediately in Hollywood, first as an extra and then as a junior screenwriter. It was while she was working at the studio for director Cecil B. DeMille that she met her future husband, Frank O’Connor. He was a minor actor, described as handsome and kind, but “by all evidence unassertive, passive, not at all like the Rand version of the ideal man” (Gladstein 9). Although some sources allege that she married O’Connor in an effort to gain permanent resident status in the country (Walker xiv), others maintain that Rand found in her husband “a spiritual soul mate” (Gladstein 9). Whichever account is more accurate, the two married in 1929 and remained married until O’Connor’s death in 1979 at eighty-two years of age.
During the seventeen years following her marriage, Rand worked at several jobs, sold her first screenplay (which was never produced), and witnessed the Broadway production of her play Night of January 16th. Rand’s first novel, We the Living, was published in 1936, three years after its completion. Two years later, the British publishing house Cassell produced the first printing of Anthem.
In 1940 Rand worked on the presidential election campaign of Wendell Wilkie, a self-described defender of free enterprise. Rand believed strongly in the individualism that she thought Wilkie represented and she felt that the trend toward collectivism under Roosevelt should be opposed. However, during the election she grew to believe that Wilkie had betrayed his own values, and consequently hers, in his pursuit of victory. She left that experience disillusioned and distrustful of “those who called themselves conservatives and supporters of capitalism” (Gladstein 11).
Rand’s The Fountainhead was released in 1943 and received some critical acclaim. Although it was not initially a best-seller, its popularity grew steadily and later in the year Rand sold the film rights to it for $50,000. Rand was hired to write the screen adaptation. The movie was released in 1949 with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in the leading roles.
It was in 1950 that Rand met Nathaniel Branden (then Nathan Blumenthal), arguably the first follower of what was to become Objectivism. Rand and Branden would subsequently develop a relationship of mutual admiration and benefit that lasted eighteen years. Branden had read The Fountainheadin college and was so moved by it that he wrote a letter to the author, expressing his gratitude and admiration. Affected by his letter, Rand, along with O’Connor, agreed to meet with Branden and his girlfriend (later wife), Barbara Weidman. The four became good friends and together shared many long evenings of philosophical discussion. Both couples moved to New York in 1951, and later that year the four began to invite others to sit in on their conversations. They discussed, among other things, ways in which to apply Rand’s philosophy to their own daily lives. This was the very beginning of a movement which endures even today, years after Ayn Rand’s death.
Atlas Shruggedwas Ayn Rand’s last novel. It was published in 1957, and shortly after its emergence on the literary scene Nathaniel Branden initiated a public teaching of Rand’s philosophical principles. He began a course of lecture-based study which included the title “Basic Principles of Objectivism” in the spring of 1958.
The Nathaniel Branden Institute, born of the Nathaniel Branden Lectures series, grew to include a publication branch, film theater, and social organization which sponsored dances, sporting events, and fashion shows (Gladstein 15). It published The Objectivist Newsletter in conjunction with Ayn Rand. Rand endorsed these activities and Branden, enjoying ever larger popularity and recognition partly as a result of them. She received honorary degrees, was interviewed regularly, and spread her philosophy through books, radio and print media.
Ultimately, however, fame did not agree with Ayn Rand. Some sources claim that it was because of the fame and adulation that she became autocratic and intolerant. Formerly close friends and followers were expelled from her presence. Those who dared disagree or even failed to meet Rand’s demands were shut out of her life and her group. Remaining followers were strongly discouraged from having contact with those who had been shunned. It is aspects such as these that have brought many to consider Rand’s movement cult-like, and to condemn it as destructive (Walker 63). Although Rand’s ideology is based on individualism and personal freedom, the group which organized to practice these ideals was ultimately transformed into a “collective,” resembling everything Rand proclaimed to be oppressive and therefore immoral.
Objectivism, in its essential form, espouses “objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism” (Essentials of Objectivism par.1), all the things that the Communist Party of 1925 Russia decried. Rand’s description in We the Livingof life in Petrograd during that time provides a clear understanding of the hardships that resulted from the Bolshevik Revolution and its ensuing changes. Rand herself called We the Living her most autobiographical novel, although she denied that the events of her life were also those of the book’s heroine, Kira.
Like Ayn Rand’s, Kira Argounova’s family was affluent. Before the revolution, Kira’s father had owned and operated a factory in St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd) and her family had inhabited the “vast mansion” in which she was born. There was also a summer residence and a governess. There were material luxuries and the intangible luxuries of wild freedom and security. Like her creator, Kira left church as a small child and never returned. Also like Rand, Kira learned early that she preferred not to spend her time or energy on philanthropic activities. Of this character Rand wrote, “The specific events of Kira’s life were not mine; her ideas, her convictions, her values were and are” (Rand ix).
Rand believed that the story was the most important part of writing. We the Livingis a good story – readable, intriguing. The story opens with the return of Kira Argounova and her family to Petrograd after a four-year flight from the violence of the revolution. Kira’s father’s textile factory has been nationalized, and their expansive home has been turned into living accommodations for several families. Proceeding to the home of her aunt’s family, Kira and her parents and sister encounter the severity of life in newly socialized Russia. Since his business, too, has been appropriated “for the people,” Kira’s uncle has begun to sell off family possessions for money. Although some private enterprise is beginning to be allowed, money is practically nonexistent. Food is rationed; only students in state academies and workers in nationalized businesses may have ration cards. This family has only two ration cards to obtain food for five people.
After registering with the State and obtaining her Labor Book, Kira is allowed to enroll at the Technological Institute, where she will study engineering. Living quarters are found, and the family manages to retrieve some small amount of the furniture they had to leave behind four years earlier. Life resumes, but not as usual. Kira’s father opens a textile shop, small and mostly barren of goods – a far cry from his former industry. Still, he manages to trade for a few of the necessities it has become so hard to get. Commodities are in short supply; lines are long. Rand’s descriptions almost place the reader on the sulky street, in a line with exhausted, underfed and extremely frustrated citizens of the new Russian Socialist Federalist Soviet Republic. The tone is bleak.
Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. He is mysterious; she lets him believe she is a prostitute rather than letting him get away. They walk and talk, and make a plan to see one another again. This is an odd situation. There appears to be no reason for the immediate attraction of these two characters, yet it is almost palpable. Perhaps because of the desperation of their surroundings, it is not that difficult for the reader to believe that they have an instantaneous connection. By their third meeting they are making an escape together, on a secret ship to a secret future. They are caught. They don’t even know one another’s name.
Very, very little in We the Living is cheerful. Kira’s and Leo’s relationship, passionate and loving in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the hardships they face and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, a realist, continues to attend classes until she is forced out of school because of her family’s Bourgeois background. She provides as much normalcy as possible for her lover in their home. After her expulsion from school she works at various jobs in order to keep her ration card, attempting to balance idealistic life with her dissident lover and practical necessities such as food and rent. Leo resists such compromises as state employment, refusing to join the masses who see no other choice than to labor under the laws “of the people.” Eventually he opens a shop which is a front for black-market goods, in secret collaboration with a member of the Communist Party. He flaunts the money he gets from the proceeds, silently daring those of whom he so passionately disapproves to investigate his fortune. Not so secretly he hopes to be confronted by a member of the Party so that he can openly deride their oppressive ways. Yet he lacks the nerve to aggressively fight this movement. It is perhaps this weakness that drives him to self-destruction.
The third major character in We the Livingis Andrei Taganov, a student who becomes a school friend of Kira’s. Although Andrei is a communist, Kira accepts him on the merits of his character. The two debate the politics of the movement, and eventually become close friends. Andrei is an interesting and frustrating character. Although he is shown to be a good person, loyal and compassionate with his friends, he seems blind to the adversity that Communism is causing. Progressing in the ranks of the Party, he earns more and more money without seeming to notice that people all around him are starving. Except for Kira. Her needs he does notice. Inevitably, Andrei falls in love with Kira, and eventually she begins to take advantage of that love. Although Andrei is not a man she could ever love in return, Kira does become his mistress in an effort to get money to save her lover, Leo. Ultimately, of course, all secrets are exposed, and the tragedy of the whole situation is revealed. Leo abandons all efforts at morality; Andrei commits suicide; and Kira is killed trying to cross the border.
We the Livingis a tangled intrigue, romantic and heroic. The consequences of requiring individuals to live for a collective good are illustrated in the destitution and demoralization of the citizens of Petrograd. Andrei, the character with the most honor and virtue, still finds ruin because of his affiliation with the immoral politic. All morality is beaten out of the characters with the most potential for it by the dire circumstances of their lives. An excellent, emotionally moving story, this novel leaves no doubt as to the author’s feelings about the path of destruction down which socialism leads.
