We the Living

Ayn Rand was a good writer and a great storyteller. That I have always had trouble with the far reaches of her philosophy does not take away from that. In We the Living, her first book, the philosophy is much clearer and more understandable than in most of her other books. The real crux of it was that she hated life in Soviet Russia, and in this book, she clearly details what it was like there in the 1920’s. The point is made in the introduction that: The basic cause of totalitarianism is two ideas: men’s rejection of reason in favor of faith, and of self-interest in favor of self-sacrifice. If this is a society’s philosophical consensus, it will not be long before an all-powerful Leader rises up to direct the faith and sacrifice that everyone has been extolling. Rand, Ayn. We the Living . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. But what I see in this story is a lot of people who only pay lip-service to the so-called faith (in communism or socialism, or whatever) that they are supposed to have. And they quickly learn how to work the system to their own advantage. It is not only the dictator, or the very high government officials who are the oppressors. A large body of lesser officials and just everyday folks, having already cynically given up on the supposed ideals of the system, have figured out how to manipulate things to their own advantage, all while piously spouting the platitudes about sacrifice and so on that are the official opinion. These people, who profess to have the strongest faith – in this instance, in the sacred value of the people – are certainly not giving up their self-interest in favor of self-sacrifice, no matter how many speeches they make to the contrary. Against this background, there is the love triangle of Kira and Leo and Andrei. Kira, the protagonist of the story, falls in love with Leo, the son of a disgraced admiral. Because he sees himself as too good to sink to the level of the Communists, she regards him as the ideal man. They attempt to flee the country together but are caught and sent back before they really get anywhere. Andrei is a serious Communist – a member of the G.P.U. Kira meets him at the technical institute she attends in the beginning. She keeps trying to convince him that the idea that people must live for the state is evil. It is not until much later that he becomes convinced. Leo becomes ill with tuberculosis and needs to go to a sanatorium out of the city. The only way Kira can afford to send him is to agree to become Andrei’s lover in exchange for money. When he returns from the sanatorium, Leo has changed, and not for the better. He becomes involved in a shady business deal since he can get no legitimate work. Eventually, the precarious network of corruption behind Leo’s business is exposed by other people trying to forward their own interests, and Andrei comes to his apartment to arrest him. After Kira goes to Andrei’s apartment and yells at him, Leo is released yet again, and his partners are blackmailed into keeping quiet about the whole affair. Andrei commits suicide, earning himself a massive Party funeral, where shortly before everyone was warning him he would not survive the next purge. Leo, too timid to commit suicide directly, continues to invite disaster by drinking, gambling, and going off on vacation with his partner’s wife. And Kira makes serious plans to leave the country alone since she can’t get Leo interested in coming with her.

Wow. As the daughter of Nazi mother who was born in Berlin Charlottenburg in 1936, I thought I had a good understanding of living under the ideologies that are opposite of freedom but this was an eye opener. My mother only described how horrible the British and Americans were, not how horrible the Nazis were. This book describes the absolute despair and desperation of being a “comrade” or “citizen”. A must read.

The theme of this novel is the individual against the state or, more specifically, how the totalitarian government of Russia in the few years following the 1917 Communist revolution destroys a girl, Kira, the man she loves who also loves her, Leo, and a man who loves her who she does not love, Andrei. It is also the story of the conflict between quite a few people, especially these three. A significant event is when Kira agrees to sleep with Andrei and have a lasting relationship with him in order to save Leo's life. Andrei knows nothing about Leo's problems and is convinced that Kira loves him. Kira continues to live with Leo who also knows nothing about her relationship with Andrei. What mars this otherwise well-written and engrossing novel is Ayn Rand's attempt to portray her characters as the embodiment of her philosophy. Despite her attempt, the characters do not reflect Rand's idea of "rational self interest." Kira is portrayed at the outset of the novel as self-assured and totally independent, interested only in becoming an engineer. However, as soon as she meets Leo, she falls head over heels in love with him and obeys his every command as a slave. True, the revolution destroys her. But, so, too, does love. Leo, the man she loves, also starts life with Kira self assured and interested in his goals, but he, unlike Kira, never loses these Ayn Rand attributes. However, although he clearly loves Kira, he treats her badly because of his self-interest. The word "ordered" is associated with him frequently. His "rational self interest" destroys the caring that love demands of one who loves. Only, Andrei, who Rand calls "the villain" in her The Art of Fiction, acts with reasonable "rational self interest." He is also interested in his own development. However, he treats Kira with sensitivity.

The only other novel I have read from Ayn Rand is Atlas Shrugged. I believe this novel was written at the start of her writing career. The difference in style, characterization and approach is notable compared to Atlas. Even though it focuses on life in Soviet Russia, this is very much a book for our time. For this reason alone it is worth reading. We The Living centers around Kira Argounova as she and her family are coming to grips with leading a new life in Soviet Russia. Two other characters also come into focus as Kira becomes romantically involved with both - Leo and Andrei. I was quite surprised with Rand's treatment of her characters in this novel. While they felt like symbols and mouthpieces for Rand's objectivism philosophy in Atlas Shrugged, here they feel authentic and relatable i.e. real human beings. She does an excellent job highlighting the insidiousness of the Communist collectivist philosophy and how it slowly changes or outright destroys the individual and his/her individuality and humanity. The three main characters all deal with the oppressiveness of life in Soviet Russia in different ways all leading to losing something precious. Not even love or the simple need for honest human interaction and emotional bonding can survive. This is not only apparent with Kira and Leo but Sonia and Pavel as well. Even family bonds are destroyed. See Victor as an example. Reading this novel, one should be able to see the parallels between the communist approach to free speech and egalitarianism and today’s smothering political correctness and quest for equality. The chilling result of all this is the sacrifice of morals and values in the name of a greater good. Sonia says the following in the novel: “Science is in our own calloused hands. We have outgrown that old bourgeois prejudice about the objective impartiality of science. Science is not impartial. Science is a weapon of the class struggle.” Today we see this reflected in Environmentalism and the many scandals surrounding tampering of data used to advocate for global warming. A friend was said to me: “Does it matter whether we know global warming is true? We have to do something!” Truth and or evidence for a course of action is no longer necessary if the action is deemed noble in and of itself. Another example from Sonia: “Hearty proletarian greetings to all! And particularly to our comrade women. There’s no sight I like better than a new woman student, a woman emancipated from the old slavery of dishes and diapers.” The parallels to some aspects of modern day feminism should be readily apparent. In summary, those who disliked Rand’s characterizations and excessive monologues on philosophy in Atlas Shrugged should give this book a whirl. It is far more nuanced and in the vein of a traditional literary work of fiction. For those who enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, this book is well worth visiting to witness Rand’s first baby steps in attempting to understand and articulate her beliefs. The difference in style, expression and characterization is fascinating.

Everything Ayn Rand has written transcends time. This book even more so. If people wonder what the "first free country" will look like if they continue to elect political leaders who have a "death premise",such as they have, all they need to do is read this book and they'll know. I just hope it's not too late. I truly believe if We The Living and Atlas Shrugged had been mandatory reading for JR/Senior High school students, respectively,even as short a time as 10-13 Yrs ago, our country would be going in an entirely different direction. Or at the least we'd be in better position to turn it around. Unfortunately, I believe our children and grandchildren have an unimaginably more difficult fight ahead of them because of the socialistic ideals of the "God-Fearing Mystics" and "Selfless Humanitarians", leaders our generation voted into power,who's ideals are being spread like a plague across this amazing country and turned into policy as this is being written. I wish I could go back in time to show my parents, and my younger self, the warning signs to look for. But as a Romantic Realist, I know I can only try to change what happens tomorrow and the day after that. And the only way to do that is by spreading the philosophical ideals, the morals and the Life Premise that I learned from Ayn Rand. This story is about as close to an autobiographical account of Ayn Rands life in the USSR as we will ever know. The ideals, the values of our young heroine are all here in young Kira. Her younger sister drew caricatures just as Irena did. The physical description of her Uncle Vasili is based on her father. The young character Leo, the man Kira loves, is fashioned after AR's first love in college. A character who became so entwined with the real Leo that even though she disliked the name, she couldn't separate the two and couldn't change the name. The Russia she sees...you see. The Russia she lived...you live.This Russia is not a character, but the real backdrop to her story and played a big role in who the person Ayn and "Kira" became. It is a love story. Two totally different men with different lives and seemingly two very different philosophies on life. The only thing they have in common is their "soul" (not a spiritual soul"). These two men, the way the act, react, and how they see life is what draws Kira to them. When the country takes away everything you own, uses you as an example of the worst of humanity, takes away your freedom to be who you are, say what you think, do what you want, live as you want to live ...what do you do? This is the premise of the story. What does communism do to your soul? What will it do to any country and to its people. It crushes their spirit. Destroys the individual with their hopes an dreams and desires. None of these things are allowed in a collective society. Every idea, thought, desire, anything that makes you an individual is stomped out of you. Every breath you take is not your own. It belongs to your comrades, your brothers and sisters. There is no "I" in socialism, communism, totalitarianism, whatever label you give it. There is only We. Spoiler alert..... Ayn Rand takes you from the beginning to the ending of the lives of these 3 young people. You will feel what they feel: joy, pain, disbelief, helplessness, hope, defiance, hopelessness, bitter cold, disgust, fear, courage beyond imagination, love without limits and the utter dispair when everything is lost and you are totally and completely alone. You will go through the ups and downs of the lives they lived, will understand who they are and what they believe in. Will wonder WHY did she do that to a beloved character, cry if you are anything like me at the loss of life and be completely in shock at how the story ends. This is no fairytale, so there is no fairytale ending. You will understand when you read her epilogue why she had to end it as she did. But you will still cry for Kira. For everything she lost and, at the very end, what she found. You only have 3 Choices when you live in a world that crushes who you are. When there's nothing left. 1. suicide- it finally breaks you 2. close off your mind completely. The only thing you have that they can't take is your mind. So you drown who you are with alcohol, parties, do anything to make yourself forget what you can never have. You don't compromise, you don't bend but you break. Who you are disappears and you become an empty shell of a human being. It is like a drawn out suicide. 3. You run away, try to escape. You neither compromise what you believe, bend or break. You don't lose hope or give in to the Life you know is out there for you. You run until you can't run anymore and you escape or die trying. Either way you remain unconquered. Each of these 3 characters took a different road. Each made a different choice and each has a different ending. AR explains why each of the 3 had to go down the road they did. This is a tragic love story but more importantly, it is a tragic "Life" story. A tragedy that seems more and more possible in the country that our original leaders created to be free, one in which we believe the promise that "Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness" can not be taken from us. We need to open our eyes. Open our neighbors eyes, the World's eyes because this could easily become America if we stay on the path we are on. We outlawed slavery a long time ago. We can't permit it to come back for the sake of the collective. "I" must always remain the most important word in our society. AYN RAND taught me that.

Ayn Rand is a controversial author, whose Objectivist philosophy has ardent followers and a significant number of haters. This book is not a push for Objectivism. It does not denounce religion. It does not glorify an industrialist or a banker. It simply shows that all that most of us want is to just live our lives, enjoy them, and not have the will of majorities, minorities, ideologies, religions, dogmas, individuals, established truths, scientific agreements or any other BS forced upon us. "I don't want to fight for the people, I don't want to fight against the people, I don't want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone--to live." says Kira Argounova, the heroine of the book. Kira's character is based loosely on Ayn Rand herself. Ayn (Alisa Rosenbaum) came of age in Soviet Union during Bolshevik revolution. While the world proclaimed the greatness of Soviets and how all the people are free and equal, Ayn was forced to experience the freedom and equality of communism, and escaped to US as soon as possible. Millions were not so lucky. This book is a tribute to those millions, to people who braved cold Russian winters and armed guards to escape in snow storms, across mountain paths, through rivers out of the Worker's Paradise. Read this book if you want to know what life is under communism. Read it to learn about Russia of 1920's. Read it to see what human spirit is capable of. Some will draw parallels between today's political climate in US and Soviet Russia. We should not look for them even if they are easy to spot: whether it's public worker's unions in Wisconsin or crony capitalism of "stimulus\bail-out". Much more relevant is to listen to ideologues of 1917 and of today. They sound the same. The method of communication may have changed (tweeter and facebook rather than speeches from atop of a tank), but the message is the same as it has been for ages: "Equality". Yet it is today same as it was always - Equality comes at a price. Andrei Taganov starts out as a villain in "We The Living". He ends his life as a villain who saw the error of his way, committing suicide to help the woman he loves and unable to deal with the hell he helped create. Andrei wanted to bring everyone up to his level, make everyone equal. He killed for that idea. And he found that you can't bring people up. You can only achieve equality down in the mud, by removing the best and brightest among us. We the Living is very different from Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. It's a book that can hold it's own. I've read it many times and I still feel with the characters, experience their emotions. Read it so that ideologues shouting for Equality can never again create the hell that was worker's paradise.

This is my year for Ayn Rand ... fiction reading, though We The Living is based upon actual events occurring during the political changes in Russia, "the theme ... the evil of totalitarianism, a species of depravity not restricted to any country or century." The book touched me deeply, remembering my youth in the 60s, how eager we were for Change ... marching in the streets ... protests .... throwing blood on government buildings in D.C. In some respects change is necessary for growth ... for life to continue breathing. But when that element for change becomes worse than an existing political system/religious foundation/traditions ... when the liberators become the captors, then that Change is terrifying. It caused me to review where we were in the early 60s to where we are today. Although the progression has been slower ... within the confines of an existing system, certainly not all the yahoo we clamored has resulted in pure positive overtones, granting that some of the change was needed and necessary ... other aspects that could have become positive were turned to accomplish someone's agenda. This is what makes Rand's We The Living so potent. The youth caught hold of a wave, someone pushed by tossing the stone into the pond rippling through a generation to grab and annihilate an entire culture casting it into utter rubble and desolation. No positive result here. Russia suffers today from the catastrophic results of that generation .... a mindset opposing its citizenry. No room for individualism. No room for free thinkers. No tolerance for creativity. Taking One For All and All For One into an entirely new mindset of one cellular organism deleting differences for the One Thought Society ... our way or the highway. Are we seeing this in western religious movements today? Poise for poignant pondering. Are we watching this same result so slowly creep into the American way? Is the frog boiling yet? Everyone, old, young, middle aged should pick up this book. It may be salvation to a teetering way of life. Rand, Ayn (2009-05-05). We the Living . Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

I read this book to get background after reading Atlas Shrugged. Ms Rand was a talented writer and storyteller. This story describes the early 1920s in St. Petersburg/Petrograd, and the descriptions are vivid. Lots of snow. Horse-drawn sleighs serve for taxis. Always-crammed commuter trains. Little to eat, and less variety. Families and strangers stuffed into single-room, barely heated apartments. And endless fear that things are about to get worse, somehow. We the Living is (the author writes) as close to autobiographic as anything she wrote. The main character is a fiercely independent minded nearly-adult girl, daughter of a bourgeois family just returned to Petrograd from the Crimea, dealing with the evolving workers paradise. The sell off the few family possessions remaining from pre-revolutionary days and try to survive without abandoning their independence. The story portrays the communist party politics and propaganda and the daily challenges and accommodations. The book is very readable as a story. The political philosophy discussion--this is Ayn Rand, after all--floats on the stories of Party leaders, members of the collective, lovers, rivals, roommates, neighbors, and even a few heroes. It is a long read, but compelling. As an aid to understanding Atlas Shrugged it was worth reading.

Excellent reading.

１９２６年にソ連からアメリカに亡命したアイン・ランドが、３６年に出版した小説である。ソ連を美化し、社会主義に希望をたくす大恐慌時代のアメリカでは、この小説は無視されて、読まれるようになったのは第二次大戦後だった。社会主義国家ソ連の内実のひどさとか、革命という大義とは裏腹の党幹部の腐敗とか、社会主義の全体主義国家につぶされていく個人の無残さと、それでもなおの抵抗を描いて、今読んでも面白い。 いわば、作者のランドの処女作のような中編小説であるが、後の彼女の代表作『水源』や『肩をすくめたアトラス』の原型となるようなテーマや、キャラクターが登場する。 舞台は１９２２年から２５年のソ連。主な登場人物は、革命後に財産を没収されたブルジョワの娘キーラと、元貴族の息子レオと、労働者の子どもに生まれて革命の大義を信じて党員となっているＧＰＵのメンバーであるアンドレ。物語は、この３人の出会いと葛藤と愛憎と別離によって展開されていく。 誠実、冷静、聡明な男に愛されているのに、勝手ながら魅力だけはあるデカダンな男に惹かれたがために不幸に陥る若い娘の悲劇と、ソ連の体制の悲劇が重なったメロドラマ。けっこう泣かせる。しかし、ソ連時代のロシア人って、ほんとうに大変だったのだ・・・心ある人間にとっては。

Supposedly autobiographical, it's actually a love story in the most part and the earliest version of her philosophy applied to fiction, very loosely based on Ayn's experiences before she got away from the anti-semitic collectivist Russia, oppressed during the tzar and more so after the communist revolution. This isn't how the book ends, but I shalln't spoil it for you.

interessante, histórico, bem escrito

Hochgradig spannend. Gleitet gegen Ende etwas ab ins Fahrwasser eines Holywood-Drehbuchs. Nonetheless, die ersten 90% sind ein Meisterwerk.