Books - We the Living

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	Books - We the Living

We the Living is Ayn Rand's first novel. It was also Rand's first expression against communism (though she stated that, like her other novels, political references in it exist merely as a means to portray the nature of man.) Published firstly in 1936, it is a poignant story of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Ayn Rand observes in the foreword to this book that We the Living was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography.

The storyline

The story is set in 1917, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the daughter of a bourgeois capitalist, returns to Petrograd along with her family, after a prolonged exile from the assault of the revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which had been seized and nationalized. The family, having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the emphatic victories of the Red Army in the last four years, is resigned to its fate, as it returns to the city in search of livelihood. It finds to its dismay, that their expansive mansion has likewise been seized, and converted to living quarters for several families. Left with nowhere to go, the family moves into Kira's aunt's home.

The severity of life in the newly socialized Russia, is biting and cruel, especially for the people belonging to the now-stigmatized middle class. Kira's uncle Vasili has also lost his family business to the state, and has been forced to sell off his possessions, one at a time, for money (which has lost much of its value owing to steep inflation rates). Money has ceased to be a major representative of "wealth and power". Private enterprises have been strictly controlled, and Licenses to run them allotted only to those "enjoying the trust" of the proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students.

With more additions to the family, subsistence promises to become phenomenally difficult. With some effort, Kira manages to register with the State and obtain her Labor Book (which permits her to study and work). Kira also manages to enroll herself into the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. She plans to storm the male bastion of engineers, and show her prowess by building strong structures and powerful machines. Kira's strength of resolve to fulfill her dream, is asserted again and again, at various points in the storyline. Becoming a meritorious engineer would be Kira's answer to carve for herself a niche, in a society that has become characterless and anonymous, and whose prime objective has reduced to subsistence, rather than excellence.

With phenomenal effort, the family manages to find for itself living quarters. The family also manages to retrieve some small amount of the furniture they left behind years ago, thus managing to salvage some level of living dignity. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment but a shadow of his old industry. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays the bleak scenarios by vivid descriptions of long queues, weary citizens and reduced states of living. (Everyone regularly cooks on a kerosene camp stove, usually a Swedish Primus stove, and the typical main course is millet, or whatever can be blended together.)

With such a meek start to her endeavors to rejuvenate the past glory of the family, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky, a man with rebellious ideas, on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. She finds him mysterious and deep, and he initially takes her to be a prostitute judging by his first impressions. They seem to be charmed by the magnetism of one another, and promise to meet again, after a brief conversation. They are shown to be united by their desperate lives, and their towering ambitions. After a couple of meetings, when they express deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape together from the land, on a clandestine mission operated by secret ships. It is quite ironic, that their goals are so intertwined, and they find such harmonious support from each other, that they do not even know each others' names till they are caught by the authorities, in their attempt to escape. Rand seems to suggest that struggle, desperation and quest for liberation unites people better than simple and frivolous personal knowledge.

The novel, at this point cascades into a series of catastrophes. Hope slowly crumbles for both these characters. Leo is caught and kept in incarceration, while Kira escapes his fate, by her knowledge of Andrei Taganov, a member of the Communist Party and her co-student at the institute, with whom she has had a few open debates. The two share mutual admiration of each other, in spite of their differing political beliefs, and this saves Kira's skin. She also manages to free Leo with some effort. However, 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, who is a realist, keeps her aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. She continues to attend classes, until she is expelled from the school - her exit instigated by jealous rivals who brand her an "anti-revolutionary".

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