“We Are Alive”: Summary of A. Rand's novel // Briefs * US Literature

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: Petrograd of the 30s. A girl from a noble family does not recognize the Soviet system. After going through trials and betrayal, she escapes from a hated country and, seriously wounded, tries to achieve freedom.

The once rich and noble Argunov family (parents with two daughters) is returning from the Crimea to Petrograd. The Argunov family left the city in 1918 to wait out the civil war, hoping that the whites would win. Four years later, making sure that the Reds won, they humbled themselves and won the right to return. The family hoped to at least partially return what they left and tolerate their life.

The Argunovs find that their factory, once confiscated by the new government, is abandoned, the proletarian artist was settled in the house, and they themselves have no place in the new world, since their origin does not allow them to have a job that matches their abilities. Parents cannot reconcile with the fact that they will have to cooperate with the Soviet government in order to live. The daughter of Cyrus declares that she will go to university to become an engineer. An image of an American skyscraper hangs above her bed.

... she talked about how to build houses of steel and glass ... she talked about the men, wheels and cranes that she would command, the sunrise over the steel skeleton of a skyscraper.

The family of the mother’s relatives, once noble and rich, also found themselves in a difficult situation: the parents are not yet ready to submit to the new realities, their daughters are still too small, and the son is already studying at the institute and supports the whole family.

Kira enters the institute and meets on his way a communist and GPU employee Andrei Taganov, an honest and harsh idealist, ready for anything for the cause of his party, and Leo Kovalensky, the son of the former admiral of the Baltic Fleet, who was shot for rebellion. Kira and Andrey become friends, the girl respects Taganova very much. Despite opposing views, they find a common language. In conversations with Andrei, Kira expresses her ideas about life and man:

You know, this is a rare gift - to respect yourself and your life, to wish the best, the highest in this life only for yourself! Imagine heaven in heaven, but not dream of it, but strive for it, demand!

Leo hates the Soviet regime with all his might. Kira is fascinated by this young man, she falls in love. Leo and Kira decide to illegally leave the country, but they are caught. The attempt ends without consequences, because Tymoshenko, the red sailor who caught them, the same idealist as Andrei Taganov, does not want to get Kira involved in the matter, and Leo lets go: under the tsar, Tymoshenko served under the command of Father Kovalensky, whom he respected very much. Kira and Leo begin to live together, which is why the girl’s family ceases to communicate with her: the Argunovs do not recognize new free morals.

First, Kira and Leo live well: Kira does household work, studies at the institute, and Leo works and attends classes at the university. But then, during the purge, both of them are expelled from universities as people of bourgeois origin, and the young man is also expelled from work.

Leo is suspected of having tuberculosis. Kira decides at all costs to send her beloved to the Crimea in order to save his life. She begins to upholster the thresholds of institutions, asking for the help of speculators, relatives, friends. Everywhere the girl receives a constant refusal: friends and relatives do not have the opportunity, and Soviet institutions - the desire to help the "bourgeois". Only Andrei Taganov responds, who, having changed his beliefs, fell in love with Kira. She surrenders to him, playing the role of a woman in love, and Andrei begins to help her in every possible way, not knowing the true reasons that drive Kira. So she saves Leo, who returns from Crimea in eight months completely healthy. But Leo does not feel much gratitude, he becomes cynical and pays less attention to the girl.

New life destroys people morally: everyone obeys the system, makes a deal with conscience. Even Kira's parents in the posts of Soviet servants begin to share the party ideology.

Communists turn into functionaries and benefit from their position: they are not alien to luxury, good living conditions, a bohemian lifestyle, lovers, limousines, while the ideological communists Taganov and Tymoshenko are engaged in an important business for the party. They understand that their time is running out and that the party will sooner or later get rid of them.

Once upon a time, people were led by awe. Then fear. Today, people are led by their stomach. People used to be chained hand and foot. Today they are entangled in the rectum.

Tymoshenko expelled from the GPU for insecurity.He begins to drink and, in the end, ends his life by suicide, not wanting to put up with the fact that all the benefits of revolution and civil war are not heroes, but small fry, but good opportunists.

Taganov discovers that a party colleague is abusing his position by supplying food to a commercial store owned by Leo. Andrei arrests Kovalensky, but receives an order not to conduct proceedings against a party member. During the interrogation, Andrei learns that Kira is Leo's mistress. Andrey helps to free him, risking his own position in the party. Kira explains with Andrew. He understands that the girl used it, but still loves her.

Leo decides to leave Kira to accompany the rich elderly woman to the south. Taganov removed from the GPU and transferred to work in the library. Andrei, having lost faith in his cause and party, ends his life by suicide.

Kira, left alone without Leo, wishes at all costs to go abroad, despite the fact that she was denied a passport. Without dedicating anyone to her plans, she tries to escape. By train, Kira gets to the border and goes along an endless snow-covered field. The border guard notices the movement, shoots and turns away, thinking that this is just a rabbit. A bullet hurts Kira. For a while she stubbornly goes to the goal, then falls and realizes that she can’t get up anymore, but for her it no longer matters.