Ayn Rand and the World She Made

by Anne C. Heller

  Natasha studied piano: “Home Atmosphere.”

  fellow students Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich: St. Petersburg, pp. 336, 340–57.

  Anna approved of Natasha’s choice: “Ayn Rand’s Life.”

  became a teacher like her mother: “Ayn Rand in Russia;” 100 Voices, NR, p. 4.

  “to have a factual knowledge of man’s past”: “About the Author,” AS, p. 1070.

  make a living as a writer: TPOAR, p. 41–42.

  N. O. Lossky: The Russian Radical, pp. 83–89.

  surveyed the pre-Socratic philosophers: “The Ayn Rand Transcript,” pp. 3–4.

  she learned from Lossky: Dr. Sciabarra was the first scholar to point out this important element in AR’s training and its effect on her thinking (introduction to The Russian Radical, p. 11).

  people often didn’t want to talk to her: “Ayn Rand’s Life.”

  no known friends: McConnell, “Recollections of Ayn Rand I.”

  “beat me to all my ideas”: AR, p. 22.

  Nietzsche’s work was popular among intellectuals: Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), pp. 1–25.

  “that it doesn’t have to be collective”: EOTF, p. 37.

  It wasn’t until she was writing The Fountainhead: As an adult, AR once said that she would never commit suicide as long as she had a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Shosana Milgram, “The Road to Roark,” speech presented at an ARI Conference in Industry Hills, California, July 2003, based on material in the ARI Archives). For a fascinating discussion of AR and Nietzsche, see Ronald Merrill, The Ideas of Ayn Rand (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1991).

  leader of a group: EOWTL, p. 52; 100 Voices, NR, p. 14.

  His name was Lev Bekkerman: All information about AR and Lev Bekkerman is based on EOWTL, pp. 52–56, and AR, p. 22.

  An engineering student at St. Petersburg Technical Institute: Like Leo Kovalensky, Kira Argounova bore a resemblance to Lev Bekkerman, in that she was an engineering student at St. Petersburg Technical Institute.43

  “The first time I saw him”: EOTF, p. 52.

  bought cheap seats: Ayn Rand, “No,” TEAR, p. 232; McConnell, Recollections of AR I.”

  lifelong favorite, Emmerich Kálmán’s Die Bajadere: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  sat “solemn, erect”: WTL, p. 208.

  “I knew he didn’t like it”: EOWTL, p. 53.

  he pointedly ignored her: TPOAR, p. 48.

  “The whole issue [of Lev]”: EOWTL, p. 54.

  he had been accused of plotting: EOWTL, pp. 55–56.

  she would almost certainly have remained in Russia: EOWTL, pp. 55–56.

  “I would have stayed”: TPOAR, p. 49.

  By the time she spoke about it: That is, on tape to BB in 1960–61.

  “yelling in despair”: AR, p. 27.

  favorite piece for the year 1924: “Ayn Rand’s Musical Biography.”

  Rand developed a passion: Operettas “really saved my life,” AR once said. In the years during which Stalin was rising to power, “my sense of life was kept going on that” (AR: SOL, p. 5).

  that…the Bolshevik government made available: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  “I was there every Saturday”: EOWTL, p. 120.

  attending Russian-made movies: “An Illustrated Life.”

  sophisticated American and European films: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  seeing more than one hundred movies: Ayn Rand, Russian Writings on Hollywood, Michael S. Berliner, ed., Dina Garmong, trans. (Los Angeles: ARI Press, 1999), pp. 173–89.

  “It was almost as if I had a private avenue”: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  Her favorite film: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  Veidt, a German Jew: A History of the Jews, p. 479.

  She had chosen him: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  “a heart like a pavement, trampled by many feet”: WTL, p. 43.

  first glimpse of the New York skyline: One of the films she may have seen was The Lights of New York, a 1922 Fox Film Corporation production. The brother of her second cousin Burt Stone’s first wife, Sarah Stone, was a cellist in the Fox Studio Orchestra in Hollywood. According to Susan Belter, the great-granddaughter of Burt and Sarah Stone, AR knew of this cellist and saw him onscreen, sitting in the orchestra pit, in at least one movie she viewed in Russia (Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 9; author interview with Susan Belter, October 24, 2006).

  nonsense, or “applesauce”: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror,” New York American, June 15, 1936.

  Her enthusiasm for America: Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 9.

  “Atlantis”: the ideal existence: “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  Lenin had been preoccupied: Passage Through Armageddon, p. 465.

  Diseases of dirt and poverty: A People’s Tragedy, pp. 784–85.

  becoming an informant against fellow students: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror.”

  Candid speech was dangerous: St. Petersburg, p. 335–39.

  Leonid Konheim joined them: St. Petersburg address rolls, Central Archive.

  cakes made of potato peelings: EOWTL, p. 72.

  carrot greens, coffee grounds, and acorns: “Russian Girl Jeers at Depression Complaint,” Oakland Tribune, October 7, 1932, p. 9.

  her one party dress: EOWTL, p. 74.

  her eminent professor N. O. Lossky: Archive of the St. Petersburg FSB Office, archival file 14493, concerning criminal case 1625. See also Leslie Chamberlain, The Philosophy Steamer: Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia (London: Atlantic Books, 2006).

  On Mme. Stoiunina’s arrest: Archive of the St. Petersburg FSB Office, archival file 14493, concerning criminal case 1625.

  the university announced the largest purge: The Russian Radical, p. 92.

  She was one of four thousand students expelled: EOWTL, pp. 62–63.

  “young girls and boys I knew”: Current Biography Yearbook 1982, (New York: H. W. Wilson), p. 332.

  “not fulfilling academic requirements”: Petrograd State University Archive, personal file of A. Z. Rosenbaum, list N 1361 from November 28, 1923.

  “all kinds of anti-Soviet remarks”: EOWTL, p. 50.

  When a group of visiting Western scientists: EOWTL, p. 51.

  Her university records show: Petrograd State University Archive, personal file of A. Z. Rosenbaum, list N 1361 from November 28, 1923.

  “with highest honors”: TPOAR, p. 42. AR told BB that she (AR) had also been awarded a perfect score in a course on the history of ancient philosophy with N. O. Lossky, whom she described as famous for his tough grading and contempt for women. Dr. Sciabarra has cast doubt on these assertions, including AR’s description of Professor Lossky as “an international authority on Plato” (TPOAR, p. 42), whom AR considered a philosophical malefactor. According to Dr. Sciabarra, Professor Lossky published nearly three hundred works on philosophy, “and not one of them even mentions Plato in the title” (The Russian Radical, p. 86). Lossky was a specialist in dialectics and in Kant, among other thinkers (“The Ayn Rand Transcript,” pp. 5–9).

  Rand joined local writers’ clubs: “Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror.”

  The text of the novella seems to be lost: “Ayn Rand’s Life.” Presumably, if the ARI or the estate owned the manuscript, Binswanger would have stated that he had read it. As it is, he quotes from AR’s recollection of it.

  The explanation may lie: Natasha’s Dance, pp. 447–50; St. Petersburg, pp. 359, 369–92.

  Anthem clearly reflects their influence: On the other hand, AR may have gotten the idea for her story from seeing airplanes in silent movies. According to Greg Walsh, a librarian at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California, aircraft first appeared on screen circa 1913; in the following ten years, at least forty films featured airplanes or aviators as an integral plot component.

>   too fearful to fly in a plane: Her first plane ride was in 1963, to Portland, Oregon, to accept an honorary degree (TPOAR, p. 318).

  Dagny Taggart and John Galt both fly solo: AS, pp. 634–640.

  In a 1969 essay: Ayn Rand, “Apollo 11,” The Objectivist, September 1969, pp. 708–10.

  The heiress’s assistant in the novel: “An Illustrated Life.”

  In October 1924: Art Life and Laborer and Theatre, back issues for the years 1923–25; St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Art, Pages of History.

  Rand probably would not have been admitted: Petrograd State University Archives, fond 7240, inventory 5, file 3576, personal file of A. Z. Rosenbaum.

  She and her mother both foresaw: Scott McConnell, “Ayn Rand’s Family and Friends, 1926–1951,” a lecture presented at ICON 2004, London, England, September 25, 2004.

  In the late 1890s: Ellis Island documents provided by FB.

  one of Anna’s aunts, Eva Kaplan, had immigrated: Two of Eva’s children were born in the United States; taped interview with Minna Goldberg, FB, and MS, conducted by BB, February 20, 1983, courtesy of MSC.

  Sarah Lipton: Anna Rosenbaum’s cousin Sarah Lipton was married four times. In publications by the Estate of Ayn Rand, she is also referred to as Sarah Lipsky, Sarah Collier, or Sarah Satrin. Rand knew her best when she was Sarah Lipton.

  sponsor her for a visit to America: Author interview with AR’s second cousin, Eva Kaplan’s granddaughter FB, June 21, 2004.

  The Chicago cousins had brought over other Russian Jews: Author interview with FB, June 21, 2004.

  Sarah Lipton owned and operated a Chicago movie theater: author correspondence with FB, December 16, 2004; AR, p. 29.

  declared intention of visiting the United States: AR, p. 29.

  almost every other window of escape would slam shut: By 1927, AR recalled, the Soviet government required a payment of five hundred dollars in gold or foreign currency to apply for a passport—kinds and amounts of wealth that Russians could be put to death for possessing. So the only way to get out of Russia was to be ransomed by a wealthy foreigner (“Woman Novelist Reveals Soviet Tyranny’s Horror”).

  In the essay, which was discovered: “Editor’s Note on ‘Pola Negri,’ “Russian Writings on Hollywood, p. 15.

  “ready to crush the man who dared to stand in her way”: Russian Writings on Hollywood, pp. 31–33.

  She was granted a passport: AR, p. 30; AR:SOL, DVD.

  She and her mother sent away for French passenger ships’ brochures: TPOAR, p. 59.

  Harry Portnoy, Eva Kaplan’s widowered husband: National Archives and Records Administration, De Grasse Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States, February 10, 1926, column 19.

  At Anna Rosenbaum’s suggestion: Author correspondence with Michael Berliner, June 2, 2005.

  She would have to travel three hundred miles: Latvia was still an independent nation. The United States had no embassy or consulate in Russia.

  acquaintances … looked forward to seeing her back home again: Letter to Lev Bekkerman, August 28, 1926 (LOAR, p. 2).

  sold the last of the family jewelry: AR, p. 30.

  “the freest country on earth”: “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), p. 48.

  packed her few clothes and her typewriter: TPOAR, p. 60.

  slipped on her mother’s old Persian lamb jacket: BBTBI.

  She had asked Lev Bekkerman to be there: Author interview with BB, September 15, 2005.

  the first and last time he kissed her hand: TPOAR, p. 60

  “Just you wait!”: AR, p. 30.

  THREE: FREEDOM TO

  THINK: 1926–1934

  “When I am questioned about myself”: Ayn Rand, “To the Readers of The Fountainhead,” 1945 (LOAR, p. 669).

  she met her cousin Vera: AR, p. 31. Vera later moved from Berlin to Paris to work at the Pasteur Institute. She married a Frenchman and relocated to Lyon, where she lived under the Nazi occupation. She and AR were briefly reunited in New York in the early 1960s (100 Voices, Lisette Hassanil, pp. 257–59).

  The two young women were photographed together: AR, p. 31.

  they saw Der Wilderer: Illustrierter Film Kurier, 7. Jahrgang, 1925. Thanks to Joan McDonald of the Carl de Vogt Society and to Peter Doll for the translation.

  Carl de Vogt…whom Rand adored: Michael Paxton, from the documentary film AR: SOL, DVD. In 1933, de Vogt joined the Nazi Party and became a brownshirt (thanks to Joan McDonald for this information).

  sailed for America aboard the French liner S.S. De Grasse: De Grasse Ship Manifest, February 19, 1926; vol. 8626, p. 2, line 13, National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, roll 3800, “Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, N.Y., 1897–1957,” National Archives and Records Administration Northeast Region, New York, N.Y.

  She had a first-class cabin: AR:SOL, DVD.

  the five-foot-two, dark-eyed Russian girl: Her Russian passport stated her height as five foot four, according to ARI (100 Voices, p. 539), but she said she was five foot two, and acquaintances recalled her as closer to that height.

  a light snow had begun to fall: TPOAR, p. 63.

  This was the dollar decade: James Warren Prothro, The Dollar Decade (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954), p. 39.

  “the will of man made visible”: Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (New York: Plume, 1994), p. 463; also, “finger of God” (Nora Ephron, “A Strange Kind of Simplicity,” NYT Book Review, May 5, 1968, p. 8).

  The ship’s manifest noted that she had promised to return: National Archives and Records Administration, De Grasse Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States, February 10, 1926, column 19.

  that she was engaged to marry a Russian man: Quoted in a syndicated interview with AR, “New York Notes,” appearing in the Marion [Ohio] Star, June 9, 1936.

  re-enter the United States: TPOAR, p. 68.

  “One must never attempt to fake reality in any manner”: “The Objectivist Ethics,” TVOS, p. 28.

  an obligation to be truthful ends: TPOAR, p. 354.

  She stayed in New York for four days: Author interview with Susan Belton, great-granddaughter of Mandel and Anna Stone, October 24, 2006.

  the guest of relatives of Mandel Stone: Author correspondence with FB, April 10 and 17, 2005.

  lived in a new, stately enclave: Author interview with Susan Belton, October 24, 2006.

  she had only fifty dollars of her travel money left: TPOAR, p. 63.

  “all mispronounced”: Jack Stinnett, “A New Yorker at Large,” syndicated column appearing in the Florence [S.C.] Morning News, May 22, 1936, p. 4.

  “I’ll never forget it”: TPOAR, p. 68.

  movies, which then cost thirty-five or fifty cents: 1927 Film Year Book, cited in a note to author by Greg Walsh, librarian, the Margaret Herrick Library.

  She kept a journal: Russian Writings on Hollywood, pp. 173–214.

  By the time she boarded a New York Central train: AR’s present-day followers at ARI have stated that she chose her two-part pseudonym while still in Russia and cite as evidence an unpublished letter written to AR by her mother, mentioning the name “Ayn Rand” while the De Grasse was still at sea.

  knew she would need a professional name: AR:SOL, p. 59.

  “Ayn” was a Finnish female name: Letter to a fan, January 30, 1937 (LOAR, p. 40).

  borrowed it from a Finnish writer: TPOAR, p. 63. There has been some speculation that AR was referring to Finnish novelist Aino Kallas (1878–1956).

  once claiming that she made it up herself: Author correspondence with JMB, March 21, 2005.

  Remington Rand typewriter: “I can swear that I remember giving her her last name—from her typewriter, the Remington Rand,” FB told me in 2004. “Sitting in my mothers dining room, where we were sleeping, was an old-fashioned round table. She had her typewriter. We were looking—[I] said, ‘Should it be Remington?’ She said no, she liked a small name. And I
said, ‘What about “Ayn Rand”?’ and we took the name right off the Remington Rand” (author interview with FB, March 18, 2004).

  Rand repeated this story: AR told the typewriter story to BB, who repeated it in her book TPOAR. BB later told me in an interview that AR must have lied to her about this, though she wasn’t able to explain why.

  the Remington Rand was not yet on the market in 1926: The Remington Rand Company was formed in 1927.

  her family seems to have been aware of her new surname before she wrote to them: James S. Valliant, The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics: The Case against the Brandens (Dallas: Durban House, 2005), p. 13. Valliant, a former San Diego prosecuting attorney, makes this claim in a passionate book-length condemnation of two of AR’s early followers. In writing the book, he had access to many of AR’s personal papers stored at the Ayn Rand Papers, which are closed to independent scholars; therefore, this assertion may be based on Rosenbaum family letters.

  an abbreviation of her Russian surname: The ARI Newsletter, Impact, June 2000; John Kobler, “The Curious Cult of Ayn Rand,” The Saturday Evening Post, November 11, 1961, p. 100.

  a number of followers believed: Impact, May 1997.

  the self-made soul: AS, p. 937.

  a habitué of lectures: The acquaintance was Betsy Speicher, a writer who was a student at Objectivist lectures in the 1960s. She told AR that her father had called her “Ayin—two syllables,” meaning “‘bright eyes’ in Jewish,” Speicher informed me. “I asked [AR] if her father ever called her that, and she smiled and nodded. I took that to be a yes.” Author correspondence with Betsy Speicher, August 17, 2004.

  a letter from Anna Rosenbaum: “Ayn Rand in Russia.” “Notchka” is a Russian diminutive signaling affection.

  a perfect … endearment for a little girl with bright, bold, hypnotizing eyes: As referenced in a 1934 letter to AR from Anna Rosenbaum; “Ayn Rand in Russia.”

  derivation of the surname “Rand”: Some aficionados speculate that Rand is a reference to the goldmining district of South Africa or to the Rand McNally railroad timetables used in Russia and around the world.

  she did not reveal her birth name to American acquaintances: The exceptions were her husband, FO, his brother Nick Carter, and possibly another brother, Joe O’Connor.