We the Living&nbsp;is the&nbsp;debut novel&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Russian American&nbsp;novelist&nbsp;Ayn Rand. It is a story of life in&nbsp;post-revolutionary Russia&nbsp;and was Rand's first statement against&nbsp;communism. Rand observes in the foreword that&nbsp;We the Living&nbsp;was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography. Rand finished writing the novel in 1934, but it was rejected by several publishers before being released by&nbsp;Macmillan Publishing&nbsp;in 1936.&nbsp;It has since sold more than three million copies.&nbsp;The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of a&nbsp;bourgeois&nbsp;family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet state to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to&nbsp;Petrograd&nbsp;with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the&nbsp;Bolshevik&nbsp;revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which was seized and&nbsp;nationalized. Having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the victories of the&nbsp;Red Army, the family returns to the city in search of livelihood. They find that their home has also been seized and converted to living quarters for several families.Kira's family eventually manages to find living quarters, and Kira's father gets a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times; living standards are poor, and weary citizens wait in long queues for meager rations of food and fuel. With some effort, Kira manages to obtain her Labor Book, which permits her to study and work. Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an&nbsp;engineer. At the Institute, Kira meets fellow student Andrei Taganov, an idealistic Communist and an officer in the&nbsp;GPU&nbsp;(the Soviet&nbsp;secret police). The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs, and become friends.In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky, an attractive man with a free spirit. It is love at first sight for Kira, and she throws herself at Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute. He is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives and their beliefs that run counter to what is being thrust on them by the state. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape the country together.

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