[Ayn Rand] has written a novel ["We the Living"] to make it finally plain that the Soviet state, as far as she has been able to discover, is not only a farce on the face of it but is likewise fostering a race of "crippled, creeping, crawling, broken monstrosities." Miss Rand is determined that her readers shall have nothing less than the whole truth. Kira Argounova, her protagonist, speaks for her on at least one occasion: "For one insane second Kira wondered if she could tear through the crowd, rush up to that woman [a visiting English trade-union delegate] and yell to her, to England's workers, to the world, the truth that they were seeking." We are left to assume that "We the Living" is the answer. (p. 523)

From the very outset [Kira's] attitude toward the experiment in which she shares is one of contempt and ridicule; she...