NP: Ayn Rand and Thomas Pynchon

[MalignD at aol.com]

Life in Russia

Ayn Rand's Testimony Before The House Un-American Activities Committee

The Chairman: Raise your right hand, please, Miss Rand. Do you solemnly swear 
the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Miss Rand: I do.

The Chairman: Sit down.

Mr. Stripling: Miss Rand, will you state your name, please, for the record?

Miss Rand: Ayn Rand, or Mrs. Frank O'Connor

Mr. Stripling: That is A-y-n?

Miss Rand: That is right.

Mr. Stripling: R-a-n-d?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr. Stripling: Is that your pen name?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr. Stripling: And what is your married name?

Miss Rand: Mrs. Frank O'Connor.

Mr. Stripling: Where were you born, Miss Rand?
Now, here is what the picture Song of Russia contains. It starts with an 
American conductor, played by Robert Taylor, giving a concert in America for 
Russian war relief. He starts playing the American national anthem and the 
national anthem dissolves into a Russian mob, with the sickle and hammer on a 
red flag very prominent above their heads. I am sorry, but that made me sick.

Miss Rand: In St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mr. Stripling: When did you leave Russia?

Miss Rand: In 1926.

Mr. Stripling: How long have you been employed in Hollywood?

Miss Rand: I have been in pictures on and off since late in 1926, but 
specifically as a writer this time I have been in Hollywood since late 1943 
and am now under contract as a writer.

Mr. Stripling: Have you written various novels?

Miss Rand: One second. May I have one moment to get this in order?

Mr. Stripling: Yes.

Miss Rand: Yes, I have written two novels. My first one was called We the 
Living, which was a story about Soviet Russia and was published in 1936. The 
second one was The Fountainhead, published in 1943.

Mr. Stripling: Was that a best seller -- The Fountainhead?

Miss Rand: Yes; thanks to the American public.

Mr.Stripling: Do you know how many copies were sold?

Miss Rand: The last I heard was 360,000 copies. I think there have been some 
more since.

Mr.Stripling: You have been employed as a writer in Hollywood?

Miss Rand: Yes; I am under contract at present.

Mr.Stripling: Could you name some of the stories or scripts you have written 
for Hollywood?

Miss Rand: I have done the script of The Fountainhead, which has not been 
produced yet, for Warner Brothers, and two adaptations for Hal Wallis 
Productions, at Paramount, which were not my stories but on which I did the 
screen plays, which were Love Letters and You Came Along.

Mr.Stripling: Now, Miss Rand, you have heard the testimony of Mr. [Louis B.] 
Mayer?

Miss Rand: Yes.
At that time conditions were a little better than they have become since. In 
my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people who had 
only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror- afraid to look 
at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and would 
report us- and where to get the next meal.

Mr.Stripling: You have read the letter I read from Lowell Mellett?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr.Stripling: Which says that the picture Song of Russia has no political 
implications?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr.Stripling: Did you at the request of Mr. Smith, the investigator for this 
committee, view the picture Song of Russia?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr.Stripling: Within the past two weeks?

Miss Rand: Yes; on October 13, to be exact.

Mr.Stripling: In Hollywood?

Miss Rand: Yes.

Mr.Stripling: Would you give the committee a break-down of your summary of 
the picture relating to either propaganda or an untruthful account or 
distorted account of conditions in Russia?

Miss Rand: Yes. First of all I would like to define what we mean by 
propaganda. We have all been talking about it, but nobody-

Mr.Stripling: Could you talk into the microphone?

Miss Rand: Can you hear me now? Nobody has stated just what they mean by 
propaganda. Now, I use the term to mean that Communist propaganda is anything 
which gives a good impression of communism as a way of life. Anything that 
sells people the idea that life in Russia is good and that people are free 
and happy would be Communist propaganda. Am I not correct? I mean, would that 
be a fair statement to make- that that would be Communist propaganda?

Now, here is what the picture Song of Russia contains. It starts with an 
American conductor, played by Robert Taylor, giving a concert in America for 
Russian war relief. He starts playing the American national anthem and the 
national anthem dissolves into a Russian mob, with the sickle and hammer on a 
red flag very prominent above their heads. I am sorry, but that made me sick. 
That is something which I do not see how native Americans permit, and I am 
only a naturalized American. That was a terrible touch of propaganda. As a 
writer, I can tell you just exactly what it suggests to the people. It 
suggests literally and technically that it is quite all right for the 
American national anthem to dissolve into the Soviet. The term here is more 
than just technical. It really was symbolically intended, and it worked out 
that way. The anthem continues, played by a Soviet band. That is the 
beginning of the picture. Now we go to the pleasant love story.
You have no idea what it means to live in a country where nobody has any 
concern except food, where all the conversation is about food because 
everybody is so hungry that that is all they can think about and that is all 
they can afford to do. They have no idea of politics. They have no idea of 
any pleasant romances or love--nothing but food and fear. That is what I saw 
up to 1926. That is not what the picture shows.

Mr. Taylor is an American who came there apparently voluntarily to conduct 
concerts for the Soviets. He meets a little Russian girl from a village who 
comes to him and begs him to go to her village to direct concerts there. 
There are no GPU agents and nobody stops her. She just comes to Moscow and 
meets him. He falls for her and decides he will go, because he is falling in 
love. He asks her to show him Moscow. She says she has never seen it. He 
says, "I will show it to you." They see it together. The picture then goes 
into a scene of Moscow, supposedly.

I don't know where the studio got its shots, but I have never seen anything 
like it in Russia. First you see Moscow buildings -- big, prosperous-looking, 
clean buildings, with something like swans or sailboats in the foreground. 
Then you see a Moscow restaurant that just never existed there. In my time, 
when I was in Russia, there was only one such restaurant, which was nowhere 
as luxurious as that and no one could enter it except commissars and 
profiteers.

Certainly a girl from a village, who in the first place would never have been 
allowed to come voluntarily, without permission, to Moscow, could not afford 
to enter it, even if she worked ten years. However, there is a Russian 
restaurant with a menu such as never existed in Russia at all and which I 
doubt even existed before the revolution. From this restaurant they go on to 
this tour of Moscow. The streets are clean and prosperous-looking. There are 
no food lines anywhere. You see shots of the marble subway- the famous 
Russian subway out of which they make such propaganda capital. There is a 
marble statue of Stalin thrown in. There is a park where you see happy little 
children in white blouses running around. I don't know whose children they 
are, but they are really happy kiddies. They are not homeless children in 
rags, such as I have seen in Russia. Then you see an excursion boat, on which 
the Russian people are smiling, sitting around very cheerfully, dressed in 
some sort of satin blouses such as they only wear in Russian restaurants 
here. Then they attend a luxurious dance. I don't know where they got the 
idea of the clothes and the settings that they used at the ball and-

Mr.Stripling: Is that a ballroom scene?

Miss Rand: Yes; the ballroom- where they dance. It was an exaggeration even 
for this country. I have never seen anybody wearing such clothes and dancing 
to such exotic music when I was there. Of course, it didn't say whose 
ballroom it is or how they get there. But there they are- free and dancing 
very happily. Incidentally, I must say at this point that I understand from 
correspondents who have left Russia and been there later than I was and from 
people who escaped from there later than I did that the time I saw it, which 
was in 1926, was the best time since the Russian revolution.

At that time conditions were a little better than they have become since. In 
my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people who had 
only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror- afraid to look 
at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and would 
report us- and where to get the next meal. You have no idea what it means to 
live in a country where nobody has any concern except food, where all the 
conversation is about food because everybody is so hungry that that is all 
they can think about and that is all they can afford to do. They have no idea 
of politics. They have no idea of any pleasant romances or love- nothing but 
food and fear. That is what I saw up to 1926. That is not what the picture 
shows.
Other people claim there were seven and a half million, but three million is 
the figure admitted by the Soviet Government as the figure of people who died 
of starvation, planned by the government in order to drive people into 
collective farms. That is a recorded historical fact.

Now, after this tour of Moscow, the hero- the American conductor- goes to the 
Soviet village. The Russian villages are something- so miserable and so 
filthy. They were even before the revolution. They weren't much even then. 
What they have become now I am afraid to think. You have all read about the 
program for the collectivization of the farms in 1933, at which time the 
Soviet Government admits that three million peasants died of starvation. 
Other people claim there were seven and a half million, but three million is 
the figure admitted by the Soviet Government as the figure of people who died 
of starvation, planned by the government in order to drive people into 
collective farms. That is a recorded historical fact. Now, here is the life 
in the Soviet village as presented in Song of Russia. You see the happy 
peasants. You see they are meeting the hero at the station with bands, with 
beautiful blouses and shoes, such as they never wore anywhere. You see 
children with operetta costumes on them and with a brass band which they 
could never afford. You see the manicured starlets driving tractors and the 
happy women who come from work singing. You see a peasant at home with a 
close-up of food for which anyone there would have been murdered. If anybody 
had such food in Russia in that time he couldn't remain alive, because he 
would have been torn apart by neighbors trying to get food. But here is a 
close-up of it and a line where Robert Taylor comments on the food and the 
peasant answers, "This is just a simple country table and the food we eat 
ourselves." Then the peasant proceeds to show Taylor how they live. He shows 
him his wonderful tractor. It is parked somewhere in his private garage. He 
shows him the grain in his bin, and Taylor says, "That is wonderful grain."

Now, it is never said that the peasant does not own this tractor or this 
grain because it is a collective farm. He couldn't have it. It is not his. 
But the impression he gives to Americans, who wouldn't know any differently, 
is that certainly it is this peasant's private property, and that is how he 
lives, he has his own tractor and his own grain. Then it shows miles and 
miles of plowed fields.

The Chairman: We will have more order, please.
In the midst of this concert, when the heroine is playing, you see a scene on 
the border of the U.S.S.R. You have a very lovely modernistic sign saying 
"U.S.S.R." I would just like to remind you that that is the border where 
probably thousands of people have died trying to escape out of this lovely 
paradise.

Miss Rand: Am I speaking too fast?

The Chairman: Go ahead.

Miss Rand: Then-

Mr.Stripling: Miss Rand, may I bring up one point there?

Miss Rand: Surely.

Mr.Stripling: I saw the picture. At this peasant's village or home, was there 
a priest or several priests in evidence?

Miss Rand: Oh, yes; I am coming to that, too. The priest was from the 
beginning in the village scenes, having a position as sort of a constant 
companion and friend of the peasants, as if religion was a natural accepted 
part of that life. Well, now, as a matter of fact, the situation about 
religion in Russia in my time was, and I understand it still is, that for a 
Communist Party member to have anything to do with religion means expulsion 
from the party. He is not allowed to enter a church or take part in any 
religious ceremony. For a private citizen, that is a non-party member, it was 
permitted, but it was so frowned upon that people had to keep it secret, if 
they went to church. If they wanted a church wedding they usually had it 
privately in their homes, with only a few friends present, in order not to 
let it be known at their place of employment because, even though it was not 
forbidden, the chances were that they would be thrown out of a job for being 
known as practicing any kind of religion.

Now, then, to continue with the story, Robert Taylor proposes to the heroine. 
She accepts him. They have a wedding, which, of course, is a church wedding. 
It takes place with all the religious pomp which they show. They have a 
banquet. They have dancers, in something like satin skirts and performing 
ballets such as you never could possibly see in any village and certainly not 
in Russia. Later they show a peasants' meeting place, which is a kind of a 
marble palace with crystal chandeliers. Where they got it or who built it for 
them I would like to be told. Then later you see that the peasants all have 
radios. When the heroine plays as a soloist with Robert Taylor's orchestra, 
after she marries him, you see a scene where all the peasants are listening 
on radios, and one of them says, "There are more than millions listening to 
the concert." I don't know whether there are a hundred people in Russia, 
private individuals, who own radios. And I remember reading in the newspaper 
at the beginning of the war that every radio was seized by the Government and 
people were not allowed to own them. Such an idea that every farmer, a poor 
peasant, has a radio, is certainly preposterous. You also see that they have 
long-distance telephones. Later in the picture Taylor has to call his wife in 
the village by long-distance telephone. Where they got this long-distance 
phone, I don't know.

Now, here comes the crucial point of the picture. In the midst of this 
concert, when the heroine is playing, you see a scene on the border of the 
U.S.S.R. You have a very lovely modernistic sign saying "U.S.S.R." I would 
just like to remind you that that is the border where probably thousands of 
people have died trying to escape out of this lovely paradise. It shows the 
U.S.S.R. sign, and there is a border guard standing. He is listening to the 
concert. Then there is a scene inside kind of a guardhouse where the guards 
are listening to the same concert, the beautiful Tschaikowsky music, and they 
are playing chess. Suddenly there is a Nazi attack on them. The poor, sweet 
Russians were unprepared...