Risk-taking Researcher- Bianca A.

This week, we begun to read the book Anthem, by Ayn Rand. It was a very interesting beginning, with lots of new techniques and styles to explore. As it is a new book, I chose to research on the topic in order to have some background information to help me understand and grasp the book as a whole.

The book Anthem takes place in a society where they are living in a strictly communist society, where all individualism is prohibited, and people are all equal. It was interesting to see the background of the book. Ayn Rand lived in Soviet Russia for a long period of time, this therefore influencing her to write this book. In many ways, it is criticizing this concept of strict equality, and implicitly a more exaggerated version of the communist regime in the USSR.
Throughout her life, Ayn Rand published various books and pieces which have been known due to their emphasis on her concepts and ideas. She wrote about individualism, and self expression. During her childhood, Rand experienced the beginning of the Russian Revolution and her family was struck by great poverty. This was due to her father's chemist shop being closed by russian communist thugs. At the first chance she got, at age 21, she moved to the United States and started writing controversial books.
It is important to understand a bit of the concepts of communism and to understand the ideas behind the society of the book. In basic words, communism is a concept of a society where everyone is equal. There are no social classes, and all businesses are owned by the government. The middle and high class are the same. The first theories of communism started by a man named Karl Marx, who is known as the "father of communism". He wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, which later inspired the ideas of the Communist Party. He believed that it was fair to raise the poor from poverty and give them a chance to have the same chances. To do that, he believed that all means of production must be controlled by the government and no one can make more money than another person.
The first communist nation was Russia. After a period of huge loss in World War I, the sort of monarchy that was instituted at the time was deeply criticized. People were struck by great poverty and meanwhile the rulers lived in high standards. In 1918, there was a huge revolution, which overthrew and assassinated the governing family. When this happened, Lenin rose to power, bringing the Communist Party with him. Once his ideas grew due to military involvement, he started to gain people's interest by using slogans that would help people agree with him. He put Marx's ideas into action to create the USSR. At the time, the high class was not wiling to give up their land, so there was a redistribution of territory, as well as food rationing. Another main point were the slave labour camps well known mainly as Stalin gained power. Basically, anyone that did not agree with regime was sent to high security prisons known as Gulags.
Stalin, Lenin's successor, had bigger views than simply Russia for communism. He wanted it to spread worldwide, and is possibly responsible for the growth of communism in other nations. There are current communist countries, such as China, Vietnam and Laos.

"Comrade Lenin cleanses the Earth of filth"- a political propaganda poster created in 1920 advertising Lenin's regime.
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The significance of the communist symbol that covers the Communist Manifesto
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Doucet, Bradley. "The Life Of Ayn Rand." The Atlas Society. The Atlas Society, 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2014. <http://www.atlassociety.org/life-biography-of-ayn-rand>.
Wikipedia. "Anthem (novella)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_%28novella%29>.
Hoyt, Alia. "HowStuffWorks "How Communism Works"" HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2014. <http://people.howstuffworks.com/communism.htm>.