After reading through Barbara Branden’s biography The Passion
of Ayn Rand yet again, I noticed that she had some lucky breaks in her life.
Although she knew what she wanted and was very pro-active in preparing herself
for and going about getting it, her life might have been very different and we
might never have heard of her without some fortuitous incidents that helped her
along her way and got her through some key stages in her life.
Reprieve from university expulsion
When Ayn Rand was studying at university in Russia, there
was a plan to expel some socially undesirables. Ayn was on the list; she would
not be permitted to attend any other college ever again; being without a degree
would have been a death warrant for her future plans. Luckily, a delegation of
foreign visitors heard about the proposed purge and they were very indignant
about it. In an attempt to make a good impression on the prominent visitors,
the expulsions were cancelled for some of the students, including Ayn. A reversal
of this kind was a unique occurrence.
Getting a visa to enter the USA
Ayn Rand knew that she just had to go to America. It
seemed like her only chance to make something of her life. She could never live
under the oppressive Communist regime.
She had a difficult interview with an American consul;
she needed to convince him that she planned to return to Russia after her trip
to the US. (She actually intended to leave for ever.) She happened to notice a
card on his desk. It said that she was going to marry an American. This gave
her an idea: she said that it was a mistake and that she was going to marry a
Russian man on her return. She was thinking of her still-beloved Leo. The consul realised that
her details had been confused with someone else’s; he had been about to refuse
her a visa, but her quick thinking made him revise his decision.
She was doubly lucky: she got out before the doors were
closed and Russian citizens were prohibited from leaving their country.
