You know it's a funny thing, there were Maxim Gorky statues all over the Soviet Union - so of course post-perestroika most young people avoid him like the plague. But Gorky at his worst is a far more honest and talented writer than Ayn Rand ever was - just pick up a collection of his short stories.

It's strange that a similar thing actually hasn't happened here and instead there is a Journal of Ayn Rand Studies and really at best a mediocre writer in terms of literary merit and talent has been well-preserved for posterity; which is not to say that she didn't have historical significance, she did of course, as did Lenin's writing I'm sure - but no one is praising the high literary merits of Lenin's 30+ tomes of writing today. I guess that's the difference between a defeated ideological system and one whose existence has continued to this day.