This book is about a young woman named Kira Argounova who is trying to live during the Soviet takeover of Russia. Kira wants to be an engineer, but the lack of freedom in Soviet Russia oppresses her. She becomes involved in a love triangle with Comrade Taganov and the mysterious Leo. The book is a philosophical exposition of the crushing nature of the collectivist philosophy, which oppresses the producers.

“Can you sacrifice a few? When those few are the best? Deny the best its right to the top--and you have no best left. What are your masses but millions of dull, shriveled, stagnant souls that have no thoughts of their own, no dreams of their own, no will of their own, who eat and sleep and chew helplessly the words others put into their brains? And for those you would sacrifice the few who know life, who are life? I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved. Because men are not equal in ability and one can't trust them as if they were.”