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More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.comFore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com16THE EDUCATION OF AYN RAND, 1905–1943logic. Her degree was granted by the interdisciplinary Department ofSocial Pedagogy. 13Alisa was skeptical of the education she received at the university, andit appears to have influenced her primarily in its form rather than itscontent. Her time at the University of Leningrad taught her that all ideashad an ultimate political valence. Communist authorities scrutinizedevery professor and course for counterrevolutionary ideas. The mostinnocuous statement could be traced back to its roots and identified asbeing either for or against the Soviet system. Even history, a subject Alisachose because it was relatively free of Marxism, could be twisted andframed to reflect the glories of Bolshevism. Years later she consideredherself an authority on propaganda, based on her university experience.“I was trained in it by experts,” she explained to a friend. 14The university also shaped Alisa’s understanding of intellectual life,primarily by exposing her to formal philosophy. Russian philosophy wassynoptic and systemic, an approach that may have stimulated her laterinterest in creating an integrated philosophical system. 15 In her classesshe heard about Plato and Herbert Spencer and studied the works ofAristotle for the first time. There was also a strong Russian tradition ofpursuing philosophical inquiry outside university settings, and that washow she encountered Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who quicklybecame her favorite. A cousin taunted her with a book by Nietzsche,“who beat you to all your ideas.” 16 Reading outside of her classes shedevoured his works.Alisa’s first love when she left university was not philosophy, however,but the silver screen. The Russian movie industry, long dormant duringthe chaos of war and revolution, began to revive in the early 1920s.Under the New Economic Plan Soviet authorities allowed the importof foreign films and the Commissariat of Education began supportingRussian film production. Hoping to become a screenwriter, Alisaenrolled in the new State Institute for Cinematography after receivingher undergraduate degree. Movies became her obsession. In 1924 sheviewed forty-seven movies; the next year she watched 117. In a moviediary she ranked each film she saw on a scale of one to five, noted itsmajor stars, and started a list of her favorite artists. The movies eveninspired her first published works, a pamphlet about the actress PolaNegri and a booklet titled Hollywood: American Movie City. In these