The city of Pola is being evacuated after the peace conference of 1947 decided to assign the sovereignty to Tito's Yugoslavia. However the main character decides to stay, thinking that Communism might bring him a better future. Life turns to be hard for him and his family until he changes his mind, but he is killed before he can leave the country.

Some Italian partisans want to take refuge in a convent to escape German raids. The nuns are a little perplexed at first but then agree since one of the men is seriously wounded. When the partisans eventually leave, the Germans take a terrible revenge.

The time is the Russian Revolution. The place is a country burdened with fear - the midnight knock at the door, the bread hidden against famine, the haunted eyes of the fleeing, the grublike fat of the appeasers and oppressors. In a bitter struggle of the individual against the collective, three people stand forth with the mark of the unconquered in their bearing: Kira, who wants to be a builder, and the two men who love her - Leo, an aristocrat, and Andrei, a Communist. In their tensely dramatic story, Ayn Rand shows what the theories of Communism mean in practice. We the Living is not a story of politics but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the Red banners and slogans. It is a picture of what dictatorship - of any kind - does to human beings, what kind of men are able to survive, and which of them remain as the ultimate winners. What happens to the defiant ones? What happens to those who succumb? Who are the winners in this conflict? Against a vivid panorama of political revolution and personal revolt, Ayn Rand offers an answer that challenges the modern conscience. Written by The Publisher of "We the Living"

Walerian Borowczyk's 1980 film Lulu was based on the eponymous character created by Frank Wedekind. "Lulu" tracks the rise and fall of a beguiling dancer whose sexuality is tied directly to her fortunes. The titular nymph-like seductress flits from romance to romance, strategically positioning herself for social and financial gain. Each of her lovers embodies a Victorian archetype, from the old professor showing off what would now be called a "trophy wife" to the bohemian artist to the bourgeois newspaperman to the naive young man. Borowczyk's adaptation of Wedekind's melodramas emphasizes the satirical nature of the story, skewering upper middle class attitudes towards sexual relationships.