I think I found the Russian writer who inspired Ayn Rand’s style – Maxim Gorki

From the essay ‘on socialist realism’ (by an anonymous author, smuggled out of the USSR in the 1950’s):

‘The positive hero first appeared in some books of Gorki’s written in the first decade of the 20th century. He started by proclaiming to the world: “One must say firmly yes or no!” Many were shocked by the self-assurance and straightforwardness of his formulations, by his tendency to preach at everyone around him, and by his pompous monologues celebrating his own virtues.’

And then it goes on to say how Checkhov didn’t approve.

I think this is great because I had previously summed up Rand’s ‘style’ as “political scree filtered through learning English as a second language through Jane Austen” but now I have a more precise idea. Gorki was the guy. She turned Gorki capitalist and delivered him to the American political right.

Anyway, I was only interested in this essay because of Mark Fisher’s ‘capitalist realism’, which I found provocative. The thing that’s more interesting about socialist realism is that it was defined explicitly by the state – ie, you couldn’t get published unless you followed it.

So yeah. TL;DR – I know more about how Ayn Rand learned to write.