She was twelve at the time of the February Revolution of 1917, during which she favored Alexander Kerensky over Tsar Nicholas II. The subsequent October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted the life the family had previously enjoyed. Her father's business was confiscated, and the family fled to the Crimean Peninsula, which was initially under control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. While in high school, she concluded that she was an atheist and valued reason above any other human virtue. After graduating from high school in the Crimea in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was renamed at that time), where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion nearly starving.