Long after the politics have passed, literary quality – or lack of it – remains.
The following is a comment I put together on an episode of the Origin Story podcast produced by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. The episode covered Ayn Rand and her legacy – while the guys are very unsympathetic to her political position, I was pretty astonished to find that they thought she was a pretty effective fiction writer! This is my response, which became a bit ridiculously long for an inline comment – somewhat edited for clarity and to incorporate my correction. You can see the original here.
(The podcast series is really excellent, highly recommended to check it out)
There is a slight danger of slipping into conspiracism here in thinking that all critics must have had a political axe to grind. There is a simpler explanation: that there really are serious literary defects which become obvious when you are familiar with the history of the form.