1969: Stalin's Daughter on Defecting From the Soviet Union | Classic Interviews | BBC Archive

This programme contains discussion of suicide.


Robin Day talks to Svetlana Allileyua, the daughter of the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin. Sveltana caused a political sensation when, in 1967, she defected to the United States during a trip to India to scatter the ashes of her Indian lover.

She discusses the reasons for her defection, her life in the Soviet Union, her relationship with her father - whom she refers to as "a moral and spiritual monster" - and the two books that she has published: Twenty Letters to a Friend - memoirs written in 1962 while Svetlana was still in the Soviet Union - and Only One Year - written after her defection.


This interview, from Day Time: Svetlana Stalin was originally broadcast over two evenings. Part One was originally broadcast on BBC One, 5 October, 1969. Part Two was originally broadcast on BBC One, 12 October, 1969.


00:00 Introduction
00:25 Interview part 1
28:35 Interview part 2





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