Oh Dad, Poor Dad! Daughter's Found Religion, And Thinks Communism's Bad!

No less an authority on the Russian psyche than Leo Tolstoy wrote: "All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Last week the nation was witness to a touching insight into the happiness and unhappiness of one Russian family -- that of Dictator Joseph Stalin, whose only daughter, third and last child and sole surviving offsprinig, Svetlana Allilueva Stalina, 42, recently dissociated herself from both Communism and the chance catastrophe of her birth.

In a 50-minute press conference-staged by the public relations firm of Hill & Knowltoa and telecast live from Manhattan's' Plaza Hotel -- Svetlana maintained a sweet Slavic charm and a rosy-cheeked, auburn-haired innocence, despite her first exposure to a free press and although one reporter was frisked by private detectives on the way in. She also displayed a dedication to liberty that stood in sharp if glossy contrast to her family background. More surprising was her spirited defense of her father--a demonstration that even a dictator with the blood of some 9,000,000 kulaks and political enemies on his hands can be a decent daddy.

"I can say that I have lost quite a lot with his death," said Svetlana in her clumsy but barely accented English, "because he was also for me the authority which could not be--well. I loved him, I respected him, and when he was gone I have lost maybe a lot of faith." She lost a lot more as well: after Stalin's death in 1953 and his denunciation before the 20th Party Congress of 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev, Svetlana became an extension of the Stalin era and thus a liability to the Soviet leadership. "I had perhaps something what can be named as a privileged life," she said wryly. "But, as you know, people cannot live only by bread."

Decision to Defect. Twice married and twice divorced during the days when she was the apple of her father's eye, Svetlana applied in the early 1960s to marry Brajesh Singh, an Indian Communist living in Moscow. She was refused permission, an act that she found "disgustful." Trained as a writer and English translator, Svetlana was also aware that she could never publish her autobiography--a Life-With-Father memoir that the Kremlin would not allow to be printed. When Singh fell seriously ill last year with a respiratory ailment, he and Svetlana were not allowed to return to his Indian home village of Kalakankar.

Only after Singh's death was Svetlana permitted to bring his ashes to his birthplace. There she made her decision to defect. "My husband has died in Moscow, and his death exactly made me absolutely intolerant to the things to which I was rather tolerant before," said Svetlana. "I can mention also the courts, the trial of [Underground Writers] Sinyavsky and Daniel, which produced a horrible impression on all the intellectuals in Russia and on me also, and I can say that I lost the hopes which I had before that we are going to become liberal somehow."

Along the way, Svetlana found religion. Baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1962 by a certain Father Nikolai ("He has died recently, unfortunately'), she developed "great sympathy" with Hinduism ("of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda"), Roman Catholicism ("In Switzerland I have met a lot of fine people who were Catholics") and Christian Science.

Social Purpose. Prodded by reporters to denounce the Soviet leadership, Svetlana showed a remarkable reluctance to oversimplify Stalin's injustices. "I feel somewhat responsible for those horrible things, killing people unjustly," she admitted. "But I think that many other people who are still in our Central Committee and Politburo should be responsible for the same things for which he alone was accused."

With her autobiography already sold to Harper & Row, and serialization set for this fall in LIFE and the New York Times, Svetlana will probably earn $1,000,000, which she plans to dispense philanthropically in her husband's native village, in Switzerland (where she stayed before coming to the U.S. last month) for an orphanage, and "here also for some social purpose. I am not going to become very rich woman because it is absolutely impossible for me to become a rich person here." Does she intend to apply for U.S. citizenship? "Well," said Svetlana, "I think that before the marriage, it should be love." After the press conference, Svetlana returned to her hideaway near Manhasset on Long Island. Two days later, she began to consummate that unlikely marriage by shopping for some $60 worth of shoes, slacks and a sweater along the suburban city's Miracle Mile.

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