She longed to be reunited with her children, but they rejected her. In 1984, feeling exploited and disillusioned, she defected back to Russia. When she tried to write other books she discovered people were only interested in her father, not her views. However, she gave most of the money to charity. To finance her new life she published her memoir for $1.5 million – only Churchill's memoirs had sold for more. She wrote to them: "It is impossible to be always a slave." However, even in the free world she was not liberated. In 1967 she defected to the West leaving her two children, Joseph 21 and Katya 16, behind. Svetlana's ultimate rejection of Stalin's legacy came when she was 41.
Yet despite her valiant attempts, she could never break free from the curse of being the daughter of one of the world's most brutal dictators. As Rosemary Sullivan's biography shows, she craved a "normal" family life and just wanted to be loved for herself. The sense of abandonment Svetlana experienced following her mother's death stayed with her for the rest of her life, turning the needy child into an emotionally demanding woman. It was only 10 years later she found out the truth this knowledge was part of the harsh awakening which made her see her mother as yet another victim of the repressive policies of her father. Her 31-year-old mother, Nadya, had shot herself in the heart but Svetlana was told she had died of peritonitis. She was only six at the time, and she screamed and drew back. Seared on the memory of Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, was the moment she was taken to kiss her dead mother in her open coffin.
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