Until the war Svetlana had been the apple of his eye. Nadya’s strict standards of behaviour were relaxed after her death,6 and Svetlana was fussed over by tutors and housekeeper Katerina Til. A nurse combed her hair. The general oversight of her daily schedule, though, was handed to Stalin’s chief bodyguard Nikolai Vlasik.7 Stalin was too busy to see a lot of her; in any case his opinion was that ‘feelings were a matter for women’.8 What he wanted from his children was that they should be a delight for him on those occasions when they spent time together. He in turn wished to be fun for them. Yakov and Vasili did not meet these specifications: neither of them worked hard at school or behaved with the mixture of respect and levity that he required. But Svetlana fitted the bill. He penned letters to her pretending to be her ‘first secretary comrade Stalin’. She wrote out orders to him such as ‘I hereby command you to permit me to go to the theatre or cinema with you.’ To this he replied: ‘All right, I obey.’9 As Maria Svanidze, Stalin’s sister-in law from his first marriage, recorded in her diary for 1934, Svetlana adored him: ‘Svetlana rubbed against her father the whole time. He stroked her, kissed her, admired her and fed her from his own spoon, lovingly choosing the best titbits for her.’10
Relations between father and daughter deteriorated after Operation Barbarossa. By her mid-teens she was interested in men, and this brought out his ill-tempered side. When she showed him a photograph of herself in clothes he thought immodest (and he had strict ideas on this subject), he snatched it from her and ripped it up.11 He hated her wearing lipstick. When she wanted to stay overnight at the Berias’ dacha, where she was a frequent visitor, he ordered her to return home immediately: ‘I don’t trust Beria!’12 Stalin was aware of Lavrenti Beria’s proclivities towards young women. Although it was Beria’s son Sergo she was visiting, Stalin took no chances and attached a security official — known to Svetlana as Uncle Klimov — to act as her chaperone.
Svetlana’s discomfort was increased by what she learned about her family’s history. Her aunt Anna told her, when she reached the age of sixteen, that her mother Nadya had not died of natural causes but had committed suicide. Svetlana was shocked by what she heard; her father had always avoided the topic.13 Anna did not tell Svetlana much more: she had already taken a large risk in breaching Stalin’s confidence. Svetlana proceeded to ask her father for further information. According to Sergo Beria, in whom she confided, Stalin’s response was hurtful. He resented the way Svetlana kept on examining pictures of Nadya. When she asked him whether her mother had been beautiful, he replied more insensitively: ‘Yes, except that she had teeth like a horse.’ He added that the other Alliluev women had wanted to sleep with him. This too may well have been true, but it was a painful message for Svetlana. He finished by explaining: ‘At least your mother was young, and she really loved me. That’s why I married her.’14
It was around this time that Svetlana started going out with film-writer Alexei Kapler. A more unsuitable boyfriend could not be imagined. Kapler was a womaniser who had had a string of affairs. He was over twice Svetlana’s age. He was also Jewish — and Stalin even before the war had been trying to identify himself and his family with the Russians. Kapler was incredibly indiscreet. He acquired Western films such as
