Joseph Stalin, the leader of the U.S.S.R., that is, communist Russia, had only one child–her name was Americanized once she moved to the United States: she took the name of Lana Peters. She had mixed up feelings about her family and Russian patriotism while growing up; but she became a poet and writer; and made friends with other writers. Much to her frustration she found that being a writer in the Soviet Union wasn’t all its cracked up to be. She came to feel depressed, isolated, controlled, as she and her friends lived in constant fear of arrest by the KGB and getting their manuscripts confiscated because of Russia’s anti-free speech laws. Because of her position among the political elite, she was fortunate enough to have a Russian passport and travel outside the country. Most Russians were not allowed to. Her father died in 1953. She finally made up her mind in 1967 and moved to America at the age of 41. “I came to the rejection of communism totally,” she said (34:09). Stalin and his Russian communist leaders were Antisemites. In her opinion, Russian antisemitism grew out of Stalin’s rivalry with Leon Trotsky, who was Jewish, and whom Stalin had assassinated. Stalin believed that “all Jewish people were against him,” because they were fans of Trotsky–in Russia, they simply came to be viewed as political enemies of Stalin (43:15). Her impression was that “millions of people feel very much discontented with the regime…I don’t believe in a combination of freedom and communism…generally these two things do not go together” (50:12). Coming out of atheism and into Russian Orthodoxy and then Catholicism was explained by her in the following way: “It was based on some inheritance of religious feeling, which I had from my grandmothers; and then the conditions of life, when life becomes difficult: then inner life becomes very important for a human being. The moment comes when you feel you just cannot exist in this…YOU JUST FEEL THAT THERE IS GOD, I cannot explain to you how you feel that” (55:25). –J.B.