USSR | Joseph Stalin | Svetlana Alliluyeva Interview | 1980's

Oct 31, 2015 | A fascinating insight into Russian Leader Joseph Stalin's early life through the eyes of his youngest child Svetlana Alliluyeva.

This interview was filmed for the Thames TV production - 'Stalin' Recorded in 1989/1990

This interview cannot be embedded on external websites. It can be viewed only on YouTube itself. Click here to watch it.
Related interview here.

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

Nov 21, 2025 | 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.

1917: How the Russian Revolution Led to Soviet Repression

Sep 28, 2025 | In February 1917, workers and women marched for bread, peace, and equality. By October, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, had seized power — claiming to represent the people, but lacking broad support.

With fear of the Tsar’s return and clever propaganda, Lenin and his followers consolidated control. The dream of democracy was crushed almost overnight. What followed was a century of authoritarian rule, the rise of the Soviet Union, and a global Cold War.

Featuring insights from historian Sarah Badcock (University of Nottingham), journalist Ricardo Marquina, and DW historian Jaime González Arguedas, this report uncovers the real story behind 1917. Was it a revolution for the people — or a takeover in disguise?

SCRIPT
Laura Iglesias San Martín
Jaime González Arguedas

HOST
David Levitz

EDITING
Juan Álvarez Pérez

‘My Parents Got Me Out of Soviet Russia at the Right Time. Should My Family Now Leave the US?’

THE GUARDIAN: When he left the Soviet Union for a new life in America, the novelist never imagined he would live under another authoritarian regime. Then Trump got back into power ... Is it time to move again?

Oh, to have been born in a small, stylish country with good food and favourable sea breezes. No empire, no holy faith, no condescension, no fatal ideologies. The fish is grilled, the extended family roll in on their scooters, the wine looks amber in its glass as the socially democratic sun begins its plunge into the sparkling waters below.

This was not my fortune. I was born to one dying superpower and am now living in another. I was born to an ideology pasted all over enormous granite buildings in enormous Slavic letters and now live in one where the same happens in bold caps on what was once Twitter and what purports to be Truth (Pravda?) Social. America, Russia. Russia, America. Together they were kind enough to give me the material from which I made a decent living as a writer, but they took away any sense of normality, any faith that societies can provide lives without bold-faced slogans, bald-faced lies, leaders with steely set jaws, and crusades against phantom menaces, whether Venezuelan or Ukrainian. » | Gary Shteyngart | Saturday, July 19, 2025

Elvira Bary: What the Wild 1990s Taught Me about Love and Glamour in Soviet Russia

Nov 16, 2024 | Have you ever fallen for the perfect illusion of someone? See how it happened to me!

Who hasn't fallen for the perfect illusion of someone? This is the story of how I fell in love with the editor of Men's Health, only to find out years later that the real genius behind my favorite articles wasn't who I thought.

It's a tale of youthful romance, shattered illusions, and an unexpected mentor who changed my life.

Russian Vodka: Drinking Culture in the Soviet Union

Nov 14, 2024 | Why have so many men in Soviet Russia turned to alcohol?

In this video, IElvira Bary explores why so many men in the USSR turned to alcohol. Growing up in the Soviet Union, she saw how the Communist regime suppressed the traits that give men in the Hunter personality archetype a sense of accomplishment, turning drinking into both a distorted escape and a form of quiet (or sometimes not-so-quiet) personal rebellion.

Let's dive into Soviet history, human psychology, and a bit of personal storytelling to find the answer.

The Untold Story of Russian Women in the Soviet Union

Jan 12, 2025 | Explore the Complex, Surprising, and often Contradictory Lives of Women in Soviet Russia

Margaret Thatcher in the Soviet Union - Rare and Unseen Footage (1987)

Jan 20, 2024 | Between 28 March and 1 April 1987, ITN filmed British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she made her historic first trip to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The five-day schedule included a visit to an enormous tenement complex and supermarket in Moscow’s Krylatskoye District, a performance of Swan Lake at the capital’s prestigious Bolshoi Theatre, and a state banquet. Chief on the agenda, however, were negotiations on the reduction of American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

WIKIPEDIA: Raisa Gorbacheva »

Konstantin of ‘Inside Russia’: Gorbachev RIP: “The Best Leader Russia Has Known”

Michail Gorbatchev died at old age of 92.

Why I Left Russia and Can't Go Back

Jul 10, 2022 As Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine continues, we look at the opportunities Russia failed to take after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This is a meditation on the collapse of the USSR, why Russia failed to take the opportunity that followed, and where this leaves the world here and now.

The End of a Superpower - The Collapse of the Soviet Union | DW Documentary

Mar 3, 2022 • Russian President Vladimir Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." This documentary from 2021 shows the path Russian foreign policy has followed under Putin.

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. Along with it came hope for the end of the Cold War, for independence and freedom for the former Soviet republics. But for many it also brought poverty and war. What remains of the dreams of that time? The documentary includes contemporary witnesses and politicians of the decisive years and shows what has become of the legacy of a world power.

[This documentary was originally released in 2021. In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.]

When Five Cambridge University Students Became Soviet Spies | Secrets Of War | Timeline

Oct 25, 2020 • They were five disillusioned young men studying at Cambridge University in the 1930's when they were secretly recruited by Soviet agents. They went on to become the most successful spies of the 20th century, penetrating both American and British governments at the highest levels.

History Hit.

Right-Wing Eastern European States Honor Nazi-Collaborating Fascists as 'Heroes'

Far-right governments in Eastern Europe are rehabilitating past Nazi collaborators as national heroes, rewriting the history of the Holocaust to turn the Soviet Union into the villain. Historian Dovid Katz explains how the fascist-apologist "double genocide" myth is spreading.

Moscow's Empire - Rise and Fall | DW Documentary

The Soviet Union began to crumble post 1970 - and fell apart completely after 1991. The former Soviet countries were left bankrupt and traumatized and facing what would be an anarchic decade.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, former Soviet nations had to deal with a chaotic period marked by military conflicts and the search for new national identities and a new self-awareness. The four-part documentary ‘Moscow’s Empire’ looks for answers to these developments, and provides a variety of perspectives on life in the former Soviet block countries - from the people who have experienced events first hand and, in some cases, shaped them.

People’s Century: 1917 Red Flag

This episode is about the events in Russia and Soviet Union in the time frame of post World War 1 and pre World War 2

Prostitutes, Hidden Hotel Camera's: Familiar Putin Tools | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Rachel Maddow tells viewers about a past example of prostitutes and hidden hotel cameras being used in a case of political hardball in Russia in which Vladimir Putin had a hand.

Moscow: Nostalgia for Communism 25 Years On | DW News

It has been 25 years since Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the last leader of the Soviet Union. Today, the Communist Party is in the opposition, and many communists express nostalgia for the old days. But do they really want to go back to the USSR?

How CIA Used Copies of Doctor Zhivago in Battle to Win Cold War

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: After nearly six decades of secrecy, newly declassified documents reveal the CIA's clandestine programme to bring the great Russian novel to readers behind the Iron Curtain

t had all the hallmarks of a classic Cold War spy caper, and it began in January 1958 when British intelligence’s Moscow station delivered two rolls of microfilm into the hands of the CIA’s Langley headquarters.

However the films showed not the blueprints for a new Soviet warplane or ballistic missile, but something potentially even more powerful in the ideological war between East and West: the complete Russian text of Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago.

In a nine-point memo, marked Secret but recently declassified, British intelligence said it was “in favour of exploiting the book”, warning that Soviet censors were already putting pressure on Pasternak to put out a “revised” version of the novel. » | Peter Foster, Washington | Sunday, April 06, 2014


Lara’s Theme »

Doctor Zhivago: Trailer (1965) »

Marine Le Pen: EU Will Collapse Like the Soviet Union

Marine Le Pen

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Marine Le Pen aims to set up radical, anti-Europe faction in the European parliament with help of Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP

The leader of France’s far-Right party has vowed that the European Union would “collapse like the Soviet Union” as she conspired to form what would be the most radical faction yet seen in the European parliament.

Marine Le Pen, buoyed by a weekend by-election triumph in southern France, criticised the EU as a “global anomaly” and pledged to return the bloc to a “cooperation of sovereign states”.

She said Europe’s population had “no control” over their economy or currency, nor over the movement of people in their territory.

“I believe that the EU is like the Soviet Union now: it is not improvable,” she said. “The EU will collapse like the Soviet Union collapsed.” » | Martin Banks, Henry Samuel and Alex Spillius | Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Adolf Hitler's Dark Charisma