When, in the 1960s, Svetlana Stalin emigrated to the US through India and wrote her memoirs, she presented Stalin ‘from inside’ as a warm father and caring leader, with most of the mass murders imposed on him by his evil collaborators, Lavrenty Beria in particular. Later, Beria’s son Sergo wrote a memoir presenting his father as a warm family man who simply followed Stalin’s orders and secretly tried to limit the damage. Georgy Malenkov’s son Andrei also told his story, describing his father, Stalin’s successor, as an honest hard worker, always afraid for his life. Hannah Arendt was right:
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