Josef Stalin's daughter, who denounced communism after defecting during the cold war, has died in the U.S. after living out her remaining years there in seclusion, The Guardian reports.

Svetlana Peters, whose quest to find her own identity saw the only daughter and last surviving child of the dictator take on three names, had described her father as "a moral and spiritual monster" after the CIA helped her to escape the Soviet Union in 1967 which caused a diplomatic furore.

Born Svetlana Stalina, she adopted her mother's last name, Alliluyeva, following her father's death in 1953. But she ended her life as Lana Peters – the identity she adopted after claiming political asylum in the U.S.

After living many years in the public eye, she spent her final days in seclusion. She died of colon cancer on November 22 in Richland County, South Carolina, it emerged. She was 85.