Stalin's grandchild is granted a visa to leave the Soviet Union

The United States-born granddaughter of late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was granted a visa to return to Britain last Friday -- with Soviet blessing. Olga Peters is to resume her education at a Quaker school outside London after just 18 months in the Soviet Union.

Her visa request was passed to the British Embassy in Moscow by the Soviet Foreign Ministry earlier this week. It described her as a Soviet citizen, although she was born and raised in the US. Her father is American.

But there was no word on the fate of her mother, Svetlana Alliluyeva, who is reported to be unhappy in the Soviet Union and wishing to return to the West.

Alliluyeva, who caused a sensation by defecting to the West in 1967, had her Soviet citizenship restored when she returned to the Soviet Union with Olga in 1984. Victor Louis, a Soviet journalist, said this week that Alliluyeva might have trouble in renouncing her Soviet citizenship and leaving the country a second time.