Kremlin wives

by Лариса Николаевна Васильева

For over seventy years the Kremlin was the bastion of the all-powerful Soviet rulers, from Lenin to Gorbachev. A great deal is known about the men who held the fates of millions in their iron grip, yet little is known about the women who shared their lives. Shrouded in secrecy, the wives and mistresses of the Soviet power elite lived out their lives in widely different ways: they took part in the Revolution and its aftermath, bore children, suffered abuse; they were arrested and sent to Siberia, driven to suicide, and even murdered. Here for the first time the stark and often shocking truth about these women is revealed, thanks to the courageous efforts and dogged persistence of Larissa Vasilieva. . In 1991 the KGB granted the author access to its secret files, which, together with Vasilieva's own extensive research and interviews, provided the material for this book. A best-seller when it was published in Russia, Kremlin Wives offers fresh new insights into the secret Soviet universe,