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.

1. 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, from the revolutionary years to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, taking a totally new viewpoint: that of the notable women who thrived and suffered in the fortress of power.

Lenin's wife - dedicated, loyal Nadezhda Krupskaya - worked passionately for the revolution alongside her husband, from the time of Lenin's exile until her death. Lenin's mistress, the beautiful French revolutionary Inessa Armand was also - to complicate matters - a close friend of Krupskaya.

Stalin married Nadezhda Alliluyeva when she was only sixteen. Earlier, the author reveals, he had had a relationship with Nadezhda's mother, and there is strong evidence that Nadezhda may have been not only his wife but his daughter. When she was found dead in a pool of blood one morning after Stalin had publicly humiliated her, the official version was suicide, but many believe she was murdered.

The young Molotov couple lived in the same Kremlin building as the Stalins. After the death of Nadezhda, Molotov's wife, Paulina Zhemchuzina, assumed the unofficial role of Kremlin First Lady. Stalin, never one to tolerate for long anyone else's power, eventually had Paulina arrested and sent off to Siberia. Only after his death was she released.

Secret Police Chief Lavrenti Beria, known as "the Butcher," roamed the streets of Moscow in a curtain-drawn limousine, stalking young girls who would later be abducted by his agents. Beria's wife Nina Teimurazovna, one of those he had seduced, was forced to marry him. At his trial, Beria confessed to having had 760 mistresses.

Here are portrayed many other Kremlin "wives," including Alexandra Kollontai, feminist and supporter of "free love"; Larissa Reisner, Boris Pasternak's muse; Olga Kameneva, Trotsky's sister; Nitka Khrushchev; Victoria Brezhnev; Galina Brezhneva, daughter of Victoria; and Tatyana Fillipovna Andropov. Kremlin Wives concludes with the story of Raisa Gorbachev - according to the author, the only Soviet ruler's wife to have married for love.