The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willy Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917-1940

Willy Münzenberg-an Old Bolshevik who was also a self-promoting tycoon-became one of the most influential Communist operatives in Europe between the World Wars. He created a variety of front groups that recruited well-known political and cultural figures to work on behalf of the Soviet Union and its causes, and he ran an international media empire that churned out enormous amounts of propaganda and raised money for Communist concerns. Sean McMeekin tells Münzenberg's extraordinary story, arguing persuasively that his financial chicanery and cynical propaganda efforts weakened the non-Communist left, enraged the right, and helped feed a cycle that culminated in Nazism. Drawing extensively on recently opened Moscow archives, McMeekin describes how Münzenberg parlayed his friendship with Lenin into a personal fortune and how Münzenberg's mysterious financial manipulations outraged Social Democrats and lent rhetorical ammunition to the Nazis. His book sheds new light on Comintern finances, propaganda strategy, the use of front organizations to infiltrate non-Communist circles, and the breakdown of democracy in the Weimar Republic. It is also an engrossing tale of a Communist con man whose name once aroused fear, loathing, and admiration around the world."An impressive piece of work, clearly the most detailed and thorough account of the life and machinations of an important Communist functionary."-Harvey Klehr, coauthor of The Secret World of American Communism and The Soviet World of American Communism

Author Biography: Sean McMeekin is assistant professor of international relations and a founding faculty member of the Centre for Russian Studies at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.

Library Journal

To his admirers, Willy Munzenberg was a hero, building bridges from the neophyte Socialist experiment in Soviet Russia to Western Socialists. In this, his first book, McMeekin (international relations, Bilkent Univ., Ankara, Turkey) has filled in pieces of the historical mosaic of the early days of Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution. Being friendly with Lenin, Munzenberg counted on him as a supporter of the propagandist work he did in Germany, competing with Hitler's fascist propaganda and rise to power. He moved into filmmaking in the early 1920s. "Whereas most early Soviet propaganda films killed audiences' interest with their ham-handed sloganeering," explains McMeekin, Munzenberg, with help from Soviet insider friends, landed a sweetheart deal from the Kremlin to oversee the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio (Battleship Potemkin). Munzenberg had made enough enemies in the Kremlin and in Hitler's Germany that, at the outbreak of World War II, he sought refuge in France. He had been expelled from the Communist Party and was now hunted by the NKVD (precursor to the KGB) and the Gestapo. When France fell to the Germans, Munzenberg was found hanged on his escape route between Lyons and Grenoble, just after his 50th birthday. Though the writing is somewhat labored, this book fills a gap in our knowledge and is recommended for academic and public libraries.-Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.