Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals - Softcover

Koch, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1929631200 ISBN 13: 9781929631209

Publisher: Enigma Books, 2004

Synopsis

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About this title

From the Back Cover:

‘An extremely clever book, entertaining, despite its often hideous subject matter, on the Soviet ‘apparatus’ and its dirty work in the west. Stephen Koch's huge cast of remarkable characters is headed by Willi Münzenberg, German comrade of Lenin from pre-Revolutionary days, found hanged in a remote forest after the Nazi conquest of France in 1940. Münzenberg's skill was organisational. He was a Bolshevik Hearst or Murdoch. Newspapers, magazines, books, plays, films appeared in the west at his instigation... the fellow-travelling innocents who joined the front organisations he controlled included some of the major names in 20th-century culture – Mann and Gide, Hemingway and Eluard. Bad-tempered Sinclair Lewis and wise-cracking Dorothy Parker. His lieutenant Otto Katz was the friend of Kafka and Marlene Dietrich, Brecht and Fritz Lang, and mobilised Hollywood for Stalin.’
ANGUS CALDER, 'Scotland on Sunday '

‘An excellent history of soviet propaganda in the west under Stalin... Koch, to his credit, has not taken a single rumour for granted. This is an excellent example of both scholarship and detective work, sourced from newly-opened archives in Germany and Russia’
ANNE McELVOY, ' The Times'

‘Riveting – As a classic example of conspiracy theory, Stephen Koch's account of Willi Münzenberg and the Soviet propaganda machine of the 1920s and 30s is hard to beat.’
AC GRAYLING, 'Financial Times'

‘This story is a compelling one ... It is unlikely that a more compelling account of the subject will be written than this, and Koch writes well, and with gusto.’
PHILIP MARSDEN, 'Spectator'

Synopsis:

Ernest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, Andre Malraux, Maxim Gorky, Andre Gide, and Arthur Koestler are among a host of literary and academic intellectuals who were targets for the Soviet Union's mighty propaganda machine. In this meticulous the subterranean role of Stalin's propaganda agents is explored in depth for the first time. Led by the legendary Willi Munzenberg, they played a key part in recruiting and manipulating the best among Western intellectuals, duping them into supporting various causes of the Soviet Union.

About this edition

• Publisher: Enigma Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1929631200
• ISBN 13: 9781929631209
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 450