A group of Central European communists, most of them Hungarians, in the interwar period served the world communist movement as international cadres of the Comintern, the Moscow-based Communist International. As an important member of this cohort, Jozsef Pogany played a major role in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, the "March Action" in Germany in 1921, and, under the name of John Pepper, in the development of the American Communist Party of the 1920s. During the 1920s he was an important official in the Comintern apparatus and undertook missions on three continents. A prolific writer and effective organizer, he was one of the most flamboyant and controversial communists of his era. Some of his comrades praised him as "the Hungarian Christopher Columbus." Others, like Trotsky, called him a "political parasite." This study is based on newly available primary sources from Hungary, Russia, and the United States; it is the first ever written about this colorful and well-travelled Hungarian communist. Examines Pogany's development as a socialist and communist, the influence of his Jewish origins on his career, the reasons for his remarkable success in the United States, and the circumstances that led to his arrest and execution in the Stalinist terror.

In this bold contribution to our understanding of the Communist underground in the United States, Thomas Sakmyster offers the first biography of controversial spymaster J. Peters, a shadowy figure in the American Communist party in the 1920s through the 1940s. Using Peters's unpublished memoir as well as multilingual sources from the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and the Soviet Union, Sakmyster traces Peters's activities from his arrival in the United States to the dawn of the Cold War and his deportation back to Hungary. Known as the "Hungarian man of mystery," Peters emigrated to the United States in 1924 after serving in the Austrian Army during World War I. In America, he oversaw a false passport operation that facilitated movement of Soviet agents to the United States and American communists to the Soviet Union. Working under a number of aliases, he constructed a complex network of informants and spies that stole numerous State Department documents in the 1930s. After years of hiding underground he was arrested and deported in 1949. While previous studies of the American Communist movement have relegated Peters to a minor role, Sakmyster reveals him to be not just the influential leader of conspiratorial Communist activities but also an important organizer in the open American Communist party. The author of an influential handbook on Communism, Peters also set up a program to infiltrate the armed forces in the United States. "Red Conspirator" is a gripping and important story that advances the ongoing debate over the extent and nature of Soviet espionage in the United States.