The Red Hotel

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The untold history of Moscow's Metropol hotel reveals a hub of intrigue and propaganda during WWII. In 1941, as German forces advanced on Moscow, Lenin's body was relocated to Siberia. By 1945, Stalin had transformed a struggling nation into a superpower. At Churchill's urging, Stalin allowed an Anglo-American press corps into Moscow to report on the Eastern Front, enforcing strict censorship and limiting their interactions with the public. The Metropol Hotel became a gilded cage for these reporters, who enjoyed lavish amenities and access to young women as translators. While some journalists became mouthpieces for Stalin's regime, others were secret dissidents, sharing the harsh realities of Soviet life at great personal risk. Utilizing British archives and Soviet sources, the book explores the dual roles of the women at the Metropol—both as skilled propagandists and as covert dissenters. After the war, as Lenin returned to Red Square, the reporters departed, yet the legacy of Stalin’s manipulation of wartime narratives endured. This story of the Metropol reflects contemporary struggles with disinformation, historical revisionism, and the geopolitical challenges of maintaining sovereignty in the face of authoritarianism.