his home in Zürich, Switzerland. His activism would eventually come to the attention of the Swiss authorities, who imprisoned him twice before deporting him to Germany in November 1918. After arriving in Germany, Münzenberg joined the Spartacus League, and soon thereafter became one of the earliest members of the KPD. He was initially associated with the party's left wing, and at the party's founding congress in December 1918 he acted as spokesman for the opposition to Rosa Luxemburg and Paul Levi's proposal for the party to contest the 1919 German federal election. Münzenberg subsequently played a leading role in the Spartacist uprising in Stuttgart, leading a demonstration alongside Clara Zetkin and Edwin Hoernle against the city's Social Democratic government which declared it overthrown in favour of a Soviet. Following the failure of the uprising he was arrested and spent five months in prison before being tried alongside the other leaders of the Stuttgart Spartacist rebellion, which ended in their acquittal. Shortly afterwards he became chairman of the state KPD in Württemberg. In November 1919, Münzenberg convened a congress of the Socialist Youth International which voted to affiliate to the Comintern as the Young Communist International, with Münzenberg remaining at its head. He was also the delegate of the YCI to the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International in 1920. However, he was removed from his leadership role with the YCI the following year. Political career In 1924, Münzenberg was elected to the Reichstag as a KPD member. He served until the KPD was banned in 1933. However, his parliamentary work was low profile: he did not play a leading role in debates and avoided factional struggle in public, preferring to concentrate on his propaganda work. Münzenberg was one of the few KPD leaders in 1933, and one of the few of working-class origin, which was a source of immense pride for him. During the Weimar period, Münzenberg earned the reputation of a brilliant propagandist. His first major success was an effort to raise money and food for the victims of the Russian famine of 1921, a task which had been entrusted to him by Lenin after he was removed from the leadership of the Communist Youth International. Münzenberg was reputed to have raised millions of dollars for aid to the Soviet Union during the famine through his famous organization Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe (IAH; "Workers International Relief"), based in Berlin. IAH's