Here’s an interesting obituary about a fellow who ran a book club for intellectuals in the former eastern bloc:

George C. Minden, who for 37 years ran a secret American program that put 10 million Western books and magazines in the hands of intellectuals and professionals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, died on April 9 at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.

George C. Minden, 85, Dies; Led a Cold War of Words By DOUGLAS MARTIN, New York Times, Published: April 23, 2006

The article quotes an academic paper of a few years ago as saying of his program that:

the initiative sprinkled reality into an "unnatural and ultimately irrational" system.

The recipients of the books in question, ranging from James Joyce to Nabokov to Solzhenitsyn, thought the publishers were altruistically donating them.