Doctor Zhivago

So it was an article I came across on a platform called The Outline, and it basically talked about how in the Cold War, the CIA had used literature as a means of propaganda to sort of exert political influence across the Iron Curtain.

Talked about examples of, like, the novel that's popping into my mind is Doctor Zhivago-

Mm-hmm

... by Boris Pasternak.

The worst outcome is you were gonna go to a nice holiday camp in Siberia.

[laughs]

And Pasternak, uh, had refused to adhere to Soviet realism, published a book called Doctor Zhivago, which looked at, you know, the before, during, and after the Russian Revolution, which is-

Maybe it was a little bit too real for the Soviet realism

But I just got these really cool books that were made by the CIA.

Dr. Zhivago, To Go Inside Russia.

I'm writing about that today.

And there's a really cool, they're super rare.

These just came in.

They're super, super rare and.

They're Dr. Zhivago written pocket-sized to infiltrate the Soviet Union, written by the CIA because the Russians wouldn't print these in Russia.

And actually, the author died about within two years after writing this.