The CIA and the Cold War Legacy of Doctor Zhivago

The fields of espionage and literature rarely intersect as gracefully as they did in 1957 and 1958, when the clandestine efforts of American intelligence agents collided with the artistic brilliance of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960).

Born in Moscow, Pasternak was the son of talented artists: his father was a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy’s works, while his mother was a well-known concert pianist. Pasternak’s education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and continued at the University of Moscow. Influenced by composer Scriabin, he studied musical composition from 1904 to 1910 before shifting his focus to philosophy at the University of Marburg, Germany. Eventually, he returned to Russia and dedicated himself to literature.

Found in Translation

The story of how Doctor Zhivago was first published and distrubuted in the Russian language, is a story that unfolds first in Italy in 1957, then England, and eventually in the vastness of Russia from the hidden offices of the CIA.

By the late 1950s, the CIA found themselves entangled in an ideological battle between the West and the Soviet Union. It was an era marked by Cold War tensions, where covert operations spanned continents, from clandestine meetings in European cities to messages sent under the cover of darkness. The agency was increasingly familiar with the tension between the emerging Soviet power and the remnants of pre-war freedoms. Ideas were also being exchanged across the iron curtain, books, films, magazines, each carrying a message beyond the state's control.

Among those ideas was Pasternak’s manuscript for Doctor Zhivago, a novel unlike anything the Soviet authorities were prepared to embrace. Its story, of love, hardship, and an ordinary life warped by history's forces, was intolerable to a regime that wanted art to glorify the state. Pasternak had written it not to rebel, but simply to express the poetry and the painful truths of life in Russia. Or as Pasternak would state: “In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it.” And yet Pasternak, in all his poetic humility, had managed to find himself at the nexus of history's pivotal crossroads.

Soft Power

The CIA recognized Doctor Zhivago as something powerful, a tool of “soft power” that could slip under the iron curtain and settle into the minds of Soviet citizens. Unlike a pamphlet extolling Western democracy or an outright propaganda piece, Zhivago was something true. It had a heart. It spoke in a voice that many Russians would know, the aching, lyrical pulse of a people shaped by bitter winters, by revolution, by small moments of beauty amidst large-scale despair.

In 1957, with Pasternak’s novel banned from publication in the USSR, the CIA embarked on a covert project to bring it to the Russian people. A small team of agents worked quietly, getting their hands on a translation of the manuscript, which had a path from the Italian publishing house of the communist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, and then the English version from British intelligence officials. The CIA organized for it to be printed in its original Russian, and then in early 1958 they smuggled the contraband books back behind the iron curtain. It was the perfect act of subversion, one that couldn’t be denounced as obvious meddling, but that undermined the Soviet authority by showing their people something the government wanted to suppress.

The gamble paid off. Shortly after Doctor Zhivago appeared in Russia, illicitly printed, the "black" book found its way into the hands of Soviet citizens, quietly being read in private apartments and passed secretly from friend to friend. Pasternak subsequently won the Nobel Prize for Literature, bolstered by his prior acclaimed works, including early collections like 'My Sister Life' and 'Themes and Variations,' which established his reputation as one of Russia's greatest poets. He was instantly swept into a storm of controversy, becoming both a hero to many in the West and an inconvenient embarrassment to Soviet officials. They pressured Pasternak to decline the prize, isolating him and threatening those close to him. But despite the storm, the world’s attention had been caught. The simple act of reading became, for many, an act of defiance.

Impact

While the CIA's role in distributing Doctor Zhivago was impactful, “revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track minds,” Pasternak wrote, but revolutions are not always violent, sometimes they are made by a novel, by an artist’s honest portrayal of life, and by the careful, hidden hands that decide to share it with the world. The CIA's involvement with Doctor Zhivago was not about making Pasternak a hero or sparking immediate rebellion. It was about planting an idea, letting it spread quietly among the people, unnoticed but impactful.

The legacy of Doctor Zhivago endures, highlighting the power of literature to inspire and challenge, leaving a lasting mark on culture and the broader struggle for intellectual freedom and human ingenuity.

Stay curious

Dr Colin W.P. Lewis

Sources – CIA Freedom of Information Act papers

Image from First Edition Rare Books