What was the situation in the USSR regarding non-political foreign books or movies such as say Lord of the Rings or well known Sci-fi books. What about explicitly political work that criticised aspects of Western Society but came from the west. Was it permitted and if so how widespread was it? I realise that you would not be able to legally read something like 1984 but how about Tolkien or Asimov?
LOTR, Hobbit and the Wizard of Oz were printed and reprinted very widely. According to an interview Boris Nathanovich Strugatskiy gave to Nikolay Kavin (and a song by Vysotskiy) Western science fiction was printed as well in respective magazines.
Left wing literature, like 1984, was naturally banned and therefore read by everyone from the bottoms to the tops. Orwell was a Trotskyist and that was a big no-no. But just as 1984 contained criticism of not just the East under the anti-communist veneer Soviet writers massively criticised the USSR by describing superficially capitalist societies. «Prisoners of Power» is a sci-fi dystopia about the cold war. «Dragon», by Evgeny Shvarts, is a philosophical play from the Stalin era. Lem wrote some obvious parables in his «Star Diaries». It could not be banned because the censor would first have to concede it looks anything like Real Existing Socialism which could cost him the job. Remember how Orwell was banned in Jackson county, Florida? That was a scandal. Here heads would fly as well.
