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As mentioned in another top-level comment, the explosives were actually novels -- a bit of a play on words there, clearly.

One interesting thing to me, was to read that millions of copies of Orwell's Animal Farm were distributed from West Germany via 10-foot (diameter?) balloons, which were subsequently targets of communist airforces.

This is a great essay for the Spectator,* but what I’d really enjoy reading is some James Bond style spy novels from the eastern side of the iron curtain translated into something I can ready.

Soviet SF has been translated but can anyone recommend novels of derring-do against the capitalists?

* I was a long time subscriber to the speccie for the quality of its writing, though most of it seemed like an (unwitting!) absurdist sendup of establishment toryism. It was especially enjoyable when Johnson was editor.

Try Yulian Semyonov's works. "Seventeen moments of spring" is about WWII spy, but he has many novels generally of the other side of the story.
Thanks!
Please note that, misleadingly, this article is about literature, not chemistry.
Ok, we'll make the novels explosive instead of the explosives novel.
Then presumably, there will be a follow-up entitled "Explosive Novels of the Cold War", detailing how booby-trapped books were used in clandestine operations.
Literature: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201111h.html

Chemistry: https://archive.org/details/milmanual-tm-31-210-improvised-m...

always a joy to link both of those

Your first link, "Homage to Catalonia" by Orwell -- a fantastic book. I recommend it to anyone.
The reviews on the TM are nice and spirited. E.g:

"I keep seeing nothing but fear of the information it contains, and how it should be classified. If you fear for what it might bring, just think about the fact that 31-201 and the information has been available for decades now, and nobody's peed in your Twinkies, yet. "

Haha... I haven't looked at the article yet, but given that it's from the Spectator, I clicked the comments link precisely because I wondered if that might be the case.