The transnational circulaton of texts produce in super-politicised literary worlds is governed by externally determined logics. In the specific context created by the establishment of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the translation of Polish, Czechoslovakian, Hugarian and Romanian literatures illustrates such politicisation of literary imports. Given the conditions of publication, diffusion and translation, the set of the more than one thousand books imported is structured by a primary opposition between a lawful space and a clandestine space. Nevertheless this poolarity does not exclude a more flexible grasp of liteary transfer. This is achieved through externally governed mechanisms whose analysis leads to the formalisation and description of six specific translation circuits: three belong the authorised space: the export, official and partimony circuits; the other three are unauthorised: the semi-official, parallel and finally direct or transit circuits. These circuits thus show a graduation, according to the level of politicisation and institutionalisation of the mechanisms of literary transfer, as well as the contrasting relationships of the translated authors with translation.