or organization was supposed to implement their own plan . To make the transition from a closed to an open society would require outside help and that was what my foundations sought to provide . In Hungary the authorities insisted on having a controlling presence on the foundation 's board . We eventually agreed to appoint two chief executives , one nominated by them and one by me . The project succeeded beyond my expectations . With very small amounts of money people could engage in a wide variety of civic initiatives ranging from self-governing student colleges to zither clubs . One of our first projects was to offer photocopying machines to cultural and scientific institutions in exchange for local currency . We used the money to give out local grants and support all kinds of unofficial initiatives , but the photocopying machines also did a lot of good . Up until then , the few existing copy machines were literally held under lock and key -- as more and more became available , the Party apparatus lost control of the machines and the dissemination of information . We did not have to exercise direct control . Civil society watched
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- From the mid-1980s , Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist George Soros pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into foundations in Eastern Europe dedicated to promoting the idea of the `` open society '' and challenging the region 's Soviet-backed regimes . Here , writing exclusively for CNN.com , he describes how the work of his foundations ultimately contributed to the collapse of communism . A Soviet tank rolls through Budapest during the failed 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist domination . I set up my first foundation in Hungary in 1984 . The idea behind it was simple . The state dogma , promoted by the ruling communists , was false and by providing an alternative we could expose its falsehood . Accordingly we supported every cultural initiative that was not an expression of the established dogma . I was guided by the concept of the `` open society , '' which I adopted from the philosopher Karl Popper . I saw the open society as a more sophisticated form of social organization than the totalitarian closed societies of the Soviet bloc . The latter were trying to implement central plans ; in an open society every individual