premise: In a book review of `` The Soviet Cultural Offensive '' , he says , `` Long before the State Department organized its bureaucracy into an East-West Contacts Staff in order to wage a cultural counter-offensive within Soviet borders , the sharp cutting-edge of American culture had carved its mark across the Russian steppes , as when the enterprising promoters of ' Porgy and Bess ' overrode the State Department to carry the contemporary ' cultural warfare ' behind the enemy <mask> .
hypothesis: the proper context for <mask> here should be a formation of people or things one beside another