As a kid in the 70s, my parents sent me a few times to youth camps in (then) communist countries east of Austria, for affordable holidays.
I don't know how commie politicians ever thought that these programs would turn kids into communists.
The experience after an initial Stockholm syndrome - individually, they were nice people - made the Western kids aware of the prison-like constant surveillance, the mandatory strict belief system, the run-down poverty of life outside.
The weirdest thing was our privilege over local kids as bringers of Western currency: we could shop for Western goods like chocolate and biscuits and cigarettes (!) with Austrian Schillings.