Radios in Soviet Russia

Radios were jammed, and dozens of jamming transmitters were positioned along the borders.

It was a fast-growing industry. In 1949 350 short-wave transmitters tried to jam the Western radio broadcasts.

In 1950 there were 600 of them; in 1955, about 1,000, with 700 in the Soviet bloc countries.

Their goal was to jam what amounted to no more than 70 Western transmitters. By 1986 the Soviet Union had thirteen powerful long-range jamming stations, and local city jamming stations were established in eighty-one cities, with 1,300 transmitters in total.

The radio jamming was stopped only in November 1988 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

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For most of the seven decades of Soviet rule to seek information was a risky and dangerous game for ordinary people.

Soviet-produced radio sets had certain frequencies disabled.

To be found in possession of a quartz with the wrong frequencies was a criminal offense.

Soviet-made radios were required to be registered with the government, a rule that was canceled only in 1962.

The authorities wanted to be able to track anyone who copied information; the KGB required that samples taken from all typewriters be kept on file in case one had to be identified.

'The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries'
by Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCG68X8