These soviet satellite socialist republics in Eastern Europe
did not have the most advanced online technology to censor free speech, their
algorithms, a compliant mass media totally devoted to socialism, nor many
Marxist universities like we have today around the U.S.A. and in the world.
The former soviet style republics had to rely on an army of
letter openers, informants, tapping phones, listeners to recorded phone and
in-home conversations, teacher interrogations of innocent and naïve children in
schools about their parents, and the snitching of neighbors, friends, and
relatives in exchange for a monthly trip to the Communist Party’s grocery
stores. Starving and standing in lines daily for a bit of food was not very desirable
and people did what they thought saved their lives – turning in total
strangers, neighbors, and relatives to the security police as enemies of the
state.
Knowing that any message was intercepted by this army of
informants, it was smart to find a “trusted” person who, for one reason or
another, was going to travel abroad on business or for an international
competition, and give them a missive, a journal, a recorded cassette, a card,
or the manuscript of an inconvenient book or article that would tell the world
what living in a communist-controlled country/prison was like. Such a person
would have a personal watcher but, there were ways and opportunities to escape
their prying eyes and make contact with the west.
On such a business trip, someone was approached by a high
school friend to carry a cassette tape to her fiancé residing in France at the
time. The person agreed, not knowing what it contained, and taking a huge risk
that he might be discovered, the tape confiscated, listened to, and then he
might be arrested before he even left the country.
Such last-minute arrests were not uncommon. My own cousin
was not allowed to go abroad to work in the Middle East in the mid-eighties. He
was pulled out of the line to board the plane at the airport. The reason given was
that he had a cousin in the capitalist U.S., and it was such an undesirable connection
for a proletarian.
As fate had decided, the businessman made it out of the
country without an incident and flew to Paris. Having run his handbag through several
x-ray machines at the airport, the businessman became concerned that the tape
had been erased. Upon reaching his destination in Paris, he decided to find a
cassette player and to listen to the beginning of the tape to make sure that it
had not been erased. After a few requests and a nice tip, a maid brought him a
cassette player.
The tape was fine, it did not contain anything politically
damaging to his socialist country. To his surprise and shock, the high school
friend described HIM in the most unflattering, infuriating, and damaging ways
which offended him greatly, given the risks he had taken. He pondered whether
he should inconvenience himself further by contacting her fiancé by phone, pay
for a taxi to meet him somewhere, or take the metro from his arrondissement
hotel to where this person was residing. The tape had to be disposed of or
delivered.
What would you have done?
From Carmel in MS: Your cousin took a great risk and the "friend" who imposed on him to do so, was not a true friend and may have been deliberately trying to get your cousin in trouble. In any case your cousin is right to refuse to stick his neck out anymore for anybody.
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