海角大神

Voice of America started programming in Russian in 1947 at the start of the Cold War, and from the very beginning the Soviets sought to silence it.

Authorities made elaborate efforts to jam the signals of foreign radio stations like VOA that broadcast news happening both inside and outside the USSR.

In the era of Vladimir Putin, VOA came under attack again. In 2014, Kremlin authorities labeled it a 鈥渇oreign agent鈥� spreading propaganda aimed at undermining the Russian state. Its correspondents were evicted.

So it鈥檚 no surprise that Russians in officialdom met the news that U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund the radio service, along with its more politicized sister Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with a certain amount of glee.

鈥淭his is an awesome decision by Trump!鈥� said Margarita Simonyan, editor of Russia鈥檚 state-funded RT network.

But for Russians who came of age alongside the U.S. state media network 鈥� before the internet and before the plethora of alternative voices including independent Russian media outlets 鈥� the closure evoked poignant memories: of grasping to hear jazz music, of being witness to the global events of the day, of listening to broadcasts and momentarily feeling 鈥渁 breath of fresh air.鈥�

鈥淚t was like being connected to another world,鈥� says Andrei Kolesnikov, an opposition-minded scholar in Russia who went to work as a freelancer for several years at Radio Liberty, which set up a Moscow bureau after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

鈥淔or me, as a person of liberal views, these radio stations had an almost legendary dimension鈥� as a forbidden realm of ideas that kept intellectual life alive during Soviet years, he says. 鈥淓ven in childhood, I can remember my father 鈥� a devout communist 鈥� turning the knob of his shortwave receiver, making his way through the wheezing jammers to hear the Western voices.鈥�

Jamming stations

VOA and similar Western shortwave stations, such as the BBC and Deutsche Welle, which broadcast alternative news and views into the USSR in Russian and other Soviet languages, represented a tiny crack in the wall of Soviet state propaganda and a glimpse of a different and, it was assumed, better life.

AP/File

Two escapees from communist Czechoslovakia share their experience in a press conference broadcast by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe throughout Eastern Europe, Dec. 16, 1953.

These stations also delivered news of the outside world, and sometimes reported events happening inside the USSR that the Kremlin was silent, or lying, about. That included the 1983 shooting down of a Korean airliner with 270 people aboard by a Soviet fighter plane, and the deadly 1986 explosion in the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which Soviet authorities denied for several days.

In the 1970s, when Alexander Iskanderyan was a student in Soviet Armenia, it was impossible to get any credible information from the Soviet media. 鈥淚ts picture of the world had nothing to do with reality. But listening to the VOA introduced us to Soviet dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and others. We learned about the Gulag, and other facts that Soviet authorities would prefer to cover up. There were music programs. ... It was a breath of fresh air.鈥�

The USSR, a vast country that depended on its own shortwave broadcasting to reach far-flung communities, produced a wide range of and made them available to the population. Some experts claim that Soviet radios were altered to on certain frequencies, but most Russians seem to recall being able to receive stations like VOA, at least sometimes.

Lev Gudkov, of the Levada Center, Russia鈥檚 only independent pollster, says that Soviet authorities created a special sociological unit to study the effects of Western propaganda on the population. Its workers routinely inflated the results to scare their bosses.

When pollsters began counting, they learned that only about 3% of the population listened to such stations, mainly among the intelligentsia in big cities. 鈥淪o the direct influence wasn鈥檛 that great, but it was the only source of alternative information,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd its effect was magnified through word of mouth, people passing it on through personal channels.鈥�

VOA and the USSR

Some Russian analysts argue that stations like VOA contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union by amplifying negative news and feeding distrust of the government. But in reality the impact may have been limited, says Rudolf Pikhoya, an expert with the official Institute of Russian History. There were a lot of internal reasons the Soviet system became increasingly nonviable, including the war in Afghanistan, economic failure, and the rise of nationalism in other Soviet republics, he says.

鈥淧ropaganda can only do so much,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople see what鈥檚 going on around them, and that鈥檚 what makes them feel dissatisfied or angry. The moment of collapse is determined by those internal causes, not outside influences.鈥�

The objectivity of VOA, which Mr. Trump has called too 鈥渞adical,鈥� has long been questioned. In the Putin era, growing confrontation with the West led Russia to establish its own foreign-language broadcasters, such as RT and Sputnik. Ironically, some Western countries have moved to ban or .

Inside Russia, while VOA hasn鈥檛 been heard since 2014, its televised successor, Current Time TV, has been broadcasting since then. Today, many alternative news sources are widely available, including independent Russian outlets, many of which have been in exile since Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine.

Music is also widely available, as it is everywhere else. But for Maria, a retired Moscow literature teacher who declined to give her last name, there was something special about listening to it on VOA. 鈥滻t was the voice of a different world, one where there was freedom. Not just the political kind, but art and music and, well, just in the way of life,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 would listen to the 鈥楯azz Hour鈥� program, and dream about being in New York, or New Orleans.鈥�