Didja know that during Stalin times certain people were given apartments in really posh (well, comparatively) buildings that were bordering on -gasp- luxurious? Those people were generally either the military big wigs or some prominent political figure or sometimes prominent social figure (like a writer). The catch was - I am SO not making it up - practically every one of those buildings had double walls, and there were actual KGB people whose job was to stand in between the walls and listen in on the conversations. Because if you were prominent during Stalin times, it definitely meant that Stalin did NOT trust you. And you couldn’t say “no” to an offer to live in such an apartment.

There were several memoirs by children of those prominent people in which this thing is mentioned, kind of non-chalantely. I remember reading one where the woman said that the KGB peeps were not particularly concerned with being perfectly quiet.

If only the fundies realized how close to Stalin model of the government they are pushing…