Soviet Clandestine Mail Surveillance (1917-1991)

Description

Soviet Clandestine Mail Surveillance (1917-1991) by David M. Skipton and Steve Volis.

Soviet Clandestine Mail Surveillance, 1917-1991 is the compilation of a series that appeared in the Rossica Journal and that has now been greatly expanded with many new discoveries. Soviet Clandestine Mail Surveillance, 1917-1991 is an unusual hybrid of philatelic research and history. It examines the political control offices that secretly watched the correspondence of Soviet citizens and foreigners alike in the USSR and demonstrates that these offices used censor marks masquerading as postmarks to convey information and instructions between themselves. Hundreds of these censor marks (and censorship-related date stamps) are recorded and illustrated here; along with hundreds more that the authors argue were used to aid in the “classification campaigns” of the 1920s. The book will be useful to philatelists and historians alike.

The case-bound, all-color, 530-page book will be ready for shipment by early February 2016.