At the time that OP is describing, censorship was very powerful indeed. Also, Allende's Chile cannot be easily compared to an Eastern Bloc nation in the '70s or

At the time that OP is describing, censorship was very powerful indeed. Also, Allende's Chile cannot be easily compared to an Eastern Bloc nation in the '70s or '80s. I could imagine some kind of network developed by an Eastern Bloc nation before 1990, but it would have been extremely centralized, hierarchical, and very strictly controlled. > see China's rapidly developing communications infrastructure Things have changed meanwhile, even in China.