The Beatles - behind the Iron Curtain

Chronologically history of the East’s limited history involving the Beatles’ music begins not with the record, but with the radio. The Beatles’ first eight songs appeared on Estonian public radio on January 27, 1966—a mix from the first four albums. Estonia, like Lithuania and Latvia, was more tolerant of Western culture than the rest of the USSR.

The first Beatles song officially released in the USSR—”Girl”—can be found on the 1967 ten-inch album Musical Kaleidoscope No. 8 (catalog: 33D-20227-28). This is the only Soviet record featuring a Beatles song released before the band’s breakup. Significantly, however, the cover labeled the music and lyrics as „folkloric” (народные), with a Russian translation of the lyrics printed alongside. Melodiya refused to pay royalties or even acknowledge what what was really published.

Why was it even possible? Until 1973, modern copyright law didn’t exist in the USSR. This allowed the Melodya record label to avoid paying royalties on Western recordings and release any music and lyrics without restrictions. Melodya—a monopolistic, state-owned record label—exploited this loophole throughout its existence as a legitimate ideological tool.

A separate and extremely important phenomenon was the magazine „Krugozor”—a monthly magazine with accompanying flexi-discs. The magazine, published by Melodya from 1964 to 1992, contained six flexi-discs with pages describing the content. The discs carried primarily popular and classical music, but also radio broadcasts, speeches, and propaganda. The main attraction, however, was the music—the magazine was the only one in the USSR that legally distributed Western songs. At its peak, from 1975 to 1983, each monthly issue reached a circulation of 500,000 copies, or 6 million per year. Throughout its history, 122 million issues—734 million flexi-discs—have been published.

It was in „Krugozor” that the Beatles—and their former members—managed to break into the official Soviet market in the first years after the group’s breakup. In October 1972, „Krugozor” magazine published two Paul McCartney recordings on flexi-disc: „Man We Was Lonely” and „Give Ireland To The Irish,” with an article about him. The author of the article avoided the word „Beatles” and referred to them as „a vocal-instrumental quartet existing from 1960 to 1969″—although he spoke favorably of Paul.

Around the same time, Lennon’s „Jealous Guy,” „Crippled Inside,” and „Oh My Love” (the former with his photo), McCartney’s „Heart of the Country” and „Ram On,” as well as „Birthday” from the White Album on a compilation album titled Vocal-Instrumental Ensemble, were also released on flexi discs.

In 1974-75, Beatles seven-inch EPs began appearing in the USSR. Melodiya used the same cover art for various albums, without any titles—sometimes with drawings of instruments or abstract artwork, other times with photographs of a forest. Five EPs were released at that time, featuring songs from Abbey Road, Let It Be, Sgt. Pepper’s, and various singles from different years. None of these discs bore the album title or the band’s name. The only printing house that printed covers with photographs of the musicians was reportedly in Tbilisi. The entire series—released without a license by various Melodia factories—constituted a gray area exploiting the lack of copyright law.

1964: The First Official Single in the Eastern Bloc

Paradoxically, it was not the USSR, but the German Democratic Republic that was the first Eastern Bloc country to officially release the Beatles as a single. Amiga—the entertainment arm of the East German state-owned label VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin—began licensing Western releases for the first time during this period. Among the first surprising beneficiaries of this policy were the Beatles. In 1964, Amiga released the single „Ain’t She Sweet” / „Cry for a Shadow” (licensed by West German Polydor), and in 1965, the single „It Won’t Be Long” / „Devil in Her Heart.”

Beatles from the Amiga

In 1965, the GDR leadership abruptly changed its cultural course. In 1966, Amiga released a series of singles by Team 4—a Berlin-based beat band with a style reminiscent of the British Invasion, but with neutral lyrics in German, allowing them to maintain their distance from Western artists. Amiga, however, was reluctant to tackle the Beatles themselves for a long time.

Years later, in 1974, a reissue of Oldies but Goldies was released on a dark red Amiga label with a different back cover. A single-disc reproduction of the British album on a double Parlophone label (indicating the production time) was also briefly available at Intershops—with the „Made in Gt. Britain” inscription erased and pressed in the GDR. Similarly, Love Songs was sold exclusively through Intershops—stores available only with special currency vouchers, unavailable to ordinary GDR citizens—in 1978.

The most important East German release became a compilation from the early 1980s: a fourteen-track reissue of the Blue Album (Beatles 1967–70) in a somewhat shoddy matte paper cover, but with surprisingly good sound quality. The album was also released in a black-and-white version called „Strahlencover”—in Poland, it was commonly called „Słoneczko”—which was supposed to be psychedelic, but collectors say it looks like a stationary strobe.

In total, only three Beatles albums and two singles were released in communist East Germany, but Poles, among others, benefited from these events, as „Słoneczko” appeared in Polish stores across Poland.

One detail worth noting for collectors: part of the 1982 Amiga compilation (catalog: 8 50 962) was pressed by Melodija—without covers, but with the original German labels. The covers and the rest of the pressing were printed in the GDR itself. In the USSR, these discs were sold on the black market in white envelopes.

Finally, a strange compilation from Balkanton—Popular Singers.

This is one of the most intriguing albums in the entire history of Beatles releases behind the Iron Curtain, not because of its scale—but precisely because of the modesty surrounding it and the depth of meaning it conceals.

Popular Singers (Bulgarian: Известни Изпълнители) was released by the Bulgarian label Balkanton under the catalog number BTA 1206 and is a compilation album featuring music from several artists. The Beatles are represented by the song „Oh! Darling,” and Tom Jones also sings a cover of „Hey Jude.” The album is released in mono and the first pressing dates from 1970—making it one of the earliest official releases of Beatles music in the Eastern Bloc as a full-length compilation LP.