Published in the journal: “Inviolable Reserve” 2011, No. 1(75) Vyacheslav GerovichVyacheslav Alexandrovich Gerovich (b. 1963) is a historian of science and a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA). He previously worked at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of books and articles on the history of Soviet cybernetics, computing technology, and space exploration.
Table of Contents
Selected quotes from the article:
“Anticipating resistance from the bureaucratic apparatus to the new system, the project authors sought to close all possible loopholes for circumventing the automated data collection process. The project stipulated that ‘the circulation of economic information outside the Unified State Information System is not permitted.’”
“The original concept of Glushkov included one particularly controversial provision. He proposed that the new automated management system would oversee all production, salary payments, and retail trade, and therefore suggested eliminating paper money altogether and fully transitioning to electronic payments.”
“[Such a system will] if not completely close the way, then at least significantly limit phenomena such as theft, bribery, and speculation.”
I. Cybernetics — the servant of communism
In October 1961, just in time for the opening of the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a collection of articles was published under the provocative title “Cybernetics — for the Service of Communism!” The application of cybernetic models and computers, then respectfully referred to as electronic computing machines (ECM), promised a revolution in a wide range of fields — from biology and medicine to production management and economic planning. In particular, the national economy as a whole was viewed as “a complex cybernetic system, encompassing a vast number of various interconnected control loops.” Soviet cyberneticians proposed to optimize the functioning of this system through a large number of regional computing centers for the collection, processing, and transmission of economic information necessary for effective planning and management. The connection of all these centers into a nationwide network was expected to ultimately create “a unified automated system for managing the national economy of the country.”
The new party program, adopted at the XXII Congress, extolled cybernetics as one of the sciences destined to play a crucial role in the construction of the material and technical base of communism. This document proclaimed:
“Cybernetics, electronic computing and control devices will be widely used in industrial production processes, the construction industry, and transportation, as well as in scientific research, planning and design calculations, and in the field of accounting and management.”
The popular press began referring to computers as “machines of communism.” Statements from Soviet cybernetics experts raised serious concerns in the West. Here’s what an American reviewer wrote about the collection “Cybernetics — at the Service of Communism!”:
“If any country manages to create a fully integrated and managed economy where cybernetic principles are applied to achieve various goals, the Soviet Union will be ahead of the United States in this regard. […] Cybernetics could turn out to be one of those types of weapons that Nikita Khrushchev had in mind when he threatened to ‘bury’ the West.”
The CIA established a special department to study the Soviet cybernetic threat. This department released a series of secret reports, noting, among other strategic threats, the Soviet Union’s intention to create a “unified information network.” Based on the CIA’s reports, in October 1962, President John Kennedy’s closest advisor wrote a secret memorandum stating that the “Soviet decision to bet on cybernetics” would give the Soviet Union “a tremendous advantage.”
“…by 1970, the USSR could have a completely new production technology encompassing entire enterprises and industry complexes, managed by a closed feedback loop using self-learning computers.”
And if America continues to ignore cybernetics, the expert concluded, “it will be the end for us.”
Nevertheless, the grand plans of Soviet cybernetics for achieving optimal planning and management of the national economy through a nationwide network of computing centers were never realized. Western analysts noted technical obstacles in the development of Soviet computer networks, such as the lack of reliable peripheral devices and modems, poor quality of communication lines, and an underdeveloped software industry. Although these circumstances significantly narrowed the range of possibilities for Soviet proponents of national computer networks, they could hardly have played a decisive role in the fate of the entire initiative. After all, other large-scale Soviet engineering projects—such as the development of nuclear weapons and the space program—managed to overcome much more serious technical challenges.
This article examines several projects for the creation of nationwide computer information systems for managing the national economy of the USSR, proposed in the late 1950s to early 1970s. However, unlike purely technical reviews, it focuses onpoliticalthe issue. This is an attempt to extract the history of Soviet computer networks from the narrow context of computing history, making it an integral part of the broader Soviet past, where politics and technology are closely intertwined.
II. Computers as a Panacea for Economic Problems
In 1953, when Stalin died, the Soviet economy “resembled a worn-out animal.” Soviet industry suffered from serious imbalances, state arbitrariness in pricing, and a severe shortage of many types of products. The centralized system of socialist planning struggled in vain to tackle the challenges of precisely dictating production volumes to all enterprises and distributing products according to constantly revised state plans. In May 1957, Nikita Khrushchev initiated a radical reform aimed at significant decentralization of economic management in the country. He introduced a system of regional economic councils for the national economy—sovnarkhozy. The union ministries that had previously managed individual sectors of industry and agriculture were dissolved.
Nevertheless, instead of reducing bureaucracy and increasing local initiative, the reform led to complete economic chaos. Supply chains were disrupted, as production chains often began under one regional economic council and ended under another. To rectify the situation, a gradual consolidation of these councils was initiated at the interregional, republican, and national levels. To coordinate production across various industries, a large number of state committees had to be established in Moscow, inheriting many functions of the former all-union ministries. As a result, by 1963, the bureaucratic apparatus managing industry not only did not shrink as intended, but grew almost threefold. At the same time, from 1959 to 1964, industrial output steadily declined.
Electronic computing machines emerged just in time to offer hope for solving the economic problems of the Soviet Union. In the second half of the 1950s, a group of prominent economists, mathematicians, and computer specialists proposed using computers to improve the management of the country’s economy. Under Stalin, the application of mathematical methods for economic management faced ideological criticism and was pushed to the fringes of economic science. However, with the onset of Khrushchev’s political “thaw,” previously banned ideas began to be openly discussed.
In 1956, the very first domestic book on computers and programming published in the USSR included a separate section dedicated to the “non-arithmetic applications of computers.” The author of this work, Colonel Engineer Anatoly Kitov, the creator and scientific supervisor of Computing Center No. 1 of the Ministry of Defense, predicted vast opportunities for using computers to automate production management and address economic challenges.
In December 1957, the leadership of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR sent a secret report to the political leadership of the country, which stated in particular:
“…the use of computing machines for statistics and planning should have an exceptionally high level of effectiveness. In most cases, this will significantly increase the speed of decision-making and help avoid errors that currently arise due to the cumbersome nature of the staff dealing with these issues.”
The Academy proposed to establish a computing center in each economic region to address planning, statistics, technical design, and scientific research tasks.
At the plenary session of the Academy in October 1956, Isaac Brook, the director of the Electric Systems Laboratory at the Energy Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, proposed the creation of a hierarchical network of control machines for the collection, transmission, and processing of economic data, as well as for facilitating decision-making through computer modeling. In 1958, Brook presented a problem statement to the leadership, justifying the need for the use of computing machines in economic management, including the calculation of inter-industry balances, optimal transportation, and pricing. As a result, his laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Electronic Control Machines (INEUM), which developed the M-5 computer for processing economic data.
At the same time, Colonel Engineer Kitov developed his own plan for creating a nationwide computer network. In 1958, he published a brochure titled “Electronic Computing Machines,” in which he outlined a program for automating information processing and administrative management through the establishment of a network of computing centers across the country.
“Computing centers should be connected into a Unified System of Automated Information and Computing Services, which will meet the needs of all institutions and organizations for necessary scientific, technical, economic, and other information. […] The presence of a unified network of information and computing machines will allow… the use of processing results for planning and managing the economy.”
In January 1959, Kitov sent his brochure to Khrushchev, along with a letter stating that the country was losing “huge sums” due to deficiencies in the management apparatus and that this situation “requires a radical change and improvement of management methods and tools by transitioning from manual and personal forms of management to automated systems based on the use of electronic computing machines.” Kitov proposed initially to install computers at large enterprises and in certain government agencies, and then to integrate them into “large complexes,” ultimately creating a “unified automated management system” for the national economy of the entire country. He believed that these measures would lead to a significant reduction in administrative and managerial personnel and even the elimination of a number of government institutions.
Kitov understood that potential staff reductions would provoke dissatisfaction and resistance from the existing bureaucratic apparatus, and he proposed the creation of a special government body to automate and reorganize the work of state institutions. In his view, automating management would fully leverage “the main economic advantages of the socialist system: the planned economy and centralized management.” “The establishment of an automated management system in the country,” he wrote, “would signify a revolutionary leap in the development of our nation and ensure the complete victory of socialism over capitalism.”
The Soviet leadership took Kitov’s proposals very seriously. Leonid Brezhnev, who was then serving as the Secretary of the Central Committee, issued a directive to organize a special state commission headed by academician and former Deputy Minister of Defense, engineer-admiral Axel Berg. In December 1959, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution that set the task of creating new types of computing machines and systems for economic analysis, planning, and statistics.
Overall, however, the leadership of the Soviet Union took a cautious and ambiguous stance. On one hand, it encouraged new technologies, but on the other hand, it was reluctant to undertake serious organizational reforms of the management structures. The government’s resolution did not include the most important ideas of Kitov regarding the creation of a nationwide network of computing centers and a unified automated system for managing the economy of the entire country.
III. Military networks for civilian purposes?
The origins of the first Soviet projects for using computers to manage the economy stemmed from the work being done in the USSR at that time on the development of military computer systems. In the mid-1950s, Soviet military experts paid serious attention to the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) air defense system being developed in the United States. At its core was the creation of a centralized nationwide network of computerized control and management points to coordinate an adequate response to a potential mass air attack by the enemy. In response, the Soviet Union decided to create three systems with similar purposes: an air defense system, a missile defense system, and a space control system—each with its own centralized computer network. The initiative to apply computing machines in the economy came from the same specialists who designed, implemented, and used military systems. For example, the Institute of Electronic Control Systems (INEUM), led by Brook, not only developed the M-5 computer for processing economic data but also created the M4-2M computer for the space control system.
Inspired by the partial success of his first letter to Khrushchev, Kitov developed an even more radical project. In the fall of 1959, facing a lack of support for his ideas on automation in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, he sent another letter to the Soviet leadership. He presented Khrushchev with a project titled “Paths of Automation in the Armed Forces and the National Economy,” in which Kitov proposed not to “scatter” computing technology across numerous small enterprises, but to create a unified state territorial network of computing centers. According to the project, these computing centers were to serve a dual purpose—military and civilian. He anticipated that military tasks would fully occupy these centers only during combat operations. In peacetime, Kitov believed, the computing centers could be used for civilian purposes, specifically to address economic and scientific-technical issues. He suggested connecting the centers to each other and to civilian data collection stations across the country via hidden communication lines. Kitov pointed out the significant savings that could be achieved through the dual use of computing resources. He also hoped that this dual approach would help overcome the inertia of both military and civilian leaders.
The fate of Kitov’s initiative was sealed after the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union sent it for review to the Ministry of Defense—the very agency that had been harshly criticized in the project for lagging behind in the implementation of computers. Kitov’s direct appeal to the top party leadership, bypassing the immediate military command, along with his critical tone, angered the leaders of the military department. The proposal was rejected, and its author faced exemplary punishment. Kitov was accused of ignoring the guiding role of the party, discrediting the leadership of the armed forces, pursuing personal career ambitions, and also of service shortcomings. In June 1960, he was expelled from the party and removed from his position as the scientific director of the Computing Center No. 1 that he had established.
Formally, the Ministry of Defense’s commission rejected the project on the grounds that simultaneously addressing civilian and military tasks on a single network of data centers would be ineffective. It is possible that the military feared they might be held responsible for disruptions in the civilian economy. Kitov himself explained the main reason for the failure as follows: “People in power structures were not satisfied with the fact that as a result of implementing computing technology, many of them could find themselves out of work.”
Soon, another pioneer of computer use in economic management, Isaac Brook, “retired” as well. Like Kitov, Brook openly criticized the existing order: “The management system created by the party is a rapid response system, but its flaw is the lack of feedback.” The officials of Gosplan, which oversaw Brook’s institute, perceived his proposals as a “rebellion” and forced him to leave. The attitude towards the computerization of economic management only changed as a result of coordinated collective efforts by computer specialists, mathematicians, and economists who shared the ideology of economic cybernetics.
IV. Economic Cybernetics Takes the Stage
In the Soviet context, the term “cybernetics” encompassed not only the initial set of concepts from engineering control theory with feedback and information theory but also a wide range of mathematical models and computer simulations in the fields of control and communication in machines, living organisms, and society. By incorporating all applications of electronic computing machines into cybernetics and referencing the then-popular notion of the computer as an objective herald of truth, Soviet cyberneticians managed to disarm ideological critics and proclaimed the goal of “cybernetization” across all areas of science.
The Soviet cybernetics movement, which rapidly gained momentum in the second half of the 1950s, created not only an intellectual foundation for mathematical economics but also an institutional niche. Many previously banned and marginalized scientific fields found refuge under the auspices of the Cybernetics Council of the Academy of Sciences, led by engineer-admiral Axel Berg, with prominent mathematician Alexei Lyapunov as his deputy. Among these fields was mathematical economics, which now emerged under the name of “economic cybernetics.” Berg and Lyapunov supported the ideas of Kitov and helped promote them in public forums and in print.
In November 1959, Kitov presented a report at the All-Union Conference on Computational Mathematics and Computing Technology in Moscow. In his speech, based on ideas outlined in his first letter to Khrushchev, Kitov proposed the creation of a unified state network of information and computing centers with centralized management to address tasks related to accounting and statistics, planning, supply, banking services, and transportation management. Initially, according to the author’s vision, these centers were to perform calculations for enterprises without computers and assist in implementing management automation. Eventually, they were to form a unified network that would carry out economic and other calculations for all Soviet enterprises. Berg and Lyapunov became co-authors of the report, lending their names to enhance the credibility of Kitov’s proposals.
The harassment and dismissal of Kitov did not shake his determination to continue the fight for management automation and may have only strengthened his belief in the need for reforms. Berg and Lyapunov continued to support him even after he was officially condemned by the Ministry of Defense commission. In September 1960, Kitov managed to publish a joint article with them in the country’s main party journal, “Communist,” where he argued for the advantages of creating a unified management system based on a nationwide territorial network of information and computing centers. The authors promised that the introduction of computers would reduce the planning time for supplies from three to four months to just three days, halve the management apparatus, and cut supply costs by five times.
In October 1961, a new and perhaps the most influential article by Kitov was published in the collection edited by Berg, titled “Cybernetics — at the Service of Communism!” Recently expelled from the party, the author wrote that “the automation of management in the national economy is a crucial link in the construction of communism.” Kitov dedicated an entire section of the article to a detailed proposal for the creation of a Unified State Network of Computing Centers (USNCC). He argued that based on this network, it would be possible to build “a unified automated system for managing the national economy of the country,” which would lead to “complete harmony between the political and economic foundations of our state and the technical means of managing the country’s economy.”
At first, only a handful of Soviet economists were interested in mathematical models in economics and management. In 1958, Academician Vasily Nemchinov organized the Laboratory for the Application of Statistical and Mathematical Methods and Computers in Economics and Planning, and soon he headed the scientific council of the USSR Academy of Sciences on this topic, as well as the section on economic cybernetics within the scientific council on cybernetics. In April 1960, after two years of struggle and twelve (!) postponements, the cybernetics experts managed to convene the first All-Union Conference on the Application of Mathematical Methods and Computers in Economics and Planning. About sixty reports presented at this conference gave mathematical economics legitimate status. The following year, more than forty scientific institutions in the USSR began research in mathematical economics. By 1967, two hundred and fifty organizations were already engaged in the application of cybernetic methods in economics. Ultimately, the campaign conducted by the cybernetics experts bore fruit: the leaders of the party and the Soviet state finally believed in a bright cybernetic future.
V. The Cybernetic Dream of Khrushchev
The party and state elite of the USSR took a liking to the model of the Soviet economy as a cybernetic system. Soviet leaders saw in the proposals of cybernetics the opportunity to solve the country’s economic problems by optimizing information flows and improving management methods, that is, without implementing any radical reforms.
Khrushchev’s views, although inspired by cybernetics, were in direct contradiction to the liberal social ideas put forward by cyberneticians. The founder of cybernetics as a science of management and communication, Norbert Wiener, believed that cybernetic social theory had a liberating mission. It would break down rigid vertical hierarchies of control, tear down barriers to free communication, and encourage the use of feedback in interactions among different layers of society. This liberal version of social cybernetics appealed to the Soviet intelligentsia, who enthusiastically welcomed the political “thaw” of the early years of Khrushchev’s rule. However, the First Secretary himself envisioned a cybernetic society quite differently. In his version, the emphasis was placed on management rather than communication.
Khrushchev viewed not only the economy but also Soviet society as a whole as an organized, managed system, regulated in all its aspects. Cybernetic control of automated production was for him a symbol of how society as a whole should function:
“In our time, the age of atoms, electronics, and cybernetics, automation, and assembly lines, there is an even greater need for clarity, perfect coordination, and organization of all links in the social system, both in the realm of material production and in the sphere of spiritual life.”
Khrushchev firmly linked communism with social order and effective organization. He viewed liberal discussions about freedom as potentially subversive and harmful to his model of an organized communist society. At a meeting with the intelligentsia in March 1963, he spoke about this directly:
“Maybe you think that there will be absolute freedom under communism? Those who think so do not understand what communism is. Communism is a structured, organized society. In this society, production will be organized based on automation, cybernetics, and assembly lines. If even one little part malfunctions, the entire system will come to a halt.”
In June 1961, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin made a public call for scientists to develop proposals for the use of computers in planning and production management. In September 1962, drawing on the work of specialists in economic cybernetics, the State Committee for Science and Technology prepared a comprehensive proposal for the creation of a “National System for Automated Collection and Processing of Economic Information” based on a network of computing centers.
In October 1962, Viktor Glushkov, the director of the Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics, published an article in “Pravda” warning that without radical reorganization of economic planning, by 1980, planning would have to occupy “the entire adult population of the Soviet Union.” Glushkov proposed the creation of a “unified state automatic system for processing planned economic information and managing the economy” based on a network of computing centers. In November 1962, Mstislav Keldysh, the president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, introduced Glushkov to Kosygin, who fully supported his proposals.
Nemchinov and Glushkov lobbied for their proposals through several channels at once. In February 1963, they organized a letter to Khrushchev on behalf of the young employees of Nemchinov’s laboratory, Glushkov’s institute, and the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences, which reported on the growing lag of the USSR in the field of computing technology and proposed measures for the production and implementation of computers. Khrushchev immediately brought the letter to the attention of the Presidium of the Central Committee. After a harsh reprimand directed at several ministers during the Presidium meeting, a resolution was issued in May 1963 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR to accelerate the implementation of computers and automated control systems in the national economy.
VI. Communism with a Cybernetic Face
The Soviet leadership resorted to its typical method of problem-solving — it created a new bureaucratic body responsible for this task. This body became the Main Administration for Computing Technology under the State Committee for Science and Technology. Numerous ministries and agencies were instructed to establish their own computing centers and research institutes for the implementation of computers. The Nemchinov Laboratory was transformed into the Central Economic and Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences (CEMI of the USSR Academy of Sciences), headed by Academician Nikolai Fedorenko. In September 1963, the State Committee for Science and Technology established an Interdepartmental Scientific Council for the implementation of computing technology and economic-mathematical methods in the national economy, led by Glushkov. The Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics, CEMI, and the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences began developing a comprehensive reform of economic management based on computerization.
By the end of 1964, a commission led by Glushkov developed a preliminary design for a unified system of optimal planning and management based on the Unified State Network of Computing Centers (USNCC). The proposed network was to consist of six thousand local centers for data collection and initial processing, fifty backbone centers in major cities, and one main computing center in Moscow, which would manage the entire network and provide information to the Soviet government.
The network was supposed to ensure “full automation of the process of collecting, transmitting, and processing primary data.” The rules in place at that time required the simultaneous collection of the same information through four parallel channels, each controlled by independent planning, supply, statistics, and finance authorities. Instead, the project authors proposed entering economic data into the system only once, storing it in central databases, and providing remote “access from anywhere in the system to any information after automatic verification of the requesting person’s credentials.”
The project’s authors hoped to completely eliminate the widespread practice of data manipulation that occurs when information is passed “up the chain” using computers.“Only such an organization of the information system can provide all planning and management bodies with accurate and complete information as if it were coming directly from the source, bypassing any intermediate stages, thus eliminating the possibility of information leakage and distortion.”Anticipating resistance from the bureaucratic apparatus to the new system, the project authors made efforts to close all possible loopholes for circumventing the automated data collection process. The project stipulated that “the circulation of economic information outside the Unified State System for the Collection and Processing of Economic Information is not permitted.”
The network was supposed to be operational by 1975. To operate it, three hundred thousand specialists needed to be trained, and the total cost would be around five billion rubles. It was also expected that the local and supporting computing centers would quickly pay for themselves by solving economic and engineering problems for local enterprises.
The original concept of Glushkov included one particularly controversial provision. He assumed that the new automated management system would oversee all production, payroll, and retail trade, and therefore proposed eliminate the use of paper money and fully switch to electronic payments: “[Such a system will] if not completely close the road, at least significantly limit phenomena such as theft, bribery, and speculation.”Perhaps he also hoped that this idea would seem appealing to Khrushchev.since the elimination of paper money resembled the Marxist ideal of a communist society without moneyIt seemed to bring the Soviet society closer to the goal of rapidly building communism, proclaimed by Khrushchev at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961. Keldysh, who was more experienced in political matters, advised Glushkov not to make overly radical proposals, as this would only provoke “unnecessary emotions.” As a result, Glushkov excluded the idea of cashless transactions from the main project and presented a separate note on this matter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. If ideology played a significant role in the decision-making of the party leadership, this would have been a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that.However, Glushkov’s proposal to abolish paper money did not receive approval from the party authorities.The text for translation: [49]..
Glushkov aimed to create a comprehensive system that would define, regulate, and fully control the process of managing the Soviet economy.Essentially, he proposed to transform the entire Soviet bureaucratic pyramid:“…it is necessary to thoroughly plan the workday and workweek of each official, create detailed classifiers of duties and documents, and clearly define the procedure for their review in terms of timing and individuals involved, etc.”The plan of the EGSVC also anticipated that about one million workers in the fields of accounting, planning, and management would be “released” and could “transition to the sphere of direct production.” These radical proposals faced fierce resistance from the Soviet management apparatus.
VII. Can a computer manage the economy?
Glushkov’s plans faced serious opposition from two sides. On one hand, leaders of industrial enterprises and government officials opposed the computerization of economic planning and management because it would clearly demonstrate their inefficiency. I would take away their control over information and reduce their power. Текст для перевода: ..Officials clearly understood that ultimately all of this threatened their positions. On the other hand, liberal economists, or “market advocates,” saw the solution to the country’s economic problems in introducing elements of a market economy. They proposed radical decentralization of economic planning and management, as well as the implementation of market incentives for enterprises. In their view, Glushkov’s project served to preserve outdated forms of centralized economic management and diverted resources needed for structural economic reform.
The “commodity theorists” considered Glushkov’s project a computer utopia. They doubted the very possibility of creating reliable mathematical models of the entire country’s economy, as well as the accuracy of the data provided. The “commodity theorists” argued that the existing system allows central authorities and individual enterprises to arbitrarily manipulate economic data and criteria; as a result, computers would produce distorted outcomes, even if at unprecedented speed.
A significant problem with the EGSVC project was that it could only deliver the promised results if it was fully implemented.Without a fundamental managerial reform at the top levels of power, local optimization lost all meaning. In July 1965, Glushkov presented his project to the government, but by that time, the political situation and the structure of economic management had changed dramatically. After Khrushchev was removed from power, the regional system of economic councils, which the Unified State Automated System (EGSVC) project was based on, was abolished, and the previous departmental structure of sectoral ministries was restored. The regional scheme for building a nationwide network and management system was rejected.
In 1966, the party and government issued a new resolution that outlined a large-scale program for the implementation of computer automated control systems (ACS) in the economy. The resolution turned out to be a typical bureaucratic compromise between the planners and statisticians. The Central Statistical Administration (CSA) was tasked with developing a unified state network of computing centers, while various ministries were instructed to create their own computing centers and ACS at the enterprises under their jurisdiction. The CSA insisted on organizing the network on a regional basis, while the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) wanted the network to be divided by groups of industrial sectors. Gosplan opposed reducing the network’s functions to mere statistical collection, while the CSA criticized the idea of creating a network of disparate departmental ACS. While these disputes continued, no real actions were taken to establish a state network of computing centers. Meanwhile, spontaneous development of ACS began at individual enterprises and ministries. Between 1966 and 1970, more than four hundred independent ACS were created without any coordination, and they were not connected by any data transmission networks.
Meanwhile, the military transitioned to a new generation of geographically distributed command and control systems using more complex computer networks. New networks were created for the missile defense system, long-range detection systems, and the automated control system for strategic missile forces. Due to the secrecy surrounding defense systems, the Soviet economy was unable to benefit from the technological innovations of the military. However, even if the secrecy restrictions had been lifted, it would have been very difficult to adapt expensive and specialized defense technologies for civilian use. The Soviet military-industrial complex operated like an information “black hole”: everything went in, but nothing came out.
VIII. Virtual Socialism: Information is Power
In the late 1960s, the news of the emergence of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in the United States gave a new impetus to the creation of a nationwide network of computers in the Soviet Union. Glushkov approached the Soviet leadership with a new project. He proposed to integrate the Automated Control Systems (ACS) at all levels—from the ACS of individual enterprises to those of ministries, up to the highest levels of leadership—into a unified state automated system (OGAS) for the collection and processing of economic information for accounting, planning, and managing the Soviet economy. Glushkov promised that OGAS would not disrupt the existing vertical structure of power, in which individual ministries managed their sectors of the economy and accumulated information in their own computing centers. The design of OGAS was proposed to satisfy everyone: it would be built on a territorial principle while also incorporating autonomous departmental ACS.
Glushkov’s new proposals have sparked another wave of criticism. Management theory experts argued that computer systems merely reinforce outdated methods of accounting and statistics. They insisted that management reform should be implemented first, and only then should computerization begin.
From Glushkov’s perspective, the comprehensive computerization of the country was supposed to become a driving force for economic reform. He believed that the OGAS project was “not only a scientific and technical task, but primarily a political one.” Glushkov was convinced that a truly effective reform of the Soviet economy could only occur as a result of transformations initiated from the highest levels of power. Therefore, he focused his main efforts on convincing the top Soviet leadership to support the OGAS project.
On October 1, 1970, the Politburo of the Central Committee discussed the OGAS project and made a typical compromise decision: to accept the project, but in a scaled-down version. Instead of a new powerful State Committee for the Improvement of Management, a modest department for computing technology was reestablished under the State Committee for Science and Technology. Rather than implementing a nationwide automated system for economic management, only the development of a network of computing centers and the creation of automated control systems at individual enterprises remained. According to rumors, Kosygin was opposed to the project because he feared that the Central Committee of the Communist Party would use OGAS to control the activities of the Council of Ministers.
Meanwhile, officials from the sectoral ministries concluded that they could benefit from computerization without losing an ounce of their power. Each ministry built its own data center and began developing automated control systems for its internal needs.From 1971 to 1975, the number of such systems increased almost sevenfold. Industry-specific automated control systems often used incompatible hardware and software and were not connected by any inter-agency computer network.By creating specialized automated control systems, industry ministries laid the technical foundation for strengthening centralized control over the industrial enterprises under their jurisdiction. With this organization of affairs, ministries no longer needed to share their management information—in other words, their power—with any competing agencies.
Meanwhile, the development of plans for creating a network of data centers continued out of inertia. The ideas were becoming increasingly grandiose: the 1975 project envisioned the construction of 200 collective use centers in major cities by 1990, 2,500 cluster centers for enterprises within a single city or industry, and 22,500 centers for individual enterprises, which would require 40 billion rubles. The network was growing, but only on paper. Without a clearly defined management function, the costly construction of a nationwide computer network was unlikely to be realized.
The question of the OGAS (All-Union Automated System for Computation) arose every five years when new economic plans were prepared for approval at the next party congress. The 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1976 and the 26th Congress in 1981 formally approved new versions of the OGAS project. Each time, attempts to create a network of computing centers were “stalled” at the ministry level and did not reach a nationwide scale. Over ten years, from 1976 to 1985, only 21 collective computing centers were established with great difficulty, serving just 2,000 enterprises. Efforts to connect several centers into a network in the late 1970s remained at the experimental stage. Remote access for users of the centers could not be organized either. Due to the poor quality of the communication channels, connections were often interrupted, and operating system programs would freeze. As a result, users had to bring stacks of punch cards to the computing center and take away rolls of printouts. The network never had a single owner capable of investing in the development of its infrastructure.
When various computer systems are compatible, they can serve as a foundation for the effective integration of enterprises. However, if they are incompatible, they can just as effectively hinder that integration. Due to the rapid development of incompatible industry-specific automated control systems, the ministries erected significant barriers to the creation of a nationwide computer management system. In the 1970s, several independent industry networks emerged—for civil aviation, weather forecasting, the banking system, and scientific research. Most of them ceased to exist with the collapse of the Soviet Union. New Russian networks connected to the Internet began to emerge only in the 1990s. These were created not by the state, but by commercial entities.
IX. From a Unified Network to a Patchwork Quilt
In the 1960s, in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as in the Soviet Union, computer technologies became a tool of politics. The British government at that time decided not to fund a proposed project for creating a packet-switched computer network, as it preferred technological projects aimed at commercial profit, and computer networks, as it seemed then, did not fall into that category. The priorities of the American government, on the other hand, were dictated by the “Cold War.” This led to the decision by the U.S. to fund a number of projects from the Department of Defense and other agencies in the field of computer technologies, including the first packet-switched network, ARPANET. Unlike the Soviet and British authorities, the American government encouraged the transfer of new technologies from the military sector to civilian industry and the economy, making them readily available and providing incentives for their implementation and further development. In the United States, the government supporteddevelopmentnew technologies; theirusagewas stimulated by private companies. It was private companies that transformed the computer, originally invented for scientific and technical calculations, into a device for processing business information, and later into a means of communication.
The Soviet leadership also viewed a nationwide computer network as a tool of policy. The idea of building such a network emerged in the context of far-reaching proposals to transform the Soviet economic system by creating a state automated management system. As a result, the fate of the computer network became inextricably linked to the fate of proposals that called for deep political and social changes. The cybernetic idea of using management automation as a tool for reforming the entire management system was based on the technocratic views of Soviet cyberneticians. They believed that a technological solution—a combination of the right mathematical model, an effective algorithm, and a powerful computer network—would lead to fundamental socio-economic changes, ensure the autonomy of individual enterprises, and facilitate optimal economic planning on a nationwide scale.
Soviet cyberneticians envisioned an automated management system as a unified, organic entity permeated by feedback loops. Paradoxically, however, they believed it should be constructed from the top down. They did not consider the possibility that such a system could gradually emerge from the bottom up, as they thought that individual subsystems would not be able to function effectively without a comprehensive national system. They feared that a gradual approach would only reinforce existing methods of economic management. Yet, since each individual part of the national management system was not viable on its own, the system as a whole turned out to be unviable.
Recent studies on the “mutual construction” of technology and its users highlight the active role of users in shaping, evolving, and resisting the adoption of new technologies, as well as examining the feedback effect of the technologies used on the users themselves.In discussions about the fate of the Soviet nationwide computer network, various agencies debated whether to make computer networks a tool for centralizing or decentralizing the economy, a means of disseminating information or a way to securely store it, a driver of management reforms or a part of the existing system. However, the decisive question became who would actually be the users of the system. Cyberneticians hoped to create their own central agency to manage information flows across all other government institutions, but the ministries managed to assert their right to be the primary users of the information systems. These users infused the ideology of information systems with a different meaning. They transformed the original concept of a unified nationwide computer network into a patchwork of disparate information systems, accountable to various agencies.
The original goals of the American ARPANET network were also redefined by its users. This network did not fulfill its initial purpose as a means of redistributing computing resources, but it became a successful communication tool when email services gained immense popularity among users. This new function of ARPANET contributed to its rapid growth.
In the Soviet Union, unlike the situation with ARPANET, the struggle for control over management information led to the fragmentation of the proposed network into disconnected parts. Cyberneticians sought to reform the Soviet management system by introducing information technologies, but this system, as a user of those technologies, managed to impose its will. This naturally resulted in a change in the function of these innovations — instead of being a driving force for reform, they became a means of preserving the existing economic and political order.
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1) This work, published with the author’s permission, is a revised version of the article: Gerovitch S.InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network// History and Technology. 2008. Vol. 24. P. 335-350.
The concept of “cybernetics,” introduced into scientific discourse in Norbert Wiener’s classic 1948 book “Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine,” combines the ideas of automatic control theory and information theory to describe processes of self-organization and goal-directed behavior in self-regulating systems, living organisms, and society. Cyberneticians draw numerous analogies between machines and biological and social systems: they compare neurophysiological and economic processes to feedback control systems, describe human communication as information transmission with noise, and liken the nervous system to a computer. For more on the history of Soviet cybernetics, see Gerovitch S.From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics.Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.
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