Point of the Paper

In this paper, I would like to discuss the history of Cybernetics. The history of this

technological field of study is rich in its path of creation providing an interesting story. I would

like to also discuss the issues Cybernetics encountered along the long path it took in order to

create the global network, as we know it today. It is pivotal in my pursuit of my argument that I

display the field of Cybernetics through the history of the USA and its rival nation the USSR

(1958-1976). The part played by each great nation is important in the development of the new

technology based on the understanding of Cybernetics. The comparison and contrasts can be

seen on many fronts as far as the use of each Cybernetic system established by each nation. I

would also like to point out the flaws and positive sides each system entailed and explain why

the evolution of Cybernetic networks would not happen as quickly as it did in the USA. I will

provide historically significant information to back up my claim that the task pursued by the

USSR would have the most issues coming into fruition due to the fact that it was created in the

framework of a communist government in contrast to the capitalist framework.

Overview

The Cold War was a pivotal period in time for the evolution of new technologies. The

two major world powers (America and the Soviet Union [USSR]) that competed in the creation

of a technologically advanced country helped sculpt the current world we live in today, along

side the technologies pondered throughout the Cold War. The USSR and the USA were major

power players in the development of Cybernetics and informational technologies that assisted

them in the needs they sought to solve. The Soviet Union wanted to create a “unified network”

which connected each branch of the communist Russian government. Over decades plans would

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be created and proposed but no plan for a “unified network” ever actually came into existence.

The fathers of Soviet Cybernetics made several attempts to create their visions of a Soviet

network only to be denied due to the disapproval of different bureaucracies (Ministries) in the

Soviet Union. There was stark opposition that stood in the way of the work of Soviet

Cyberneticians.

In the USA, Cybernetics thrived in a capitalist environment. The use of Cybernetics was

strictly military and would not be used by civilians. Cyberneticians at the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology (MIT) developed a system of consoles connected to a “network” where

colleagues inside MIT could leave messages. When ARPANET was created it was a triumph of

American technological performance. It did however rival the earlier SAGE defense system. The

USSR responded to the SAGE system and acted on it by creating their own 4-way defense

system that encompassed and monitored land, air, sea, and space. The Americans theoretically

stimulated the Soviet induction of Cybernetics upon the Union due to this very system. Formally,

however, Stalinist Russia rejected Cybernetics due to its flamboyancy. It was not until much

later, during Khrushchev’s term, that a proposal hit the ground in the from of a volume

containing a proposal on the implementation of a civilian “unified network.” Many

Cyberneticians (Kitov, Glushkov, Kharkevich, and Fedorenko) produced and proposed

their new ideas for Soviet network but were never fully implemented on the national scale. As it

ends up the network would eventually become too expensive and would exhaust the Soviet

industrial machine. The system would also end up never coming into existence due to the

pragmatic communist Soviet government and its many governing bodies.

History of Cybernetics

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Cybernetics began in the early 1940s at the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, in Manhattan.

What was discussed was called “Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and

Social Systems.” This (at first) computer science would later be titled “Cybernetics”. Norbert

Wiener started a group that perused the technology called “The Cybernetics Group,” this group

was responsible for the military collaboration in the US to create the ARPANET system at MIT.

The system was used to collaborate military personnel via networks in the country where a

message system was set up. This system was a primordial version of email, as we know it today.

After Norbert Weiner wrote his book “Cybernetics” in 1948, Heinz von Foerster adopted the

name for the system, as he saw it fitting. This evolved the Cybernetics group into the Macy

Conferences on Cybernetics (Umpleby, 1) in which the ARPANET was born out of. Through the

progression of these sciences in the early years or Cybernetics, the network was born and the use

of electronic information became a more common factor in the climate of the US roll in the

creation of the Internet (Gerovitch, 336-337).

On the other side of Cybernetics, on the Soviet scale, there existed a book that started the

pursuit of Soviet Cybernetics and the push for a Soviet network. The Soviet Cybernetitians had a

slow start in their pursuit of Cybernetics but a “volume” called “Cybernetics in the Service of

Communism” was presented to the Twenty-Second Congress of the Communist Party

(Gerovitch, 335). The book entailed all that implied as far as the provisions to the Communist

Party and its contributions to Communist expansion. It covered all the important fields of science

and labor in the Soviet Union: “the great potential benefits of applying commuters and

cybernetic models in a wide range of fields, from biology and medicine to production control,

transportation, and economics” (Gerovitch, 335). The Soviet computer network would be a vast

system with nodes connection the workers directly to the Party so that the correct production

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methods could be implemented. The main function for the Soviet network was the issue of

economical benefits as far as the issue of efficiency in the production process. The system

would: “connect[ing] all the[se] centers into a nationwide network would lead to the creation of a

single automated system of control of the nationwide economy” (Gerovitch, 335). This system

would eventually help expand communism on a broad scale as a government what worked well

as far as its potential to be self-sufficient when it came to the issue of economic efficiency.

The History of Soviet Cybernetics

The start of the pursuit of technological advancement in the field of Soviet Cybernetics

came as a reaction to the economic issues that the Soviet Union was facing after the death of

Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin’s Soviet Union was left in a poor state of economic health and still

cleaning up the vast battlefields left over from WWII. The government was having issues as far

as regulating supplies and ordering enough materials to create enough items for the country. The

Soviets thought they would be able to cure themselves of this issue creating more government

but this only made problems worse (Gerovitch, 336). In order to fix the issues that came up when

Nikita Khrushchev took office in May of 1957, he appointed small ministries for each sector,

state, and region to regulate and maintain the Soviet industrial machine. This reform only made

the rate of production worse and thus helped offset the Soviet industry through the distribution of

goods and the economy. When the “digital computer arrived at the scene” to help fix the Soviet

economy, the language of Cybernetics was just starting to pick up as a resolution to the issue

encountered by the Russians. “In December of 1957, the Soviet Academy of Sciences suggested

the use of computers in order to facilitate a reparation of the Soviet economy.” This would

introduce the idea of the creation of computer centers throughout different regions all

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interconnected in order to help further the pursuit of planning on the industrial scale as well as

economics and sciences. Gerovitch explains:

In the Soviet context, the term ‘cybernetics’ encompassed not only the initial set of feedback control and information theory concepts, but the entire realm of mathematical models and computer simulations of ‘control and communication’ processes in machines, living organisms, and society (Gerovitch, 337).

Later on, mathematicians and economists would test the use of cybernetics throughout the 1950s

in order to help further the pursuit of communist self-reliance and efficiency. The goal of every

communist government is where money is nonexistent, and anyone can access what he or she

needed when they needed it.

The next developments in Cybernetics in the Soviet Union consisted of rival systems to

the US new SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment). The SAGE system was developed

as a defense system by the military in order to defend against impending Soviet attacks. The

Soviets learned of this and built their own called the TETIVA system that consisted of eight

computers all inter-connected in a network with each having its own purpose. It consisted of

“command-and-control” centers where each was linked to a specific system that dealt with

identifying threats by land, air, sea, and space. The most interesting component of the SAGE

project was its impact upon the civilian population in the form of “control machine” which

would be put in place to regulate the amount of information on the provisions of materials and

production. These systems would be able to “collect, transmit, and process economic data and to

facilitate decision-making by computer simulation” (Gerovitch, 338). In more simple terms, it

would be able to make decisions by analyzing economic data and output information in order to

produce what is needed and not over or under produce.

In January of 1959, a military engineer named Anatolii Kitov sent his book on

Cybernetics to Khrushchev that helped progress the computer usage in the communist industrial

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front. The initial proposal was taken well by Khrushchev and the Cybernetics Council carried out

Kitov’s plan in June 1959. The plan consisted of:

…automated systems, based on the use of electronic computing machines.’ He [Kitov] proposed first to install computers at several large factories and government agencies, then link them together to form ‘large complexes,’ or networks, and ultimately to create a unified automated management system’ for the national economy. Kitov suggested … a significant reduction in administrative and management staff and even to the elimination of certaingovernment agencies. He realized that the potential personnel cuts wouldcause friction, and suggested that a new powerful agency be created to implement the automation and reorganization of work in all government institutions (Gerovitch, 339).

This shift would propel the Soviet Union to master the socialist system by gaining a “planed

economy” and “centralized control.” “Kitov argued that it (his system) would garner “a complete

victory of socialism over capitalism”(Gerovitch, 339). Soon after his plan to have a nationwide

computer network was ready for implementation, the Party discharged him from the military and

removed from his position as head of the Computation Center, as well as his removal from the

Communist Party. His proposal was rejected because “the combination of military and civilian

functions was inefficient” (Gerovitch, 340).

In 1962, Aleksandr Kharkevich led a cybernetic campaign “to digitize phone, telegraph,

radio, and television communications and to transmit all signals over a unified computer

network” (Gerovitch, 340). His work influenced Khrushchev to pursue this idea of a unified

computer network, thus propelling the party to continue to act upon ideas presented by

Cyberneticians. Khrushchev envisioned the Soviet network in the same way he viewed his Soviet

Union. It was controlled, organized, efficient, and moreover cost-effective for a system of its

time. Khrushchev boasted that his Union should function: “in our time, the time of the atom,

electronics, cybernetics, automation, and assembly lines, what is needed is clarity, ideal

coordination and organization of all links in the social system both in material production and in

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spiritual life” (Gerovitch, 340). This quote gives a direct insight into the midst of Khrushchev

and how be perceives the world around him as a leader. He believes there is the need for

organization and coordinated perception of how things are run in a soviet government and

economy.

As a pretext to the issues Khrushchev is trying to deal with, he finds his salvation through

the director of the Institute of Cybernetics, Viktor Glushkov. Glushkov proposed a similar plan

to Kitov’s in November of 1962 that entailed a unified computer network, with the mission to

help with economic planning and management. Glushkov’s plan was accepted and he was

appointed head of the Interagency Scientific Council on Computer Technology and Automated

Management Systems (ISCCTAMS). As head of the ISCCTAMS, Glushkov visited over 100

different production facilities and industries to draft a plan for the blueprint of the new Soviet

data network in 1963. His work helped create a blueprint consisting of a massive network that

linked all major and minor sectors of sciences, production, economy, and government.

Glushkov visited over 100 organizations, studying their management methods and information flows. The draft design of a nationwide computer network included 100-200 large centers in major cities serving as regional nodes, which would be linked to 20,000 smaller centers located in government agencies and large enterprises. The large centers would be connected be dedicated high bandwidth channels without channel-switching or message-switching. The network would support a distributed data bank, which anyone could access from any terminal on the network after an automatic authorization check (Gerovitch, 341).

The most important piece of provision that Glushkov provided in his resolution was the ability to

monitor all sects of the communist production, labor and retail. His network would also be able

to eventually eliminate the use of paper money furthering the goal of the communist government

in the “money-free” environment Marx sought to create through his communist manifesto.

Glushkov’s “provision” was cut short when Keldysh advised Khrushchev in 1961, because he

thought it would “only stir up controversy.” After Glushkov’s “controversial” proposal that was

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dropped by Khrushchev, Glushkov started working closely with the Science Institute and the

Economic and Mathematical Institutes. His work was a joint process between himself and a

comrade named Nikolai Tedoranko. Together, the two men published a new proposal for a

unified nationwide network where management and planning stood upon a “three-tier unified

national network of computer centers.” The basis for the design of this network would start at the

government, then the industry, and finally the worker itself. (Gerovitch, 341)

Why the Soviet Network was Never Built

As seen throughout the history of the Cybernetics in the Soviet Union, there has been

opposition to the pursuits of the men who initially attempted to procure the country of a “unified

network.” When the spread of Cybernetics started to push its way across Russia it encountered

many forms of resistance. There would be government agencies who denied the facilitation of

these technologies that stifled the goal many of the Cyberneticians had in mind for mother

Russia. Since the reception of news that the capitalist Americans had developed a unified

network called ARPANET in 1960 the issue of development started to spring out of Soviet

computer scientists and Cyberneticians. When Glushkov received the news that ARPANET

existed he reevaluated his past plan and re-launched it with a new directive:

…to unite management information systems of all levels – from individual enterprises through branch-based ministry systems and regional nodes up tothe top government level – to create the Statewide Automated Management,and Management of the National Economy (OGAS). (Gerovitch, 344)

Glushkov emphasized the effect by saying that “by the mid 1980s nearly the entire adult

population of the Soviet Union would be engaged in planning, accounting, and management”

(Gerovitch, 344). Glushkov also wanted his OGAS to resemble a beneficiary system that did not

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rival the current systems. He proposed that OGAS would be a system which aided the current

system by making the information flows more easily output as well as help with management

and software development (Gerovitch, 344). Glushkov’s OGAS was an “information bank

accumulating all conceivable information” so that everyone could access what they wanted when

they wanted instead of waiting for information to be sent and received, all data would be stored.

The reception of Glushkov’s idea for a centralized informational hub did not go over so well.

The inception of Glushkov’s system was not taken well. In the Soviet Union, every type

of person who would be affected by Glushkov’s system had something to say about it.

Some liberal intellectuals began to see in Glushkov’s proposal the specter of an omnipresent surveillance system; others dismissed it as a technological utopia. Economists argued that [the] solution was not in processing large amounts of information, but in reducing the amount of information necessary for decision-making: ‘Excess information is not only useless, but harmful.’ Management experts asserted that movement information systems had ‘simplyreinforced outmoded methods of accounting and keeping statistics in Americancorporations’ and insisted that a management reform must be implemented first, and computerization should come second (Gerovitch, 345).

The proposal and plan for a Soviet network would be accepted by the Twenty Fourth Party

Congress in 1971 and authorized to complete a full-scale implementation, but was soon retracted

when the congress found that there was a political background in the new network. Soon after

the OGAS network was rejected, “the creation of an automated management system for the

entire economy was put off”(Gerovitch, 345). The travesty of this towards Cybernetics resulted

in the decimation of the Soviet Unions vast network, the cost of a large national network would

never happen due to the cost of its implementation.

After the loss of Cybernetics against communism, the ministries started to create their

own date networks so that they could more easily keep information from rival ministries. This

helped sculpt a broader range of computer use, but ended up not helping establish a network

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similar to the OGAS project. More versions of networks would be introduced throughout the

1970s and 80s and would be implemented but always halted when approaching the vast amount

of ministries and their private data networks. The chain of events in the communist system is

very annoying and hard. There were always too many people trying to implement different

things in their own manner that in the end turned out to hurt the evolution of the Soviet Union.

The History of ARPANET

Founded in 1958, The Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPA) were put in

place to keep American technology ahead of its enemies and rivals. DARPA (ARPA) was

created out of the fear of a Soviet invasion of any form and of the technological innovation the

Soviet Union showed the US in the launch of Sputnik. The armed forces hosted by the Pentagon

wanted to stay on top of the Soviet technology by establishing a division that dealt solely with

keeping American technologies up to date. A professor at MIT by the name of Joseph Licklider

drafted and created a network sponsored my ARPA which connected universities that contained

research development teams working for ARPA. In 1969 the first message sent using the ARPA

system “ARPANET” would send a message between Sanford University and UCLA. Licklider

called his immediate network the MAC project, and it was a huge success. ARPANET was used

by many military sectors for communication as well as communication between universities.

ARPANET functioned on a packet-switching service that worked very well along side routers

called “Interface Message Processors”. Eventually ARPA was renamed DARPA and the

ARPANET system switched from “packet-switching” to “TCP/IP” in 1983. In Hafner’s, Where

Wizards Stay Up Late, she explains how the “U.S. Government’s ARPANET was by far the

largest and most sophisticated network experiment in the world…” (Hafner, 187).

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The most important modern technological innovation that grew out of the ARPANET

systems was the message feature each node possessed. This message feature existed as a

primordial version of the email as we know it today. The ARPANET message feature was the

basis of discussion for the use of the “at” symbol (@). It was pivotal in the development of the

email and Internet that ARPANET users discussed the issue of the “@” symbol as the directory

for which people “@” which institutions they wanted to contact. ARPANET’s creators did not

intend for the system to create a vast email system, but users always evolved the use of every

new system when it came into being. In 1972, an engineer by the name of Ray Tomlinson sends

“the first electronic-mail delivery engaging two machines” (Hafner, 191). This is pivotal in the

pursuit of network superiority over the Soviet Union, indirectly, and ends up becoming more

common in the minds of the users of ARPANET. Hafner sums up the “@” sign:

Tomlinson became well known for SNDMSG and CPYNET. But he became better known for a brilliant (he called it obvious) decision he made while writing those programs. He needed a way to sepa- rate, in the e-mail address, the name of the user from the machine the user was on. How should that be denoted? He wanted a char- acter that would not, under any conceivable circumstances, be found in the user's name. He looked down at the keyboard he was using, a Model 33 Teletype, which almost everyone else on the Net used, too. In addition to the letters and numerals there were about a dozen punctuation marks. "I got there first, so I got to choose any punctuation I wanted," Tomlinson said. "I chose the @ sign."

(Hafner, 192)

Throughout the 1970s email would evolve drastically, and include all of the additions we

currently use when we access our modern email systems. Interestingly enough “The more that

people used the ARPANET for e-mail, the more relaxed they became about what they said”

(Hafner, 192). This is what influenced the creation of online forums and the Internet revolution

in through The Well online community.

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Why the U.S. Network Happened

In the capitalist government it was easy to accomplish what you wanted if you had the

money or in this case, the funding to do so. For the creators of ARPANET and SAGE, they were

granted the ability to put their proposals into effect because they had the power behind them to

do so. As the American capitalist system handles the money and the use of it is up to the

contributor, in this case, the case of ARPANET, there was government funding as well as

university funding. In the Soviet Union, this would have never been the case for Glushkov’s

“unified network” which would connect the Communist Party to its workers. The economic

backing of industry did not only solely exist in the industrial side of the Soviet Union. In

communism everything is interconnected on an economic scale, therefore it was not easy trying

to implement a large-scale network of management and regulation to cover Russia on the

national scale. The other factor that helped the American Cybernetic network take off was the

limited opposition when approval was in the process of its creation. In Russia, each different

type of Ministry had to agree on passing this “unified network”. Even after having the proposal

passed by the Soviet Union’s communist Congress, the proposal had to be approved by the

ministries that dealt with specific tasks in the communist nation.

When it comes to communism over capitalism, in the mindset of freedoms to pursue your

own will, capitalism triumphs. In a capitalist government, free enterprise is one of the main

factors that help make capitalism a more fruitful environment for the growth of new industries.

As with communism, the people and the party control all enterprise, where everything functions

for the benefit of the nation instead of the capitalist mindset of the individual. As far as the form

of government established in the two systems, capitalism does not permit smaller groups of

power to amend or control the industrial growth as the communist system in Russia had. In the

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Soviet Union, every ministry that would be affected by the changes Glushkov, Kitov, or

Tedorenko wanted to impose upon the nation would be disagreed upon argued and dropped. At

the same time, the Soviet networks developed exclusively for civilian use were ingenious in

comparison to the American networks. If they had ever come into existence, the Soviet Union

would still possibly to this day be a major world power and a rival to American ingenuity.

The differences between capitalism and communism can be seen in the facilitation of

their networks. The differentiations between the two governments rest in the involvement of the

government. In capitalism, the government does not get involved in the dealings of business thus

the same law applies for inventions. The U.S. has a laissez-fare policy that prevents governments

from interfering with the countries’ industries. As for the communist government, government

has its head in every aspect of the nation, from economy, to production and military. The

strength of the communist government is its ability to complete laborious tasks such as the nation

wide network. It is a travesty on behalf of the Soviet leadership that this network never came into

existence. If it did the communist Russia would be a money free environment where one of the

major Marxist goals was a currency free government. All of the issues communism would ever

have would be solved in the form of the network. Glushkov’s network was a perfect replica of

what the Soviet Union needed in the eyes of the Cyberneticians. It would be able to contain all

the economic, social, governmental, and scientific information so that it was readily available

information, that could be pulled whenever needed. Glushkov also included a system that

monitored the flow of information in the forms of economics and management, which were two

major issues the Soviet Union was encountering. If the Soviet Union was ever successful in

mastering the ability to make sure only a certain amount of an item was made, then the economy

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would be saved, and the people would get what they needed. What was produced in the spotlight

of overproduction was a bane to the efficiency of the communist system.

As for the U.S., there was no need for economic control. Free enterprise consisted of

what made up the capitalist system, where every American flexed his or her ability to make

money and spend it on that they wanted to. Not everyone in capitalism had a job, as the

communist system had, but when you went to work in a capitalist system the more hours put in

by him or her more they got paid. Where as a communist system had everyone receiving almost

the same amount no matter how much time or effort was put into their work. These are the

differences between what encompassed the efforts in the U.S. and the Soviet Union in

relationship to the service of Cybernetics. As the new technology started to emerge out of the

west, the Soviets emulated the system and made it better. If the Soviet Union were successful in

its creation of a “unified network” then the Cold War would have been won economically, and

technologically by the Soviet Union.

Conclusion of Mid-term: A Complement of Cybernetic History

In conclusion, I would like to summarize the history of Cybernetics and its effect on the

world. It is important to see that the world cybernetics grew up in was not always a fertile

environment. The Soviet Union played a huge part in the advancement of Cybernetics and the

issue of the “unified network.” In the same frame of mind, we can also turn to the west and view

the American network of ARPANET as a major proprietor in the creation and progression of

Cybernetics and the Network. Without the Soviet Union, the issue of a global network would

never have come into creation. When the Berlin Wall was taken down in 1989, the world was

engulfed with the ideas of Soviet Cyberneticians, thus making a positive mark in the progression

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of a unified global network. The denied works of Glushkov and Kitov by the communist Party

throughout the 1960s and 70s only pushed the pursuit of a global network. The country had been

closed off from the world for so long, that its values weren’t accepted until its fall. The ingenious

plans that the Soviet Cyberneticians drafted rivaled even the successful ARPANET in its prime

due to the conditions it would handle if placed into realization.

As pointed out from pervious paragraphs, the communist government was too volatile of

an environment for a network of its caliber. The Soviet network would hold all the Soviet

information where as the ARPANET only could send and receive emails (eventually). If the

Soviet network ever had come into existence, it would be the most comprehensive piece of

human equipment ever to be produced by human hands. There is reason to believe that the Soviet

network would never come into existence due to the vastness of what it meant to encompass.

Glushkov’s final and most edited well fitting proposal was a fix all for the Soviet Union and

almost made the system sound “too good to be true”. The implications that Glushkov held as a

Cybernetician was very controversial in his pursuit of political status. This factor had major pull

in the higher echelons of the communist politicos. The Party saw Glushkov as a threat, as did the

ministries and thus, as they denied the other Cyberneticians as well pulling the plug on one of the

greatest technological reservations thought up by the early technological human brain.

Glushkov’s work or the works of his peers were sheltered by the Soviet Union and they rarely

get any credit for establishing a tremendous system of human prowess in technological

advancement. What happened in the Soviet Union was justified through the creation of

ARPANET and all that it entailed; it is a triumph of human exploration and human growth. The

development of these systems only helped the human race take one more giant step towards a

more stable technological future.

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Development of an Argument (Start of Final)

As stated previously from my mid-term (1-15), I would like to further develop the

argument I started previously. It must be accounted for that there is a correlation between the

USSR and the USA in the form of technological innovation. The most prime example of these

innovations was displayed in the history of Cybernetics, in the USSR and USA when both

countries tried to develop Cybernetic networks. It is pivotal to see the differences between both

systems as they stand in stark contrast with the other. The USSR wanted to create a “nationwide

computer network” where the workers of communist Russia were linked to the Communist

Party. The network would never come into existence due to the harsh environment and hierarchy

of power existing in the USSR. On the other hand, in the USA, Cybernetics took its start in the

form of ARPANET. As ARPANET was created in the USA (a capitalist government), there was

nothing standing in the way of the creation of this network.

The most important part of the creation of the ARPANET was its ability to be created.

The USSR fails in its creation of a Cybernetic network due to the fact that its government was

not set up to accept new technologies that transformed the aspects of the communist nation too

far. Cybernetics was seen as a system that would play a large part in the development of the

communist nation. At the same time, Cybernetics was seen as a vast system that would destroy

jobs and not work properly. In the USSR:

a handful of Soviet cyber networks designed by cyberneticists to mirror the formal planning of the Soviet socialist economy— overlaying the national economy like nerves on an body. It argues in effect that the cyberneticists mapped a network of nerves on the wrong body. The formal character of the cybernetic network designs meant the informal information flows in the Soviet shadow economy were not only ignored and neglected—they were designed to be eliminated. As a result, the nationwide network proposals kindled conflicts of interest among

16

Ministry and Academy of Science administrators, who benefited from their informal control over information flows in the national economy. A combination of ambitious design logics and institutional constraints hindered the progress of Soviet network projects for primarily political, not technical, reasons. The networks were undone by the very disconnect between formal models and informal activity they expected to resolve. (Peters. 182)

This issue addressed by the Ministries of the USSR denied the Cyberneticians

their will in sculpting their new environment of technological innovation. The

major issue with Soviet Cybernetics was its ability to come into existence.

There was so much resistance and so many people who stood in its path of

creation that it was never able to come to exist. This was one of the major

focal points of the reluctance of the USA in comparison to the Soviet Union.

We can all say and see that ARPANET is strictly American. Things about

the ARPANET can be easily said due to the fact that it did come into

existence and did quite well in establishing a cybernetics network. When we

compare the two systems of networks, it is not entirely fair to label each as

better or non-existent, even useless. It can be argued that the USSR was not

the right place for a Cybernetic Network of this kind and that a simple

network of ARPANET would even most likely been accepted in the USSR’s

framework. The issue of labeling each system is preposterous because one

existed and the other did not, but at the same time one system was not as

complex as the other leading the belief that the Soviets had followed through

with their Cybernetic plan, they would have created a catalyst of computer

networks. As always, the Soviets reacted in fruition to the American

technology (except many other technologies, EX: H-Bomb, Sputnik) like the

17

S.A.G.E system. S.A.G.E was the American missile defense system that

functioned for the most part, but was mostly based on useless mathematical

calculations on missile trajectory. All though S.A.G.E was made the USSR

responded to the system with its own systems, each for a different sector of

combat. They made a Naval system that tracked subs and ships, a Radar

system for missile tracking and flight coordination, a ground system that was

responsible for radio communications and troop movement, as well as a

space system to keep track of American space programme.

The USSR was not the only ones watching what the USA was doing in

the field of Cybernetics. Throughout the 1960s the CIA (Central Intelligence

Agency) watched as Cyberneticians facilitated their own forms of Cybernetic

networks in the communist system. Benjamin Peters details his findings on

the CIA’s research into the development of Soviet Cybernetics Networks:

Between 1963 an 1966, CIA reports on Soviet cybernetics include titles such as “The Meaning of Cybernetics in the USSR” (1964),“The Cybernetic Approach to Education in the USSR” (1964), “The Soviet Applications of Cyberneticsin Medicine” (1966/1967), and “Major Developments in the SovBloc Cybernetics Programs in 1965” (1966). (Peters, 185)

These forms of Cybernetic programme helped the Soviet Union scare the CIA

into having the American government worry bout their own Cybernetic

network. At the same time, the previously stated Soviet Cybernetics

programme would never even come into existence. Due to the influence of

the CIA on the American government, a worry became a cause of which, the

American Cyberneticians further developed their systems dwarfing that of

the Soviet Union’s S.A.G.E, and the struggling “Nationwide Cybernetics

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Network”.

Introduction to the Issue of Soviet Cybernetics

In the midst of the pursuit of a “Nationwide Automated Cybernetic

Network”, the Soviet Union was experiencing many different types of

economic and distribution issues. The Soviet Union had overgrowth in its

cities and miscounted its population and production rates for its population

by a vast margin. The Soviet factories responsible for the production of

goods for the population of the entire USSR were underproductive and

ineffective in its ability to produce. The issue of education of the citizens of

the Soviet Union was one of many focal points that accounted for the vast

margin between the ability of production of the USSR. To combat this a

system of Cybernetic networks were created to combat this margin and

establish a formal way to handle the progression of the communist state.

The issue of Soviet economics and accounting started to become one of

the major issues that were encountered in the USSR in the 1960s because of

the rates in production. Soviet Cyberneticians started developing networks

that would be able to automatically handle this issue by combating the

Soviet economy with Cybernetic systems. These systems would process the

entire Soviet economy and regulate the means of production along side the

soviet population. Benjamin Peters points out the issue of the means of

production and the issue associated with the economic system:

In response to the stubborn information coordination problemthat is centralized economic planning, Kitov, Glushkov, and others proposed a bold step: a nationwide automated management network

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for consolidating and streamlining all the feedback loops, all the inputs and outputs, and all the information management in the national

economy. Hayek had price and the Soviet cyberneticists had basic computer modeling: both were conceived of as rational solutions to complex coordination problems. The cyberneticists’ models promised to vastly simplify the increasingly complex accounting apparatus, obviating the need for highly specialized factory workers and shifting the burden of

accounting for the Soviet economy onto a few highly specialized mathematician- cyberneticists and their models. If the “feeler gauge” of the Soviet economy could not be localized, Glushkov and others felt,it would have to reach across the entire nation. (Peters, 196-197)

With the worry that the Soviet economy was on the brink of being in

complete shambles, the underproduction for the entire Soviet population

needed a solution. Kitov and Glushkov were the main proprietors of an

economic system controlled by a Cybernetics network was the answer the

Soviet Union was looking for. Glushkov was able to establish that there can

exist a network that worked and that functioned properly as to aid the Soviet

Union in its goals in the fields of production and accounting.

The main issue with the creation of this network was that it would take

the worker out of the Communism. In other words it would take jobs away,

and provide a select few with a lot of power within the Communist party. The

issue cybernetics tried to conquer at this point:

Soviet economic cybernetics attempted to neutralize and sedate with a rational injection of calculations the Marxistideological baggage weighing down mid-century economicdebate and reform. With price not an ideological option, predictive economic optimization took its place in the Soviet Union during the latter half of the twentieth century.(Peters, 197)

The development of these “predictive economic” systems would be one of

the major proprietors in stabilizing the USSR’s economic collision. When this

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was proposed to the communist party in 1967 they would be accepted in the

congress but denied by one of the Ministries that would be affected by the

change the Cybernetic network would bring to the country. The greatest

enemy of the Soviet Cybernetician was the multitude of Ministries set up

prior the proposals of these Cybernetic systems. At first these Ministries did

not have a massive effect on the goals of Soviet Cybernetic pursuits. Later

on they had a direct effect on the institution of these networks due to the

issues they would encounter when trying to reform the system of reform

Cyberneticians were trying to impose on the Soviet Union’s way of

conducting economics and accounting. These Ministries are believed to be

the cause for so much strife in the institution of the “Nationwide Cybernetics

Network”.

Benjamin Peters looks into the discussion of the hierarchy of the

communist party over the people of the USSR. He points out that there is

disarray between the types of reformists in the Soviet Union on each side of

the spectrum including liberals and conservative that also was bound in the

decisions made in the Soviet government. It is empirical to gain the

experience of these types of political fields due to the issued they wanted to

uphold during the institution and presentation of these new technologies

upon the Communist system. Liberals of the Soviet party wanted to exercise

their political power by expanding the use of Cybernetics into the communist

frameworks, while the conservatives issued a stalemate by halting the

facilitation of the proposals of these projects. Peters provides his readers

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with valid information of this situation:

…compatibility between hierarchy and flexible networks can be seen in American corporations, industry, and governmental institutions, which remain hierarchical in power structure while becoming

increasingly flattened by networked means of communication. There is no necessary, fundamental incompatibility between networks and hierarchies. They can and do coexist. Their compatibility is especially relevant in the study of networks…(Peters, 202)

The American sect can be directly related to the issue the USSR encountered

when addressing the issue of enhancing their economic infrastructure. When

we visualize the world we live in today in contrast with the world of

Cybernetics fifty to sixty years ago, we can see the variables in each ploy

demonstrated by the hierarchy of government over the corporation. This

ploy is different for the USSR due to the fact that the “corporation” did not

work in the same way it did when it coexisted alongside the capitalist

framework.

Along side the issue of the proposals of these Cyber Networks we can

view the hierarchy of the party and its ministries and their influence upon the

other when displaying their use of power. The proposals (p. 5-7) were

introduced by the Soviet Cyberneticians they always encountered some type

of resistance. Very rarely was it the same group of individuals as well, this

drove the Cyberneticians to create even more complex and ingenious

systems that also created jobs. One of the most interesting parts of the issue

with the institution of these networks was “that institutional and economic

sources of competition internal to the Soviet state explain the collapse of the

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Soviet networks and the delay of the collapse of the Soviet state” (Peters,

203). It was apparent to the Cyberneticians that they were not the only ones

trying to sculpt the communist state into a more advanced and efficient

government. At the same time it can be inferred that there may have been

too many things happening at once in the USSR that took away from the

institution of these networks upon the country. On the contrary, the display

of power by the index of ministries propelled the eventual fall of the Soviet

Union due to the complexity of the way the communist government was set

in place and run.

The Issue of Development and Installation

Many historians and specialists of American and Cold War history recall

the success of Sputnik, and its orbit around the earth. As history is viewed in

terms of progression via technological innovations, the Soviet Union is seen

as the catalyst in the pursuit of technological innovations. The Soviets launch

Sputnik, the Americans put men on the moon, and the first Cybernetics

network is established at MIT. The Soviet Cyberneticians had been

developing and proposing Cybernetic systems since the 1950s to the

communist government and were never able to follow through with their

plan of a “nationwide Cybernetics network.” The travesty of this problem lies

with the way the communists conducted the application of new technological

advancements. The communist system of government really can be

described as a bear, where every time a Cybernetic system came in contact

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with would be beaten down. Strangely enough, the framework of a great

communist environment was unable to conjure into existence a working and

effective Cybernetic system.

Through the window of the Cold War, onto the installation of a

Cybernetic network, it can be inferred that the Americans were able to birth

a successful institutionalized Cybernetic network. At the same time, it can

also be inferred that the Americans failed in the pursuit of a Cybernetic

network that rivaled the Soviet proposals by Glushkov and Kitov, and

Kharkevich. What the Americans had was fairly simple. ARPANET was not by

any means the answer to all the economic issues the U.S. had. It was created

for military use and served its purpose well in the fact that grew into

becoming the basis of which we communicate over the World Wide Web. The

USSR would have liked to establish a network as the Americans had but

Soviet Cyberneticians never got the chance to.

The Soviet Union needed a way to “connect the party to the worker”

what would be able to handle other tasks as well. The Cyberneticians

attempted to put their systems into creation, but failed:

Each of the three Soviet economic cybernetic network projects discussed

in the preceding chapters—Anatoly Kitov’s EASU, Viktor Glushkov’s OGAS,

and Glushkov and Fedorenko’s EGSVTs—faltered in the process of securing administrative approval at the Ministry level. (Peters, 238)

It is shown that the Cyberneticians greatest enemy was the Ministry sect.

Due to the fact that the networks that were proposed to the government

were eventually going to affect theses Ministries in some way, shape, or form

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that they highly disapproved of. The issue of job creation was one of the

main factors in the retraction of these Cyber networks by the Ministries. The

Cyber networks would do the job of a human and replace the worker with

script and wire. This was frowned upon my many of the ministries involved in

accounting, production, and distribution. Peters highlights the initiation of

the political aspects of the Cybernetic struggle:

The Soviet bureaucrats in charge of approving and implementing such economic cybernetic networks regularly struggled with an insoluble tension: on the one hand, there was fierce competition among them to have singular power over such a powerful, comprehensive network; on the other hand, no ministry was willing to cede control over local knowledge, resources, and funds to help a peer ministry, or to approve a superior third-party institution to do the job of centralizing their information resources for them. Thus competition among bureaucrats presented a tremendous obstacle to the approval and implementation of the three aforementioned network projects. Unregulated competition eventually proved fatal to each network proposal. (Peters, 238)

Comparatively speaking, the process by which the communist form of

government was ineffective in the way it was unable to create a national

Cybernetic system. It is a travesty on behalf of the Cyberneticians due to the

fact that is was not even their fault that their government did not approve of

their plans. The issue of Cybernetics lied between Liberals and Conservatives

and the charge of the Ministries who would be affected by these new

technologies.

The comparisons between each type of government can be seen in the

way they handled the introduction of a Cybernetic network. Benjamin Peters

provides interesting insight into the status of these networks:

From this revisionist perspective, it is possible to refresh the mid-century global study of networks with a great irony: the US Internet took

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hold initially on a basis of state subsidy and communitarian activity while the Soviet networks failed in large part due to unregulated competition among bureaucrats. One of the questions this contradiction raises is this: Why is it that the Internet emerged out of capitalists behaving like socialists, and not socialists behaving like capitalists? (Peters, 239)

The question of mixed adaptation of each government’s way of perusing

legislation and acceptance of new technologies can be quite a trivial point in

the Cyber network. Peters goes on to consult the media and the

institutionalized use of networked computing by stating that:

The Cold War history of contemporary information politics has much more to it than the success of American micro computing and the personal computer. In fact digital media today seem useful not only for being personal but for being social or networked. The Cold War history suggests that a few Soviet scientists proposed a nationwide network for broad social use before the US developed the ARPANET, which remained largely for the use of scientists and specialists until commercial enterprises developed software applications of broader interest in the 1980s. A closer look at each of the encounters that unraveled the Soviet network projects helps rethink the traditional divide between socialist support and capitalist competition. (Peters, 238)

Peters addresses this “divide” which exists between the “capitalist

competition” and “socialist support”. This divide is important because it

helps to justify the amount of resistance that stood in the way of

Cyberneticians and their Cybernetic networks. The Americans were able to

create their system because of the way the government was run where the

freedom to pursue a desire was granted and the only thing standing in the

way of creation was that of the creator. When the Soviet Cybernetician

imposed his will upon the country to help further the pursuits of a socialist

government he either never gained enough support or was struck down by

Ministries and the like.

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The main difference between each nation was the use of each system.

In America, the Cybernetics network was developed for communication on

the collegiate level. ARPANET was largely closed off to the American

population and used by private institutions. Where as the Soviet Cybernetic

networks were developed to be able to handle massive amounts of data (for

the time) and provide a personalized approach by allowing the citizens of the

USSR to interface with the network. One of Glushkov’s peers commented on

his pursuits:

‘“Glushkov’s monumental efforts constantly ran into a wall of indifference, misunderstanding, and at times, animosity in the top echelons of the command-administrative system.’” (Peters, 241-242)

Even when every problem in accounting and information transfer could be

complied and the answer so many issues in the socialist framework could be

answered by a Cybernetic network; there was some type of resistance

encountered by Cyberneticians like Glushkov. Glushkov made sure to edit his

proposal so it benefited the entire socialist system as well as solve the issues

that were currently holding the communist framework away from its goals.

Provided that the proposal would be looked at even twice was a difficult task

when it came down to issuing the installation of a socialized Cybernetic

network. In time, this “disconnect” would end up being one of the largest

hiccups the Soviet Union would encounter prior to the fall of communism in

the late 1980s.

Further reading into the establishment of a Cybernetic network shows

that there exists disconnect in the ability of the socialist government in its

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ability to create. There is stark evidence suggesting, “while the Soviets

excelled in theory, the American excelled in [the] practice” (Peters, 264) of

coming into realization of a Cybernetic network. The Soviet Union was able

to theoretically compile an intricate design for a functional Cybernetic

network that would work along side the worker and the Communist

hierarchy. Cyberneticians wanted to set the systems up with goals in their

creation so that they would function in conjunction with the goals of

Communist Russia. It had been proven that “despite repeated attempts, the

Soviet Union never built a functioning nationwide computer network for

civilian purposes.” (Peters, 264) On the other hand, the Americans were in

theory behind in the field of vision for a nationwide Cybernetic network. It is

interesting to see the differentiation between the theory and application of

these networks. If the Soviet Union were able to create the vision of

Glushkov into a reality, then the Soviets would have been progressively

further along in the technological advancement of Cybernetics upon their

nation.

A Cybernetician’s Struggle

The major proprietors of the Soviet Union’s Cybernetic imposition upon

the socialist system were able to take their proposals past the proposal

stage. Kharkevich, Glushkov, Kitov, and Fedorenko were able to create

proposals that felt and sounded good to the hierarchy of the Soviet Union. It

was not until the Ministries got wind of what was happening and decided to

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not allow these systems to pass into fruition. This is the main reason the

Russian Cyberneticians had such a troublesome existence inside the Soviet

Union. Peters points out that the:

Soviets faltered not due to a lack of practice but because of a superabundance of theory. The Soviets were not only good at theory—in the case of the cyber networks; they were too good at theory. Their network-economy analogies were too formal. With the tight coupling of network and economic models, Soviet economic cybernetics sought to eliminate the flows of informal information from the Soviet economy, while promoting in its place a hyper-rationalist vision of the correspondence of society and technology… Yet it was those very interests that rebelled against the Soviet networks, thus ensuring that the hubris of the cybernetic theory would remain frustrated. (Peters, 264-265)

As the Soviet Cybernetician set out to create his network, he had to take into

consideration the terms by which society and economy played a part in the

functionality of the network. This deemed the task of a Cybernetic network to

be not crucial for the Soviet Unions myriad of would-be affected Ministries.

The Soviet Cybernetic community would have to counteract many things

that made the USSR they way it represented itself. The question of why is

often associated with the creation of a national Cybernetic network of which

served as a beneficiary to the socialist community. When the communist

framework is stripped away there is still a population of Russians who take

pride in their nationality and national image. One of the major factors in the

introduction of a socialized Cybernetic network imposed onto the Soviet

Union can be viewed as:

The most commonplace hypothesis for why the Soviet Union did not develop a nationwide network may be called the technological backwardness explanation: that the Soviet Union simply lacked the general technical aptitude and technological sophistication to develop a

29

nationwide network. By the 1960s, the Soviets had fallen several years behind the competitive edge of computer design and hardware performance. Peripherals (screens, keyboards, printers, etc.) were hard to come by and often incompatible with different computer models. Certainly one cannot be surprised that a partially electrified country that did not produce a decent automobile or dishwasher would also have not produced a network of interconnected computers. (Peters, 265)

With the inference of “technological backwardness” in mind it is easy to see

why a system of similar caliber was never put into production by the Soviet

Union. I do believe Peters is a little bit harsh on the terms of accusation by

which he presents in this dynamic, but at the same time, many historians

can impale the USSR for its insubordination and technological slog in the

creation of a glorious Cybernetics network. There is reason to believe that

through the means of production by which the USSR was built upon, that a

project of this size would not be easily placed into fruition. At the same time,

the Cyberneticians who tried to create this new technological jump may have

overstepped or mistaken the industrial might of the Soviet Union.

Through the vast resistance of each proposal upon the socialist system,

Cybernetic community still persisted on trying to enhance their country

through a Cybernetic network. Eventually a stalemate occurred between

different sectors of the government, especially in the hierarchy of congress

and the Ministries. Liberals felt a need to address and unleash the

technological advancements made by the Cybernetic community in order to

help solve the economic and financial issues the Soviet Union was wrestling

with. Conservatives wanted to see a system where there was not a massive

spending spree on new technologies which existed only in theory and were

30

not practiced but preached. They (conservatives) felt the technology was “up

in the air” and far ahead of its time. Over the years different Soviet leaders

would look to the Cybernetic community for guidance and help, yet they

never would gain the support of the conservatives, and if they did they would

hit a wall when addressing the Ministries. Of the many factors that affected

the induction of a Cybernetic network upon the country, it would be the

country itself which served as its own enemy.

Conclusion: великие творцы – The Great Creators

In conclusion, it can be inferred that the Communist framework had

many issues when addressing the application of Cybernetics. It can also be

inferred that Soviet Russia proved to be triumphant in theory over their

American counterpart in the creation of a Socialized Cybernetic network. The

abundance of theory that flows in the “veins” of the Soviet Cybernetic

community still have a direct affect on the world we live in. It has been

shown that with time, persistence presides over the application in the field of

technological advancement in the field of Cybernetics. At the same time, the

epitome of Cybernetics can be viewed in the framework of American

Cybernetics via the creation of ARPANET. In the plight of the creation of this

Cybernetic network, the framework of a capitalist government proved to be

triumphant over that of the Soviet Union’s communist framework.

Eventually the issues that were addressed and never dealt with by the

Soviet Union ended up being the death of it. The issues addressed at the

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time Soviet Cyberneticians like Kitov, Glushkov, Kharkevich, and Fedorenko

were trying to tackle the massive amounts of excess in production, loss of

materials, and financial shambles that plagued the country. Cyberneticians

wanted to practice what they preached, but never were given the

opportunity to show what they wanted to accomplish. Benjamin Peters points

out the characteristics of this downfall:

Yet in each of these cases of early excellence, sustained economic development and improvement of the technology proved elusive and innovation gave way to stagnation he largest producer of oil, steel, cement, and machine tools in the world, the Soviet Union experienced significant drops in industrial growth rates in the 1970s which eventually led Gorbachev to initiate reforms in the 1980s. In Gorkii, the same equipment installed in the 1930s was being used in the 1970s; Magnitogorsk stagnated into a rust belt without peer; the nuclear power plants degraded until, in contrast with the relatively contained disaster on Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979, the Soviet Union was also the first to face the worst nuclear power plant disaster that took place at Chernobyl, over 100 km north of Kiev, Ukraine in 1986. (Peters, 270-271)

Eventually, the institution of a Cybernetics network proved to be one of the

major factors that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. The collection

of the diabolical forms of resistance that Cybernetics encountered in the

Soviet Union only attributed directly to the collapse of the soviet economy,

as well as the fall of the communist party.

Even thought the Soviet Cyberneticians tried to conquer the issues the

party was currently dealing with they were able to establish their place in the

history of Cybernetics. The most important piece of literature that can be

drawn from the process by which Soviet Cyberneticians took to solve the

issues they were addressing when creating the proposals for Cybernetic

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systems was that of the persistence and resilience to denial. The bravery

displayed when addressing the party must be the most important piece of

the development of Soviet Cybernetics. It is a travesty to the technology that

the installation never occurred due to the fact that communism was not the

correct environment for this type of technology and that a capitalist setting

proved to out perform in the application of a Cybernetics network.

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Bibliography

Peters, Benjamin. “From Cybernetics To Cyber Networks: Norbert Weiner And The Soviet

Internet In Cold War Contexts.” Diss. Colombia University, 2010. PDF.

Gerovitch, Slava. Internyet: why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network.

London, Taylor & Frances Publishers, 2008

Hafner, Katie. Where Wizards Stay Up Late. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996

Umpleby, Stuart . A History of Cybernetics in the United States. Washington, DC, 2005

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