Of the Cold War: Soviet Computing, American Cybernetics and Ideological Disputes in the Early 1950S Author(S): Slava Gerovitch Source: Social Studies of Science, Vol

'Mathematical Machines' of the Cold War: Soviet Computing, American Cybernetics and Ideological Disputes in the Early 1950s Author(s): Slava Gerovitch Source: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 31, No. 2, Science in the Cold War (Apr., 2001), pp. 253- 287 Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3183114 . Accessed: 12/04/2013 07:13

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This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions S S S Special Issue: Sciencein theCold War

ABSTRACTSoviet science in the post-WWIIperiod was tornbetween two contradictorydirectives: to 'overtakeand surpass'Western science, especially in defence-relatedfields; and to 'criticizeand destroy'Western scholarship for its alleged ideologicalflaws. In responseto thisdilemma, Soviet scientists developed two oppositediscursive strategies. While some scholars'ideologized' science, translating scientifictheories into a value-ladenpolitical language, others tried to 'de-ideologize' it bydrawing a sharpline betweenideology and the supposedlyvalue-neutral, 'objective'content of science.This paper examines how earlySoviet computing was shaped bythe interplayof militaryand ideologicalforces, and affectedby the attemptsto 'de-ideologize'computers. The paperalso suggestssome important similaritiesin the impactof the Cold Waron scienceand technologyin the Soviet Unionand the UnitedStates.

Keywords computers,ideology, military technology, Russia, Soviet Union

'Mathematical Machines' of the Cold War: Soviet Computing,American Cybernetics and IdeologicalDisputes in the Early 1950s Slava Gerovitch

In March 1954, researchersof the MathematicalInstitute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow were preparinga comprehensivebook- lengthsurvey of the entiremathematical discipline, Mathematics, Its Con- tent,Methods, and Meaning.An Institute-wide'philosophy seminar', whose missionwas to instilthe rightideological principlesinto the researchers' minds,held a special session devotedto the discussionof a draftintroduc- tion to the book. One of the discussantsdisplayed heightened ideological vigilance,and proposed that the introductionshould de-emphasize the contributionsof American mathematicians.'There is no progressivesci- ence or progressivemusic in Americanow', he argued:'They have luredin a numberof scientistsfrom all over the world,and now barelymanage to maintaintheir military potential. We will not promoteAmerican mathematics'.' Anotherseminar participant voiced a differentopinion. 'There are some progressive-mindedpeople [in America],and one should not lump them together with the Wall Street', he said: 'A great majority of American mathematicianshave come out of the ordinaryfolk and do not represent the American monopolisticbourgeoisie'.2 The question of how to treat science produced by a Cold-War enemy - as a value-neutralbody of

Social Studiesof Science 31/2(April 2001) 253-287 ? SSS and SAGE Publications(London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi) [0306-3127(200104)31:2;253-287;0 19098]

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 254 Social Studies of Science 31/2 knowledgeor as an ideologicalTrojan horse- acquired centralimportance in Soviet public discourse on American science in the earlyyears of the Cold War. Historiansof Sovietscience and technologyhave long struggledto find propercategories of analysisfor the post-WWII period. On the one hand, thisperiod was marredby viciouspublic attackson Sovietintellectuals in a series of vociferousideological campaignsagainst 'idealism', 'formalism', 'cosmopolitanism'and 'kowtowingbefore the West'. Those campaigns destroyedpersonal careers and closed whole areas of research;in a number of disciplines,the most dogmatictrends prevailed, imposing narrow con- ceptualframeworks and stiflingcreative thought. This promptedAlexander Vucinichto describeit as a period ofthe 'triumph of ideology' over science, and to portraySoviet science as a victimof 'totalitarian'control by the StalinistParty/state apparatus.3 On the otherhand, thiswas also an era of genuinetriumph for Soviet science and technology.As Paul Josephsonhas observed,in the post-warperiod large-scaleindustrial and construction projectsaimed at fulfillingStalin's ambitious plan of the 'greattransforma- tionof nature' mushroomed, and the countrycelebrated an unprecedented 'cult' of science and technology.4It was during this period that Soviet scientistsbuilt the firstSoviet atomic and hydrogenbombs. David Hollo- wayargues that closed defencelaboratories served as 'islands of intellectual autonomy', where political controls were relaxed, and scientistscould freelyexchange ideas.5 Loren Graham agrees that science sometimes provided a refugefrom the harsh realityof Stalinism,but he puts the emphasison the tremendousamount of fundingand governmentsupport for science and technologyunder Stalin, concluding provocativelythat moneyappeared to be more importantthan freedomfor the successes of Soviet science.6 While some historianstake for granted a fundamentalconflict between the Soviet scientificcommunity and the Party/statebureaucracy, others stressvarious forms of ideologicalaccommodation, pragmatic cooperation, and even institutionalintegration of the two groups. Mark Adams inter- prets Soviet ideologynot as an essentialset of Marxist beliefs,but as a flexiblelanguage of negotiationbetween the Party,the government,and the scientists.7Nikolai Krementsovargues that the 'controlapparatus and the scientificcommunity became fused not only in their overlapping organizationalstructures and networks,but also . . . in a commonand quite peculiarset of sharedimages, rituals, and rhetoric',which resulted in their 'culturalunification'.8 Alexei Kojevnikovemphasizes the gradual diffusion of culturalnorms from Party life into science, as Soviet scientistsadapted to the regime. They began to play 'games of intrapartydemocracy', reproducingpublic rituals of 'criticismand self-criticism',and framing politicaldenunciations as 'creativediscussions' of scholarlymatters. In this situation,politics affectsscience via the subtle mechanismof discursive domination,rather than throughdirect administrative pressure.9 Differencesin interpretationalso arise when historianstake one of the two moststudied disciplines - physicsor biology- as theparadigmatic case

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & SovietComputing 255 forthe restof Soviet science and technology.The notorious1948 triumph of the ignoramusTrofim Lysenko in Soviet biology usually serves as an epitome of the 'ideologization'of Soviet science. On the otherhand, the case of Soviet physics,which in 1949 produced the firstSoviet atomic bomb and avoided a Lysenko-styleideological pogrom, is ofteninterpreted as an indicationthat the Sovietleadership held a ratherpragmatic attitude, and attached the highestpriority to 'overtakingand surpassing',rather thancriticizing, Western science. Krementsovexplains the differentfates of biology and physicsby theirrelative value with respectto the Cold War priorities,'0while Kojevnikov refersto 'physicists'skill - or luck - in playing the political games of Stalinism';"1Josephson also maintains that post-war'dramatic reversals of fortunewere part and parcel of the arbitraryStalinist system, and not merely aspects of the Cold War situation'.12 This paper is devoted to Soviet computing,which providesan inter- estingborderline case betweendefence-related physics and ideology-laden biology.The earlyhistory of Soviet computingaptly illustrates both the direct consequences of the Cold War in the form of militarizationof research,and its more subtle intellectualand culturalinfluences. Both in the United States and in the Soviet Union, computersemerged as direct productsof military-sponsoredresearch, and became vital componentsof weapons systems.'3The militaryimportance of computing suggests a stronganalogy with physics,but the situationwas not so simple. In the United States,the popular perceptionof computerswas largelyshaped by cyberneticman-machine analogies: computerswere seen as 'giantbrains', while human behaviour, conversely,was often interpretedwithin the frameworkof calculation,manipulation and control.14 In the SovietUnion, in contrast,cybernetics came under vicious attackin the wave of public campaigns aimed at eliminatingWestern ideological influences.Soviet computingwas shaped by theinterplay of the two conflictingmotifs, and in this sense may reflectgeneral trends in post-war Soviet science and technology. I examinethe historyof earlySoviet computingthrough the prismof discursivestrategies of 'ideologization'and 'de-ideologization'elaborated by Soviet scientistsand engineersin the contextof the Cold War. These strategiesare interpretedhere as both rhetoricaland conceptual devices developed by scientiststhemselves in an effortto formulateand advance their research agenda withinthe particularideological discourse of the early 1950s. Althoughit is possible to view these strategiesas 'political games of Stalinism',I argue thatthe rules of these games were to a large extentdetermined by the Cold War. First,I analysehow Soviet scientiststried to balance the chiefmilitary and ideologicalpriorities for Cold War science - to 'overtakeand surpass' science in the capitalistcountries, and to 'criticizeand destroy'Western scholarshipfor its alleged ideological flaws.In particular,I discuss their strategyof drawinga boundarybetween the 'objectivecontent' of scientific knowledgeand its philosophicalmeaning. Ideological disputesof the early

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1950s can thus be viewed not only as a clash of competingphilosophical and ideologicalinterpretations of particulartheories, but also as a contest overthe exact positionof the boundarybetween science and ideology. Then I discuss how the Sovietperception of computerswas shaped by the tension between the drive to emulate American computingand the ideological controversyover cyberneticman-computer analogies. Amer- ican computer advances became the subject of intense scrutiny,eager imitationand ideological critique,all at the same time. To resolve this tension, in the early 1950s Soviet computer specialistsresorted to the discursivestrategy of 'de-ideologization',distancing computing from cybernetics.This had profoundintellectual consequences, such as limiting the field of computeruses to mathematicalphysics, and eliminatingthe prospectsof biologicaland sociologicalmodelling. The ideological barrierswere reinforcedby militaryrestrictions. The high demands placed on Soviet computing by the three top-priority defenceprogrammes - nuclearweapons, ballistic missiles, and anti-missile defence- leftlittle room for civilianapplications. At the same time, the tendencytoward pervasive military secrecy came into contradictionwith the ideologicaltask of exploitingthe political'display value' of computers. Ratherthan being guided by a singleprinciple, the developmentof Soviet computingwas shaped by various attemptsto manipulatethese diverse priorities.Lke itsAmerican counterpart, Soviet computing adapted to the militaryand ideological contextof the Cold War, even thoughthe particular configurationof politicaland economic forcesat play was differentin each case. In my Conclusion, I draw some generalparallels betweenAmerican and Soviet science in the early years of the Cold War. Instead of con- ceptualizingthe Cold War as a clash of ideologies,I compare discursive strategiesdeveloped by scientistson both sides of the Atlantic.While the SovietUnion and the United Stateswere declaring irreconcilable ideological differences,my analysisindicates some importantsimilarities between the discursivestrategies employed by scientistsin both countries.This leads me to suggestthat post-warSoviet science, oftenlabelled 'Stalinist science' and seen as a unique productof a 'totalitarian'regime, might be betterunderstood as a varietyof Cold War science.

Balancing Military and Ideological Priorities for Cold War Science In September1950, MikhailLavrent'ev, director of the Instituteof Precise Mechanics and ComputerTechnology in Moscow, told his subordinates that Soviet computinglagged behind the Americansby 10-15 years. He showed photos of a new high-speedAmerican computer built formilitary purposes.15 'Our task is clear', he said:

Within 5 years we must catch up with foreigncountries.... We must eliminatethe lag in high-speeddigital computers.... I am confidentthat

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our Institutewill not betray the trust of theGovernment and Comrade Stalin,and willovertake and surpassforeign countries.'6

'Overtakingand surpassing'American computing did not appear to be the only mission of the Institute,however. In December 1952, one of the leaders of the Institute'sParty organization formulated another responsi- bilityfor his colleagues: One of the mostimportant tasks of our [Soviet]academic institutions, includingour Institute,is the eliminationof metaphysicsand idealism fromscience. A deep reconstructionhas occurredin thesocial sciences, physiology,and biology. Metaphysics and idealism in thenatural, physical and mathematicalsciences cannot be toleratedand mustbe weeded out.17

Soviet scientistswere thus tornbetween two competingslogans: 'Overtake and Surpass!' and 'Criticizeand Destroy!' (in the discussionbelow, I will referto these as the 'first'and 'second' slogans). Presented with such divergentpriorities, Soviet computerspecialists now had to figureout a way to catch up withAmerican computing, but not to fallunder the spell of alien ideologicalinfluences. In the murkywaters of Cold War politics, Soviet scientistsand engineerswere caught between the Scylla of national defence and the Charybdis of ideological purity.On the one hand, followingthe first slogan,they were instructed to catch up withthe West, particularly in such vital areas as nuclear physics and rocketry.In February 1946, Stalin personallyformulated the chiefpriority for Soviet scientists:'not only to overtakebut to surpass in the near futurethe achievementsof science beyondthe bordersof our country'.'8But on the otherhand, followingthe second slogan,Party ideologues urged them to treatWestern scholarship as 'idealisticand reactionary'.In March 1949, the Politburoset the ideological prioritiesfor the new, second editionof the GreatSoviet Encyclopedia, urgingthe authorsto 'criticizefrom the Partyposition modern bourgeois trendsin science and technology'.'9In May 1952, the Academy of Sci- ences Instituteof Philosophypromised 'to criticizeand destroyall reac- tionaryphilosophical trends that appear in bourgeoiscountries under new, modishnames and spread the propaganda of a new war'.20 Soviet scientistsand engineersfaced a fundamentaldilemma. Western science stood as a yardstickagainst which Soviet scientificprogress was measured, though the same Westernscience was also branded in public discourse as a source of alien ideology.Both prioritiesfeatured promin- entlyin Soviet public discourse.This createdpermanent unresolved ten- sions and considerable confusion.To 'overtake and surpass' Western science,Soviet scientistsneeded to borrowWestern knowledge; but ifthey borrowed,they could be accused of 'kowtowing'before the West. Dis- regardingthe latestWestern trends, on the otherhand, could be seen as a deliberateattempt to slow down Soviet science. As David Joravskyhas written:'The need to overtakeand surpass the West coexisted with the need to stop kowtowingto theWest, each inflamingthe other'.21

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Soviet discourseon Westernscience thus became saturatedwith para- doxes. Soviet authorsoften dismissed a Western-bornscientific theory as bourgeoisnonsense, and in the same breathclaimed national priorityin elaboratingthe very same theory.The Soviet leadership,distrustful of Sovietscientists, tended to supportscientific and technologicalinnovations onlyif they were recognized in theWest. At the same time,Western reports were oftenregarded as a source of false informationintended to mislead Sovietscientists and put themon thewrong track; it was assumed thatif an idea were reallyworthy, it would not be advertisedin the open press. In the fragmentedand contradictoryideological discourseof the late Stalinistperiod, there was no generalrule forpolitically correct behaviour. In everyparticular situation, Soviet scientistshad to choose betweenthe two alternativeslogans and approaches.But thiswas not simplya choice of rhetoric:it implied a radical change in theirvision of science, and had profound epistemologicalimplications. Those choosing the second ap- proach viewedknowledge as ideologicalall the way through,and therefore regardedany scientifictheory born in a capitalistsociety as, by definition, an expression of 'reactionary,imperialist ideology'. In contrast,those adoptingthe firstapproach did not regardWestern science as an ideological threat:they assumed that scientificknowledge was 'objective',value- neutral,and universalacross politicalborders. The second slogan was takenup by the supportersof Trofim Lysenko in biology,who discardedmuch of contemporaryWestern knowledge and attemptedto build a distinct,ideologically superior socialist science. In July1948, Lysenko deliveredhis infamousaddress, 'On the Situationin BiologicalScience', in whichhe contrastedtwo 'opposing and antagonistic' trendsin biology. One trend,Western-born 'Weismannism-Mendelism- Morganism', which underpinnedmodern genetics,he labelled unscien- tific,idealistic, metaphysical, reactionary, scholastic, feeble and sterile.As a healthyalternative, Lysenko put forwardhis own doctrine,a variationon the Lamarckianidea of the inheritanceof acquired characteristics,which he praised as trulyscientific, materialistic, creative, productive and progressive.Caught in a fiercebattle for control over Soviet biological research and educational institutions,Lysenko painted his opponents,Soviet ge- neticistsand evolutionarybiologists, as enemies of Soviet ideology.He stressedthe Westernorigins of theirwork, attacked the 'Morganists' for theiralleged philosophicaland ideological errors,and attached political labels to his opponents.22 Stalinpersonally edited Lysenko's address, bringing its rhetoricin line withthe ideologicalpriorities of the unfoldingCold War. Initially,Lysenko relied on the criterionof class to divide science into the 'Soviet' and 'bourgeois' kinds; this principle,popular among Soviet Marxists in the 1920s and 1930s, was by thencompletely obsolete. DuringWorldWar II, it was supplanted by the thesis that internationalscience was a unified enterprise,which reflectedthe spiritof wartimecooperation between the Allies. But the advent of the Cold War invalidatedthis thesis,too. Stalin went scrupulouslyover Lysenko's manuscriptand replaced the obsolete

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 259 referencesto 'bourgeois' scientifictheories with the terms'idealistic' and 'reactionary';he also substituted'scientific' for'Soviet' biology.23Stalin's revisionssignalled a discursiveturn from class-based analysisof science to the concept of 'two worlds - two ideologies in science', much more relevantto the tasksof Cold War propaganda. An alternativeapproach towardWestern science, based on the Party's firstslogan, was pursued by Soviet defence physicistsconcerned with closingthe 'nuclear gap'. The atomicbomb, then the most potentsymbol of politicaland militarypower, effectively rendered legitimacy to Western physicsin the eyes of Soviet officials.This may have played a decisiverole in resolving an ideological controversyover quantum mechanics and relativitytheory, stimulated by the institutionalconflict between two groups of physicistsfrom the Academy of Sciences and fromMoscow University.In 1949, the Academy physicistsreportedly prevented an ideological pogrom in physicsby claimingthe importanceof theseWest- ern-borntheories for the constructionof nuclearweapons. The University physicists,who chose to trumpetthe second slogan, found that their ideological argumentshad littleweight against the bomb.24The relation- ship betweenscience and ideologyin the post-warperiod was not fixed;it variedfrom discipline to disciplineand was oftenhotly contested.

ShiftingBoundaries Between Knowledge and Ideology The followersof the two oppositeapproaches developed distinct discursive strategiesto legitimizetheir views of the relationshipbetween knowledge and ideology.Both groups drew on Marxist theorybut evoked different aspects of it, and playedon the complexityand inconsistencyof the Soviet interpretationof Marxistphilosophy of science.This interpretationpara- doxicallycombined social constructivism(science as a product of socio- economic and politicalforces) with scientific realism (science as objective truthabout nature).25 The firstgroup, best representedby Lysenko and his followers,attempted to 'ideologize' science by translatingscientific theories into an explicitlyideological language. They rendered their own theories into Marxistphilosophical and politicalterms; the theoriesof theiropponents, in turn,were identifiedwith all sorts of philosophicaland political devi- ationsfrom Marxism. The 'ideologizers'rigorously traced their opponents' viewsto Western-bornscientific theories, associated them with alien ideology, and made them an easy targetfor destructive ideological attacks.It was preciselythis type of discourse that prompted historians to speak of the essential'ideologization' of Soviet science in the late Stalinistperiod. The second groupaspired to 'de-ideologize'science by insistingon the value-neutral,impartial character of scientificknowledge. They ingeniously splitWestern scientific theories into two presumably independent parts: the ideologicallyneutral, objective 'core', and the ideology-ladenphilosophical 'shell'. The 'de-ideologizers'tried to rescue whatthey saw as the 'essential' elementsof Western theories, while sacrificingonly the 'dispensable' ones.

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They freelyand destructivelycriticized the latter,while safely adopting and furtherdeveloping the former.The 'de-ideologization'strategy gradually shaped a popular image of science as a centaur with a solid body of scientificfacts and a manifestlypolitical face, socialistor capitalist. In the early1950s, mathematicianAleksandr Aleksandrov clearly outlined the 'de-ideologization'strategy in a series of articlesin the popular magazine Priroda(Nature). He drew a sharp line betweenthe 'objective content' and the 'philosophicalinterpretation' of scientifictheories, and claimedthat the contentof scientificknowledge was 'independentfrom the social systemor ideology'; it was only the general culturalmeaning of scientificideas that bore an 'imprintof society'sideology'.26 The same mathematicaltheory, Aleksandrov argued, would receive differentphilo- sophical interpretationsin differentideological contexts. He admittedthat mathematicsin bourgeois societies was in deep ideological crisis. In particular,he condemnedHilbert's formalism and Brouwer'sintuitionism as two varietiesof mathematicalidealism, which 'detach mathematicsfrom materialreality, from practice'.27 He explainedthat, in theirsearch for the foundationsof mathematics,the formalistsrelied on logical consistency, and the intuitionistson the mathematician'spersonal intuition.Soviet mathematicians,in contrast,were armed withthe postulatesof dialectical materialism,verified mathematical truths with practice, and were thus protectedfrom philosophical errors.Therefore, while 'idealistic perver- sions' led to the crisis of mathematicsin bourgeois societies, Soviet mathematicswas ideologicallysafe. 'In a socialistsociety, a crisisof science is impossible',Aleksandrov declared, 'since Marxism - the ideology of socialism- is a scientificideology and therefore,by its own nature,must be in harmonywith the objectivecontent of science'.28He concluded that, despite the idealistic interpretationsof mathematicallogic in the West, Soviet mathematiciansshould furtherdevelop the 'objective content' of formalmathematical logic and formalcalculi, since formallogical con- sistencywas the basis of thepower of mathematical theories as instruments of science.29 In their defence of quantum mechanics and relativitytheory from ideological critique, the Academy physicistsalso resorted to the 'de- ideologization'strategy. They insisted,for example, on the mathematical correctnessof the uncertaintyprinciple, but distancedthemselves from the controversialCopenhagen interpretation.At the same time, theyworked hard to elaborate an acceptable philosophicalinterpretation of quantum mechanicsto bringit intoharmony with dialectical materialism.30 The 'de- ideologization' strategyalso profoundlyinfluenced contemporary Soviet writingson the historyof science and technology.3' Differentauthors not only offeredcompeting philosophical and ideological interpretations,but also disputedthe exactposition of the boundary between scientificknowledge and ideology.For example,the location of the physicalprinciple of complementaritywas hotlycontested. Militant philosophersclaimed that this principle was part of the 'philosophical interpretation',and thus belonged to their professionaldomain; they

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 261 arguedthat this principle was 'idealistic',and thereforefalse. The Academy physicists,on the otherhand, triedto presentcomplementarity as part of the core theory,and offeredan alternativematerialistic interpretation. The boundary between the scientific'core' and the ideological 'shell' was constantlyshifting back and forth,depending on who was drawingit.32 Remapping science - drawinga boundary between knowledgeand ideology - was not only an epistemologicaltask: it was also a political activity.It effectivelydelineated the spheresof authoritybetween scientists and non-scientists,politicians and professionalideologues. Throughout Soviet history,these spheres were redefinedmany times, and epistemo- logical boundariesredrawn accordingly. The relativeintellectual autonomy of scientistsin the early Soviet period was followed by the increasing involvementof politicians,government officials, and philosophersin resolving scientificdisputes during the Stalin era.33 Depending on the position of their Party and governmentpatrons, competinggroups of scientists constantlyshifted this knowledge/ideologyboundary, trying eitherto inviteor to preventthe authorities'intervention. Because of the inherenttensions in post-warpolitics, this boundary could neverbe fixed. Perhapsall sides had a stakein maintainingthis discursive flexibility, for it allowed themsubstantial room to manoeuvre. Drawing a boundarybetween knowledgeand ideologyin the fieldof computingproved particularlycomplicated, since the validityof various uses of computersfor calculation,control, communication and scientific modellingwas contestedby diversegroups of hardwareengineers, mathematicians,psychologists and philosophers.The computerradically trans- formedthe conventionaldivisions between disciplines, blurring the boundaries betweenscience and engineering,theory and experiment,and reality and simulation.34The computer,'an amalgam of technologicaldevice and mathematicalconcept',35 undermined the traditionaldiscursive categories and placed a difficultchoice beforeSoviet computerspecialists.

Defining the Soviet Computer The historyof Soviet computingin the earlyyears of the Cold War fully reflectedthe tension between the practical goal of developingmodern sophisticatedweapons and the ideologicalurge to combat alien influences. Reportsabout militaryuses of earlydigital computers in the USA playeda dual discursiverole in a Soviet context.On the one hand, theyattracted serious attentionfrom Soviet defence scientistsand the military,and helped Soviet computinggain substantialsupport from top Party and governmentofficials. On the other,Soviet ideologistsfound the idea of buildingelectronic, remotely controlled automatic weapons to be a salient expressionofWestern imperialist ideology. The controversialdiscussions of man-computeranalogies and the debates about 'thinkingmachines' in the Westadded an aura of ideologicalsuspicion to the Sovietimage ofWestern computing.In the early 1950s, those issues were also the focus of a large- scale campaignagainst cybernetics in the Sovietpopular press. In the end,

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Soviet computerspecialists finessed these problems by constructingan imaginaryboundary that was supposed to separate computertechnology fromideology. The firstreports about electronicstored-program digital computers designedand builtin Britainand the United States in the 1940s attracted great attentionfrom Soviet mathematiciansand physicistsworking on defenceprojects that required large amounts of computation.In 1946, the main Soviet mathematicaljournal Advancesin MathematicalSciences devoted a special double issue to 'mathematicalmachinery'. The issue featuredtwo surveyarticles and two translationsfrom English, including VannevarBush's account of his differentialanalyser.36 Although this first publicationwas devoted exclusivelyto analogue computing,a briefnote aboutWestern advances in electronicdigital computing soon appeared.37A completeoutline of the stored-programconcept was extractedfrom open Westernsources and publishedin Advancesin 1949.38 Additionalinformation on Westerncomputing may have come through intelligencechannels. Collecting information on Americanmilitary scientificand technologicalprojects, along withpolitical espionage, was one of the chiefpriorities of Soviet foreignintelligence. One formerintelligence officerattached to the Soviet consulatein New Yorkhas recentlyrevealed that in 1942-46 he obtained over 20,000 pages of classifieddocuments fromseven agentsworking at the plantsand laboratoriesof RCA, Western Electric, Westinghouse,General Electric, and two aircraftcompanies, which held militarycontracts. The documents contained scientificand technical informationon radar, sonar, computers,and other electronic equipment.39 Soviet defenceresearchers quickly translated their practical need for powerfulcomputing machinery into the politicallanguage of 'overtaking and surpassing'Western science. In October 1947, Mikhail Lavrent'ev- the leadingexpert in mathematicalmodelling of explosions- appealed to a generalmeeting of the SovietAcademy of Sciences to close the gap in the area of computing,or 'machine mathematics',where the Soviet Union riskedfalling behind the West. 'While in thebasic branchesof mathematics [in the last 30 years] we have caught up with and in many areas even surpassedWestern mathematics', he said, 'withrespect to machinemathematics we must exert much greater efforts'.Lavrent'ev proposed the foundationof a specializedinstitute for applied mathematicsand computer technology.40 Taking American computingas the standard for imitationhad important ideological ramifications.The firstAmerican electronicdigital computerswere developed in close collaborationbetween militarycon- tractorsand privateenterprises, and subsequentlymade a quick transition from militarycomputation and control to business applications.4'The culturalperception of computersas 'giant brains', vehiclesof large-scale industrialautomation, and harbingersof the 'second industrialrevolution' was fosteredin theUnited Statesby the wide spread of cyberneticideas. In 1948, Americanmathematician Norbert Wiener introduced these ideas to

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 263 a broad audience in his seminal book Cybernetics,or Controland Com- municationin theAnimal and theMachine. Cyberneticianscompared the human brain to the electronicdigital computer both structurallyand functionally,drawing parallels between thinking and computation,between human memoryand computerstorage, and betweenthe all-or-noneprin- ciple of operation of neurons and the yes-or-nopositions of computer elements.More generally,they postulated negative feedback, used in such control devices as servomechanisms,as the fundamentalmechanism of self-regulationin human physiologyand society.42Many of the keycyber- netic ideas grew out of wartimemilitary research projects in which feedback devices were constructedto performthe functionsof control and communication.Despite Wiener'spersonal pacifist stand afterHiroshima, his ideas were quicklyappropriated by the military,while his populariza- tion of cyberneticsfacilitated general acceptance of thepatterns of military control and communication as models for a wide range of human activities.43 Americancybernetics bore a distinctcultural imprint of the Cold War and itselfbecame a vehicleof Cold War discourse.When defencescientists conceptualizedthe world as an arena of violentconfrontation, they effec- tivelycircumscribed other formsof knowledgeand alternativevisions of the world.44In particular,as PeterGalison has argued,cybernetics, opera- tions research and game theorymade militaryconflict a model for our interactionwith the world.45As Paul Edwards has shown, the cultural imageryof computers(or the 'cyborgdiscourse') embodied in integrated human-machine systemsand artificialintelligence devices, was closely associated with the 'closed-worlddiscourse', which reflectedideological stereotypesof the Cold War. Reified in militarycommand-and-control systems,the two discoursesintertwined to forma visionof thepolitical and social world as a closed, computablesystem subject to manipulationand control.46 In the early1950s, Americancybernetics, with its militarybackground and ideologicallydubious man-machine parallels, became a prominent targetfor those Soviet scholarswho chose a 'criticizeand destroy'strategy. Tryingto fulfiltheir obligations as professional'soldiers of the ideological front',several journalists,philosophers and psychologistsviciously attacked cyberneticsin leading Soviet academic journals and popular press. Following ready-madeprecepts for the ongoing campaign against 'reactionary and idealistic' Western science, they labelled cybernetics 'mechanistic' (for allegedly reducing social and biological phenomena to mechanicalprocesses) and 'idealistic' (forpostulating the existenceof non-materialentities such as information,and replacingreality with math- ematicalformulae). They also branded cybernetics'reactionary' (for aim- ing to replaceclass-conscious human workers with obedient machines) and 'imperialistic'(for serving the goals of theWestern military establishment by helpingto build automatic,remotely controlled weapons). Cybernetics was portrayedas a form of imperialistideology, and man-computer analogies were regarded as philosophicallydeficient and ideologically

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 264 Social Studies of Science 31/2 harmful.Ironically, the Soviet varietyof the Cold War 'closed-world discourse' proved hostile to man-machinemetaphors and produced ex- tensiveideological critique of cybernetics.Despite theirsurface differences in ideology,the ardentAmerican cyberneticiansand the zealous Soviet criticsof cyberneticsviewed the world in very similar,confrontational terms.47 These ideologicalattacks on cybernetics,ironically, promoted the 'de- ideologization'of computing.Soviet computerspecialists had to definethe area of appropriatecomputer applications in such a way thatit would not cross ideological barriers.They decided to sacrificecybernetic 'philosophy', allowingit to be publicly'criticized and destroyed'so as to preserve computingas a purelytechnical enterprise. Soviet criticsof cybernetics only labelled as 'idealistic' the use of man-machineanalogies in the life sciences and the social sciences; theydid not at all object to the use of computersfor automation and scientificcalculations, which were seen as acceptable 'materialistic'applications. Even though cyberneticswas labelled a 'pseudo-science', computers were not considered 'pseudo- machines'. On the contrary,while castigatingcybernetics, Soviet critics called the inventionof a computera 'real scientificand technicalachieve- ment',48 and argued thatcomputers had 'greatvalue forthe most diverse phases of economic construction'.49Computers, they claimed, could make 'calculationsof any degree of complexityin the shortestpossible time',50 being capable of 'completelyflawless operation and procurementof results'.5'While condemningmilitary uses of computersin theWest, Soviet criticsenthusiastically praised the power of Soviet computers,which were expected to liberatepeople from'the "dirty"mental labour' of complex and tiresomecalculations.52 Soviet authorspresented 'machine mathematics' as value-neutral:in a bourgeoissociety, it servedimperialist ideology; in a socialistcountry, it naturallyupheld socialistvalues.

Computing for the Military The primarytask of the firstcomputers in a socialistcountry turned out to be exactlythe same as in the capitalistworld - calculationsfor the military. Stimulated by the Cold War, the three main post-war Soviet defence programmes- nuclearweapons, ballisticmissiles and anti-missiledefence - came to dominate Soviet science and technology.As a result,the first Soviet electronicdigital computerswere utilized almost exclusivelyfor large-scalemilitary calculations. This heavyemphasis on militaryapplications, in combinationwith the ideological controversyover the use of computersin biology and sociology,seriously undercut potential civilian uses of Soviet computers. AfterHiroshima, Stalin finallyrealized the militaryand politicalsig- nificanceof nuclear weapons, and orderedurgent measures to close the nuclear gap. In August 1945, two extraordinaryagencies were createdto overseethe Soviet atomic project:political supervision was trustedto the Special CommitteeNo. 1 underthe State Defence Committee,while daily

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 265 managementwas assignedto the FirstChief Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars.The Special Committeeincluded leading defence scientists,as well as top politicians,members of theruling Politburo, which underscoredthe politicalimportance of thisproject.53 The same manage- ment model was used in two other top-prioritydefence programmes: rocketryand radar. In May 1946, the USSR Council of Ministers(as the Soviet governmentwas now called) set up the Special Committeeon Jet PropulsionTechnology, also knownas the Special CommitteeNo. 2, which directedthe developmentof ballisticmissiles.54 In June 1947, the Council of Ministers created the Committee on Radiolocation, or the Special Committee No. 3, to oversee the constructionof anti-missiledefence systems.The Second and theThird Chief Directorates,respectively, were createdfor the daily managementof the last two projects.All threelarge- scale crash programmeswere strategicundertakings inspired by the Cold War,and in all threecases, the Sovietsset the goal of catchingup withthe Americansin the shortestpossible time.55 The threeSpecial Committeeswere givenvirtually unlimited funding and the authorityto draw materialresources and manpowerfrom any sectorof the economy.Finance Ministryofficials complained vainly about the 'uncontrollablefinancing' of the FirstChief Directorate, which did not evenbother to submitits accountsand reportsto the Ministry.56At the end of 1948, the First Directorate directlyemployed 55,000 people (not includingconstruction workers), and let researchcontracts to over 100 institutions.57 All threecrash programmes- nuclear weapons, ballisticmissiles and anti-missiledefence - requiredlarge amounts of computation,and defence researcherstook full advantage of theirright to expropriateall resources necessaryfor the fulfilmentof theirtop-priority tasks. Defence priorities clearlydominated early Soviet computing.In September1948, the Acad- emy of Sciences establishedthe Instituteof Precise Mechanics and Com- puter Technology in Moscow, which immediatelyreceived three high- prioritygovernment assignments: (1) creating a wireless system of automatic control of long-rangemissiles; (2) designingan electricsim- ulatorof the long-rangemissile; and (3) compilingballistic tables foranti- aircraftfire.58 The Institutealso renderedcomputing services to various militaryorganizations on the basis of individualcontracts - for example, making calculations used in the constructionof targetingsystems for bomber aviation.59 Militaryneeds were initiallyserved by analogue devices, and the first experimentswith electronicdigital computing occurred only on the per- ipheryof Soviet computing.The firstSoviet stored-programdigital computer, the Small Electronic Calculating Machine, or the MESM,60 was completed in December 1951 by a small group of 12 designersand 15 techniciansled by Sergei Lebedev, Director of the Instituteof Electrical Engineeringin Kiev. The MESM became the firstoperating stored- programcomputer in continentalEurope.61 The Presidentof the Ukrain- ian Academy of Sciences, a biologist,who was not involvedin defence

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 266 Social Studies of Science 31/2 research,did not see much use for computers and gave littlehelp to Lebedev's group.62In early 1952, the AutomaticComputing Machine M- 1, built by an even smallergroup of nine designersand technicians,was put into operationin the Laboratoryof ElectricalSystems of the Energy Institutein Moscow. As one participantrecalled, this projectwas carried out 'semi-legally',almost as a private'hobby' of the laboratoryhead, Isaak Bruk.63 Soviet digitalcomputing left the stage of pilot projectsand received serious institutionaland material support only when the militarycon- cluded that large-scale,high-speed calculations required in key defence researchareas could be betterperformed by digital computers.Mikhail Lavrent'ev,who sponsoredLebedev's project,reportedly sent a personal letterto Stalin,stressing the importanceof digitalcomputing for national defence,and callingfor more intensiveefforts in this field.64Lebedev, in turn,submitted an officialreport, emphasizing the potential applications of the MESM forsolving problems of nuclearphysics, jet propulsiontechnology,radiolocation and aviationindustry. The high speed and precisionof calculations on electronic computers,he argued, made it possible to constructdevices forguiding missiles by continuouscalculation and real- time correctionof their trajectories.65As soon as the MESM became operational,it was immediatelyused to performurgent military calculations. In 1952-53, Moscow researchersfrom the Division of Applied Mathematics- an institutioncreated specificallyto rendermathematical support to the design of nuclear weapons and ballisticmissiles - made severalextended trips to Kiev to workon the MESM.66 Bruk,for his part, gave mathematiciansfrom the Instituteof Atomic Energy in Moscow, who were workingon the design of nuclear weapons, the firstuse of his M-1 computer.67 As soon as the Soviet leadershipbecame convincedthat digitalcom- putingwas vitallyimportant for national defence, it took decisivemeasures in its support.In January1950, the Soviet governmentadopted a secret decree, launching two independentprojects to build large high-speed digitalcomputers, one at the AcademyInstitute of ComputerTechnology, the other at the Special Design Bureau No. 245 of the Ministryof Machine-Buildingand InstrumentConstruction.6' At Stalin'srequest, the decree specified the names of people personallyresponsible for each project.The Academynamed Lavrent'evand Lebedev, while the Ministry appointedMikhail Lesechko and Iurii Bazilevskiito the task.69In March 1950, the Academy appointed Lavrent'ev Director of the Instituteof ComputerTechnology; he soon invitedLebedev to set up a laboratoryat the Institutewith a staffof over 70 people, to design a new digital computer.70The Institutequickly received funding for 100 new positions,71 and moved to a newly built, large facility,hastily constructed by the Academyof Sciences - a detail thatclearly indicated the higherpriority of computing.72At its inceptionin 1948, the entireInstitute of Computer Technologyconsisted of only 60 people; by April 1952, Lebedev's labo- ratoryalone had a staffof almost 150.7 Most crucially,Lavrent'ev's long-

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 267 time political patron, Nikita Khrushchev,just appointed head of the Moscow city Party organization,promised the Institute his personal support.74 As soon as the Ministryof Machine-Buildingand InstrumentCon- structionand the Academy of Sciences completed the firstSoviet large high-speed electronicdigital computers,those machines were used to performurgent calculations for the defence researchers.In 1953, the Ministrycomputer, the STRELA, was installedat the Division ofApplied Mathematicsto help solve problems of nuclear physicsand missile bal- listics. In 1955, the Academy computer,the Large (High-Speed) Elec- tronic Calculating Machine (the BESM),75 was set up at the specially organizedComputation Centre of the Academyof Sciences, whereit also largelyserved military clients. Mathematiciansworking for the atomic projectnot only became avid consumersof computerpower, but theyprovided vital support in the early stages of Soviet electronic digital computing. Sergei Sobolev, Deputy Directorof the Instituteof Atomic Energyin chargeof the mathematical calculations for the constructionof nuclear weapons, became a major patronof severalcomputer design initiatives. Constantly seeking computer power for the growingvolume of calculations,he rented available computer time,helped obtain scarce electronicparts fornew machines,and even commissionedthe constructionof new computers.Under his patron- age, the Instituteof Atomic Energy constructedits own small digital computer,which was put into operation in November 1953.76 In the meantime,in 1952-53, atomic researchersbecame the firstusers of the small-sizeAutomatic Computing Machine M-1 at the EnergyInstitute. Using his unlimitedauthority to procureany necessaryresources, Sobolev helped obtain forM-1 urgentlyneeded vacuum tubes, then in extremely shortsupply.77 In 1952, Sobolev became the Chair of the Departmentof ComputationalMathematics at Moscow State University;he also headed the UniversityComputation Centre, where he sponsoredthe construction of an originalternary-system electronic digital computer.78 The ballisticmissile programmewas anothermajor client of Soviet digitalcomputing. To ensurethe correctnessof the most importantcalcu- lations, defence scientistscarried them out simultaneouslyat different computationfacilities. Missile trajectories,for example, were calculated independentlyat the Division ofApplied Mathematicsand at the Ministry of ArmamentExperimental Design Bureau No. 1.79 In 1952, the specialized journal Problemsof RocketTechnology (Voprosy raketnoi tekhniki) published the Russian translationof a detailedWestern review of recent advances in electronicdigital computing;80this publication served as a basic textin the firstcourse on computerprogramming at Moscow State University.8'The firstproblem solved on the large high-speedcomputer M-2, Bruk's second electroniccomputer, was the calculationof thermo- dynamicand hydrodynamicparameters for missile design.82 The thirdmajor militarycrash programme- anti-missiledefence - also pushed digital computerdevelopments forward as fast as it could.

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In the 1940s, the Deputy Chairman of the Council on Radiolocation, EngineerVice AdmiralAksel' Berg,regularly received intelligence informationon Americanradioelectronics, which he highlyappreciated.83 In 1953, Berg was appointed the Deputy Ministerof Defence in charge of radar, and asked his subordinateAnatolii Kitov to prepare a reporton Western computing.84Kitov's upbeat reporthad profoundconsequences. The Min- istryof Defence quicklyorganized three military computation centres: the ComputationCentre No. 1, the Navy ComputationCentre and the Air Force ComputationCentre. All threewere equipped withthe firstserially produced STREIA computers.85The Design Bureau No. 1 of the Third Chief Directorate, which designed the anti-missiledefence complex aroundMoscow, also receivedone of thefirst STRELA computers,thanks to the active role of the Bureau's chief engineer,who headed the state commissionthat tested the STRELA.86 Among the firstproblems solved on that computerwas the calculation of the dependencyof the target- destructionprobability on the detonationefficiency of fragmentationwar- heads.87 For field tests of its anti-missiledefence system,the Design Bureau No. 1 commissioneda specialized computerfrom the Academy Instituteof Precise Mechanics and ComputerTechnology. This computer, the M-40, was completedin 1958 and, togetherwith another model, M- 50, formed a control complex for the firstSoviet anti-missiledefence system.88Bruk's M-2 computerwas also employedto make calculationsfor a militaryresearch institute under Berg's command.89 In the 1950s, onlyone ostensiblycivilian computer facility was organized. This was the Computation Centre of the Academy of Sciences, createdby decree of the USSR Council of Ministersin February1955. It was equipped withtwo largehigh-speed computers, one STREIA and one BESM. Even those two machines,however, were heavilyutilized to per- formmilitary calculations. In September 1955, the Academy created a special commissionto resolvepriority disputes over the use of its computingresources by various academic institutions.90Even thoughthe commissionrecommended that at least 20% of the total computertime be allocated for the solution of 'general' (that is, unclassified)scientific problems, this recommendation was hardly followed.9"The commission included only leading defence researchers,who oftenquietly divided the computertime among them- selves.Even formilitary calculations alone, however,computer time was in shortsupply, and commissionmembers often engaged in bitterdisputes with one another. For example, in December 1955, Mstislav Keldysh, Director of the Division of Applied Mathematics and member of the commission,submitted a formalletter of disagreementwith the commission's decision. He statedthat the calculationsperformed by his Division 'have primaryimportance and are more importantthan most of the calculationsperformed at the ComputationCentre by otherorganizations'. Keldysh claimed that the 140 hours of computertime allocated for the Division in December 1955 were 'clearlyinsufficient', and requested 'at

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 269 least 50 hours of computertime per week'.92Such disputes had to be resolvedon a higheradministrative level, and eventuallylists of calculation problemsand allocated computertime were reportedlysubmitted weekly forapproval to the Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers,Nikolai Bulganin.93 Soviet digitalcomputing, boosted by the militarydemand for large- scale computation,became narrowlyfocused on militaryapplications. The nuclear weapons researchersled by Igor' Kurchatov,and the designersof ballistic missiles and spacecraftsupervised by Sergei Korolev, used up almost all the resourcesof the firstSoviet digitalcomputers. The Soviet cosmonaut Georgii Grechkohas recentlyrecalled his experienceof work- ing in the mid-1950s on the BESM at the Academy Computation Centre:

Kurchatov'speople used it in the daytimeand duringthe nightKorolev's people. And forall the restof Soviet science: maybefive minutes for the Instituteof Theoretical Astronomy, maybe half an hour forthe chemical industry.94

The Soviet view of the computeras a strategictechnology, rather than a general-purposeinformation processor, assigned civilianscience applications a subordinaterole. Design organizationseven built differenttypes of computersfor the defence and the civilian sectors. For example, in 1958 the Instituteof Precise Mechanics and ComputerTechnology built, for the firstSoviet anti-missiledefence system, the M-40 computer,operating at a speed of 40,000 operationsper second, and a fewmonths later finished the general- purpose M-20 machine,which ran only at 20,000.95In 1961, the de facto defenceaffiliation of the Institutewas made official:it was transferredfrom the Academy of Sciences to the State Committee on Radioelectronics (later the Ministryof Radio Industry),one of the pivotal agencies of the military-industrialcomplex. Only one element of the Institute'scivilian past, a frontdoor plaque assertingthe Institute'saffiliation with the Academy,was preserved.It is stillthere. While, in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, computerapplications were confinedto top-secretcalculations for the military,in the United Statesthe computerquickly spread fromthe militarysector to the business world.American computer manufacturers and business users reconstruc- ted the computer,and turnedit froma meremathematical instrument into an electronicdata-processing machine.96 In the Soviet case, centralized controlover the production and distributionof computerssecured a virtual monopoly over computer access for the defence sector. Military and civiliancomputer applications were separated by an invisible'Iron Cur- tain'.This barrierwas indeed a productof the Cold War: it was supported, on the one hand, by the priorityof militarycalculations and, on the other, by ideological suspiciontoward cybernetics.

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Computers 'De-Ideologized' Soviet specialistsin 'machinemathematics' had to walk a fineline between two mortaldangers - fallingbehind theWest in computing,and following Westerntrends too closely.To avoid unwanted associations with con- troversialAmerican cybernetics, they chose to 'de-ideologize' Soviet computingand place emphasison the narrowtechnical functions of computing and informationtheory, ignoring any potential conceptual innovations. This strategyseverely limited the field of prospectivecomputer applications. The computer was legitimizedin this Soviet context as a giant calculator;its capacitiesas a data processorfor economic and sociological analysis,and as a tool forbiological research,were downplayed,to avoid ideologicalcomplications. As the anti-cyberneticscampaign in thepopular press was intensifyfing, Soviet mathematiciansand computerspecialists felt growing pressure to dissociate theirwork fromthe ideologicallydeficient cybernetic parallels betweenpeople and computers.In 1952, in a secretreport on the current state of Soviet computing,Lebedev and Keldyshunequivocally distanced themselvesfrom Western cybernetics: 'It should be noted that the bourgeois press frequentlymakes analogies between the functioningof a [computing]machine and the human brain. Such claims are totallyab- surd'.97 Leaving cyberneticsto philosophers for proper criticismand destruction,the authorsportrayed computing as a purelytechnical enterprise which, they argued, must be guided by the 'overtakeand surpass' principle.Contrasting Soviet efforts(only 3 largedigital computers under construction)with American attainments (11 large computersunder op- erationand 10 more under construction),they called forurgent measures to close the computinggap. To facilitatethe acquisitionof informationabout Westerncomputing, the Sovietslaunched a seriesof translations ofWestern computer literature, a step which was potentiallyproblematic for obvious ideological reasons. Soviet scientificpublishing, in additionto the technicalmission of dissem- inatingknowledge, had the political mission of disseminatingthe right ideology.In a 1954 report,the chiefphysics editor of the Foreign Lit- eraturePublishing House emphasizedprecisely this political mission:

We mustremember that we are dealingwith foreign authors, in whose workone oftenencounters alien ideology. This ideologyis expressedin the publicationof books thatcarry propaganda of idealisticpseudo- scientifictheories, in a systematicsuppression of the worksof Soviet scientists,or in thediminution of their significance. In editorialprefaces and commentswe mustprotect the Soviet reader from alien ideology and defendthe priority of Soviet scientists.98

To meet these requirements,Soviet computerspecialists supplied their translationswith a clever introduction,which condemned ideological 'errors'while rescuingthe supposedly'non-ideological' technical content. As a result,Western computer literature passed the censorrelatively easily; for most publications,the intervalbetween the originalWestern edition

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & Soviet Computing 271 and the Russian translationdid not exceed two years.99To be on the safe side, Soviet editorsalso cut out fromthe originalall ideologicallydubious passages.The editor'spreface to the 1952 translationof theAmerican book High-SpeedComputing Devices openly stated that all 'dubious analogies betweenpeople and machinesin the spiritof pseudo-scientificstatements of "cyberneticians"'in the Russian versionhad been eliminated.100The editor of the Russian translationof Claude Shannon's paper on the 'MathematicalTheory of Communication'even renamed this work'The StatisticalTheory of ElectricalSignal Transmission', to removeany trace of anthropomorphicanalogies. The editor'spreface read:

The terminologyofthe statistical theory of electrical signal transmission and a numberof its concepts are utilized by some foreign mathematicians and engineersin theirspeculations related to thenotorious 'cybernetics'. For example,building upon superficial,surface analogies and vague, ambiguousterms and concepts,Wiener, Goldman, and othersattempt to transferthe rules of radio communication to biologicaland psychological phenomena,to speakof the 'channel capacity' of the human brain, and so on. Naturally,such attempts to givecybernetics a scientistic look with the help of termsand conceptsborrowed from another field do not make cyberneticsa science; it remainsa pseudo-science,produced by science reactionariesand philosophizingignoramuses, the prisoners of idealism andmetaphysics. At the same time, the notorious exercises of philosophiz- ingpseudo-scientists cast a shadowon thestatistical theory of electrical signaltransmission with noise - a theorywhose results and conclusions havegreat scientific and practicalimportance.'0'

Concerned withthe ideological image of theirwork, Soviet computer specialistschose theirterminology very carefully.For example, in 1951 Lebedev was advised by his colleague to avoid the term 'logical opera- tions';102 logical reasoningwas viewed as a domain of philosophy,not computing.Such suspicious words as 'information','computer memory' and 'servomechanism'were usually replaced with the neutral technical terms 'data', 'storage' and 'tracking device'. As one Soviet scientist explained:

. . . ifwe replacethe word 'memory' with 'storage' or 'depot',that would notallow for the analogies drawn by Wiener and others,but these words wouldstill have the same meaning.'03

Behind these rhetorical feats lay the discursive strategy of 'de- ideologization':computing and informationtheory were portrayed as purely technical tools with no connectionto the ideology-ladenbiological and social sciences. Unlike Westerntechnical publications on computing,popular books filledwith philosophical and sociologicalspeculations had littlechance of being translated.The publication of the Russian translationof Wiener's Cybernetics,for example, was delayed for 10 years.104Only a handfulof English-languagecopies of Cyberneticscirculated within a narrowcircle of Soviet controlengineers and computerspecialists. However, one of these

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 272 Social Studies of Science 31/2 copies ofWiener's book was read in Isaak Bruk's Laboratoryof Electrical Systems at the Energy Institute in Moscow, and it inspired several researchersthere to thinkof computersin broader terms.In particular, engineerMikhail Kartsev,who took an activepart in the constructionof the M-1 and M-2 computers,felt that military tasks were too narrowfor these machines.In 1954, at a discussionof cyberneticsat the Institute,he boldlystated: 'We are interestednot so much in the militaryapplications of mathematicalmachines or, more generally,new technicaldevices, but in theirwider applications'.105 His colleague Nikolai Matiukhin,who led the constructionof the M-1, pointed specificallyto economics as a very promisingfield for computerapplications. Citing business uses of computers in the United States, he argued that 'in our country,such issues must be raised much more sharply.In a socialistsociety, ... the mechan- ization of planningwith the assistance of computerscan and should be pursued to the largest extent possible'.106The merciless logic of the militarydemands on Sovietcomputing, however, turned the careersof the two men in a verydifferent direction from what theyenvisioned. In late 1957, Kartsev was appointed to lead the constructionof the M-4, a specialized control computerfor radar systems,later became the chief designerof a multi-processorsupercomputer for an earlywarning system, and spent the rest of his career in militarycomputing.107 And in 1957, Matiukhinjoined a group workingon the Soviet versionof SAGE, an air defence systemsupported by a geographicallydistributed computer net- work, and rose to become the chief designer of many computers and networksfor national defence.108The firstSoviet attemptsto apply com- putersto economic planningoccurred only in the late 1950s, when Bruk's Laboratory(now called the Instituteof Electronic Control Machines under the State Economic Council) startedworking on the specializedcomputer M-5 for economic applications, and elaborated a proposal for a far- reaching price reform based on computer calculations of 'optimal' prices.109 Civilian computerapplications were excluded not only by the heavy militarizationof computing,the scarcityof computertime, and the ideological controversyaround cybernetics,but even more effectivelyby the wall of silence and the barriersof clearance requirementsbuilt around the earlySoviet computers.In the paranoid atmosphereof the Cold War, the cloud of secrecysurrounding military computing not only concealed Soviet computersfrom the enemy,but also created serious internalob- stacles forthe developmentof Soviet computing.

Computers: A State Secret or a 'Display Technology'? The Cold War imposed contradictorydemands on Soviet science and technology.Soviet scientistsand engineerswere supposed to hide sig- nificantdomestic scientificand technologicalaccomplishments from the enemy,especially if those innovationswere relatedto nationaldefence. Yet

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & SovietComputing 273 theywere also encouragedto show offtheir achievements as a matterof national prestige,and as proof of the superiorityof the Soviet political system.Soviet computingwas thus torn between the tendencytoward pervasivesecrecy and the ideological urge to exploitthe political'display value' of computers."'1 Cold War securityconcerns imposed severelimits on anydiscussion of Soviet computingin the open press. Even the publicationof basic text- books on computingbecame a challengingtask. In 1949, the Chairmanof the Department of Computing Machines and Devices at the Moscow Mechanical Institute,Fedor Maiorov, submittedto the publishera manu- scriptof his textbook,The ElectronicCalculating Solving Devices, the first Soviet textbookon electroniccomputers. But the Glavlit,the government agencyresponsible for the preservationof statesecrets in the press,refused to permitits publication.After two years of fruitlessstruggle, Maiorov appealed to the Science Departmentof the PartyCentral Committee. He explainedthat his book was based entirelyon materialsalready published in open Soviet and foreignliterature. 'Keeping in mind the necessityof strictpreservation of state secrets',he wrote,'I avoided any descriptions of the specificdesigns of devicesproduced in the USSR, anyindications of the typesof devices used, or theirparameters'. Even thoughthe typehad been set and the proofsready, the Glavlitheld up publication,possibly in connectionwith the confiscationof anotherreference book on a similar subject. 'Fearing that somethingmight happen', Maiorov complained, 'theyrefuse to publish my book too'.111The Science Departmentsent an inquiryto the Ministryof Machine-Buildingand InstrumentConstruc- tion; the Ministryconceded thatthis book could be published,but onlyby the MilitaryPublishing House, and as a classifiedpublication. The Party authoritiesaccepted the Ministry'sverdict.112 The Ministry'sinsistence on secrecyrestrictions may have been trig- geredby the ongoingcompetition between the Ministryand the Academy of Sciences. Since 1950, the two agencies pursued separate projects in designinga large high-speedelectronic digital computer, and the prize - launchinga serial production- would go to the one who finishedfirst. Any meaningfulcooperation between the Academy Instituteof Precise Mechanics and ComputerTechnology and the MinistrySpecial Design Bureau No. 245 was hindered by the tendencynot to share important technical information.As late as 1955, one of the Institute'sengineers complained: 'We know more about foreignscientific research than about the domestic one [at the Bureau]'."'3 It was quite possible that Ministry officialssimply used the classificationof computerresearch as a pretextfor hidingvital technical details from the rivalprogramme. Frustratedwith the informationblockade of Soviet computing,the Institute'sDirector, Lavrent'ev, made consistentefforts to breach thiswall of secrecy.In August 1951, he sent a letterto the PartyCentral Commit- tee, complainingabout a recent article on computingin a major Soviet newspaper:

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The contentof the article creates the wrong impression about the state of computertechnology in theSoviet Union. Based on thisarticle, a qual- ifiedreader abroad would have to concludethat the SovietUnion is laggingfar behind in thefield of computing and is presentlyon thelevel thatthe United States reached approximately 10 yearsago."14

Nevertheless,the Ministryof Machine-Buildingand InstrumentCon- structionchose to continueits policy of secrecy.In September1951, the ministerPetr Parshin complainedto the Glavlit about the excessivecov- erage of the productionof calculatingmachines by the Ministryin Soviet newspapers,magazines, on TV, radio and in movie theatres.'All this is objectivelyaimed at divulgingstate secrets', he wrote. In particular, Parshin complained about the same newspaperarticle as did Lavrent'ev, only for the opposite reason - for disclosing too much about Soviet computertechnology. Parshin requested severe measures to be taken so that 'without the Ministry'sknowledge, no material about calculating machines be published in centralor local newspapersor magazines,no programmebe broadcast on radio or TV, and no footage be shown in movie theatres'.115Such measureswere indeed granted.116 AfterStalin's death in 1953, the ensuingtransformations in the Party and governmentapparatus, and the beginningof greater openness in public discourse,the Academy tried again to get some publicityfor the Institute'scomputer, the BESM. In July1954, hopingto proveits super- iorityover the STRELA, the Academy declassifiedthe existenceof the BESM and its basic parameters,and soon showed it to a delegationfrom India."17The Academy also asked the permissionof the Party Central Committeeto announce the constructionof the BESM in the media.118 The bureaucraticstructures set up duringthe earlyyears of the Cold War, however,remained firmlyin place even afterStalin's death, and their missions and procedures did not change much. The Party authorities routinelyrequested the opinion of the Ministrywhich, not surprisingly, voiced strongobjections. It insisted that the Academy had no rightto declassify its computer; this was the prerogativeof a government- appointedspecial State Commission.'19 The Partyauthorities again sided withthe Ministry,and a public announcementwas postponed. This case suggests,furthermore, that the policyof secrecypursued by the Soviet statewas not solelythe productof Soviet isolationistideology, but could sometimesbe induced by interagencyrivalry and used as a weapon ofbureaucratic competition. The ColdWar createdpolitical conditions in which governmentagencies could easily justifyand employ ex- cessivesecrecy measures to theircompetitive advantage. While the Ministry,trying to protect its pet project by pervasive secrecy,exploited the authorities'fear of the potentialthreat of espionage, the Academy sometimes appealed to another ideological stereotype: nationalprestige. In December 1954, DmitriiPanov, Deputy Directorof the Instituteof Computer Technology,submitted to the Party Central Committeea reportentitled 'On the questionof classifyingthe existenceof

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & SovietComputing 275 electroniccalculating machines in the USSR'. The reportitself, naturally, was classified.Panov wrote: Presentlyelectronic calculating machines are so widespreadand so widely used thattheir existence in a technologicallyadvanced country is pre- sumedself-evident. To claimthat in sucha countryas theUSSR thereare no electroniccalculating machines would be almostthe same as to claim thatwe do nothave railroads or electricity,or thatwe cannotfly through the air. Under such conditions,to classifythe existenceof electronic calculatingmachines in the USSR seemsto me not onlywrong, but also harmful.No one anywherewould believethat we have no such machines.120

In addition,in an ingenioustwist of the espionage argument,Panov tried to prove thatsecurity restrictions must be lifted.He argued that,because of this policy of secrecy,the Eastern bloc countriesintending to develop theirown computertechnology would have to solicithelp fromthe West, thus making it easier forWestern spies to gain access to theirscientific institutions.But Panov's reporthad littleeffect, and on the insistenceof the Ministry of Machine-Building and InstrumentConstruction, the Soviet authoritiescontinued to keep silence over Soviet digitalcomputers foralmost another full year. The Academy'sefforts to liftthe veil of secrecy over Soviet computingfinally succeeded, however,with the arrival of Khrushchev'spolitical 'thaw' in the mid-1 950s. The firstofficial announce- ment that the Soviet Union had built high-speeddigital computerswas made at the Conferenceon ElectronicDigital Computersand Information Processing in Darmstadt,West Germany,in October 1955. The Soviet delegationdisclosed some of the technicalparameters of the BESM and the URAL, a new computerconstructed at the Special Design Bureau No. 245.121 Characteristically,Soviet digital computers were declassified for the foreignaudience first;an announcementfor the Soviet press came later. With the change in the Soviet political climate duringKhrushchev's 'thaw', the ideologicalmeaning of cyberneticsand the culturalperception of computers also radically changed.122 Along with other victims of Stalinistrepression, cybernetics was 'rehabilitated'.Having dismissedthe old ideological critique of cybernetics,Soviet scientistsnow perceived cyberneticideas as 'normal science'. Cybernetics,often viewed in the Americancontext as a product of the 'militarizationof the mind', in the Soviet context was translatedinto an ideology of liberation.A broad reformistmovement among Soviet scientistschallenged the dominant positionof Stalinistschools in variousscientific fields, under the bannerof computerization and 'cybernetization'of science. Geneticists, non- Pavlovianphysiologists, mathematical economists and structurallinguists carved niches for themselvesunder the rubrics of 'cyberneticbiology', 'cyberneticphysiology', 'cybernetic linguistics', and so on. By linking cyberneticcontrol to managementand to government,Soviet scientists legitimizedcybernetics as a reformist'science of government'.In 1961, cyberneticswas 'immortalized'in a new Partyprogramme as one of the sciences called to play a crucial r6le in the creationof the materialand

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 276 Social Studies of Science 31/2 technicalbasis of communism.The popularpress began callingcomputers 'machines of communism.'123 The boundary between computing and ideologywas erased as quicklyas it had been fabricated.

Conclusion Historianshave traditionallyviewed the 'ideologization'of science as a key characteristicof science under 'totalitarianism'.In this paper, I have argued that 'ideologization'was but one of two major trendsin Soviet science in the early years of the Cold War. Soviet scientistswere torn between two contradictorydirectives: to 'overtakeand surpass' Western science, especiallyin defence-relatedfields, and to 'criticizeand destroy' Westernscholarship for its alleged ideological flaws.They developed two oppositediscursive strategies to deal withthis impasse. Some, likeLysenko and his followers,'ideologized' science, translatingscientific theories into value-ladenpolitical language. Others,among them many physicistsand mathematicians,tried to 'de-ideologize'scientific knowledge by drawinga sharp line between ideology and the supposedlyvalue-neutral 'objective content' of science. The strategyof 'de-ideologization'allowed them to borrowthe 'objectivecontent' of Western scientific theories without ideological hassle. Ironically,the Cold War createda strongincentive for Soviet scientiststo portrayscientific knowledge as ideologicallyneutral. The proponentsof the 'ideologization'and 'de-ideologization'strategies not only clashed over the ideological meaning of particularWestern theories,but theycontested the boundarybetween knowledge and ideology more generally.While politicianswere building the 'Iron Curtain' betweenthe two politicalworlds, Soviet scientists and engineerswere busy constructinga similarbarrier between the 'core' of science and the 'shell' of ideology.The 'Iron Curtain' between the two political systemsoften served as a mirrorin which each side saw its own stereotypesabout the other. Similarly,the fabricateddivide between science and ideology re- flectedmost conspicuouslythe social constructionof value-neutrality,as exemplifiedby the attempted'de-ideologization' of computing in the Soviet Union. As I have argued,the computer,which in theWest servedboth as an information-processingdevice and as a metaphorfor human communication and control,was fashionedin the Soviet contextas an ideologically neutral technical tool. As a result of Soviet computer specialists' 'de- ideologization'strategy, the Sovietcomputer was conceptualizedas a giant calculatorand strippedof all anthropomorphicmetaphors. It duly served Sovietdefence researchers, but was safelyhidden from biologists and social scientists.Paradoxically, the computerwas seen both as an indispensable tool forweapons design and control,and as a culturalsymbol of technology freedfrom ideology. The differencein the culturalmeanings of computingon the two sides of the 'Iron Curtain' is indicativeof the manifoldways in whichthe Cold War as a political,military and culturalphenomenon shaped (and to some

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & SovietComputing 277 extent,was shaped by) the developmentof science and technology.This differencedoes not implythat one side was susceptibleto political and ideological influence,while the otherwas not. Instead, thisstudy suggests thatthe impactof the Cold Warwas pervasiveon both sides, even thoughit took differentforms in differentpolitical, ideological and institutional contexts.No doubt,to enrolscientists in the Cold War effort,the American and the Soviet governmentsresorted to very differentmeans. Crude administrativepressure by Party/stateofficials and vociferousideological campaigns across all scientificdisciplines in the Soviet Union looked nothinglike takingaway securityclearances and settingresearch priorities via selectivefinding, as in the American case. While the power of these measuresmay have rangedfrom kind invitationto gentlepushing to hard pressure,it is worthasking whether they all eventuallypointed in roughly the same direction. The question to what extentscientific knowledge is shaped by the interactionbetween science and political power goes beyond the partic- ularityof Soviet science; thisis a burningissue forthe historyof Cold War science in general.124Like theirSoviet colleagues,American scientists also struggledwith the problem of relatingscience to politics in a politically charged world. Some scientists,as well as Mertonian sociologists,in- tellectualhistorians and philosophersof science, similarlyclaimed intel- lectualindependence of science frompolitics, drawing boundaries between 'pure' science and defenceresearch, between the 'internallogic' of science and 'social factors', and between the 'disinterestedness'and 'organized skepticism'of the scientificcommunity and the ideological commitments and dogmatismof politicians.'25Ironically, the 'faithin the possibilityof escape frompolitics' oftencombined with the 'faithin the objectivityof science as a solutionto the subjectivityof politics';126 science was viewedat the same timeas an instrumentfor depersonalization and rationalizationof policy-making,and as an ideological resourcefor implementing a liberal- democraticpolitical agenda. Moreover,the paradoxicaljuxtaposition of conflictingdiscursive strategies and the resultingfluidity of the science map was hardlya unique featureof post-war Soviet science. As sociologistThomas Gieryn has argued more generally,scientists are oftenengaged in 'boundary-work', drawingrhetorical boundaries between science and non-science.In particular,in orderto protecttheir autonomy, scientists tend to oscillatebetween two opposing discursivestrategies: If thestakes are autonomyover scientists' ability to defineproblems and selectprocedures for investigating them, then sciencegets 'purified', carefullydemarcated from all politicaland marketconcerns, which are said to pollutetruth; but if the stakes are material resources for scientific instruments,research materials, or personnel,science gets 'impurified', erasingthe bordersor spaces betweentruth and policyrelevance or technologicalpanaceas.127 So, for example, while the Soviets shiftedback and forththe boundary betweenknowledge and ideology,the Americansmanipulated the notions

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 278 Social Studies of Science 31/2 of 'basic' and 'applied' science, as leaders of the US National Science Foundation switchedback and forthfrom the 'rhetoricof insulation'(an appeal to the supposedly apolitical characterof basic science) to the 'rhetoricof relevance'(an argumentfor the vitalimportance of science for the interestsof nationaldefence). 128 Despite the proclaimed differencesin political ideologies, one also findssome significantsimilarities between the strategieschosen by Amer- ican and Soviet scientistsso as to adapt to the dominantpolitical culture. To escape the ideological pressureof the 'Criticize and Destroy!' trend, Soviet scientistsoften resorted to the narrow,'de-ideologized' vision of science under the 'Overtake and Surpass!' banner. This strategyhad remarkableparallels in the American case. As JessicaWang has argued, Americanscientists in the earlypost-war years, under the politicalpressure of domesticanti-communism, turned away froma rhetoricalstyle of the progressiveleft, which emphasized the basic principlesof civilliberty, and tendedto relyinstead on 'internalnegotiations within government agencies to achieve more limitedpolicy goals'.'29These scientists'initial vision of science as an internationalendeavour gave way to backroom bargaining withgovernment officials over funding of specificprojects, often justified as counter-measuresto the 'Soviet threat'. After Sputnik, the American slogan 'Catch up with the Russians!' completedthe pictureof two Cold War rivalschasing each other'stails. While this points to a few parallelsbetween the discursivestrategies pursuedby scientistson both sides of the 'Iron Curtain',a comprehensive pictureof similaritiesand differencesbetween American and Sovietscience in the Cold War would requirea thoroughcomparison of the changes in the institutionalstructures and political status of science in the two countriesduring that period. In the case of computing,as I have outlined it, the heavy militarizationof research,the active role of government agencies,and the policyof pervasivesecrecy seemed characteristicof both sides. Perhapsthese similaritiesextended to a widerrange of fields. A comparisonof separateliteratures on Americanand Soviet science tentativelysuggests some importantsimilarities in the impact of the Cold War on scientificinstitutions and science policy in the two countries.In particular,Nikolai Krementsovregards post-war Soviet science as a unique 'Stalinistscience system',characterized by the 'merging'of the scientific communityand the governmentapparatus in terms of both institutions and individuals;the subordinationof science policyto the prioritiesof the government;the fierce group competitionboth among scientistsand between governmentagencies; and the tightadministrative control over institutionalstructures, appointment and certificationof scientificperson- nel, researchagendas, and internationaland domesticscholarly commun- ications.'30Some of these characteristics,however, seem hardlyunique. The domination of a single patron - the government- in the most promisingscientific fields, the skewingof researchpriorities in the direction of political goals, the fundingof disciplinesin proportionto their utilityfor national defence, the encouragementof fierce international

This content downloaded from 155.41.121.81 on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:13:49 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Science in the Cold War: Gerovitch:Machine Mathematics & SovietComputing 279 competition,harsh securityrestrictions and intrusiveloyalty checks, are often cited by historiansstudying American government-sponsoredresearch duringthe Cold War.131 The parallel changes in the political status of science in the United States and the SovietUnion duringthe Cold War are also worthexploring. Walter McDougall has argued that the mobilizationof science in the interestof national securityresulted in the political rise of technocratic bureaucracieson both sides of the 'Iron Curtain'.'32Historians of Amer- ican science oftentalk about a 'strategicalliance' (Paul Hoch), 'increased integration'(Daniel Kevles) or a 'mutual embrace' (Silvan Schweber) of the militaryand the scientistsinvolved in defence research.'33Soviet historians,for their part, speak of 'the coalescence of military,government, and Partyleadership' (I.V. Bystrova)and a 'symbiosis'between the Party/ state apparatus and the Soviet scientificcommunity (Nikolai Krement- soV).134 Furtherstudies are needed to clarifythe role of scientistsin the Soviet military-industrialcomplex which,as Bystrovaclaims, constituted 'a mightypower group, which acted as a relativelyautonomous force, dictatinga course towardthe continuationof the armsrace [and] the Cold War'135 Placing post-warSoviet science in the largercontext of the Cold War calls into question its conventionalperception as 'Stalinist science', an exclusiveproduct of a 'totalitarian'society. Despite the differentcharacter of political,ideological and economic forcesin the Soviet Union and the United States,the overarchingpolitical priorities and ideologyof the Cold War, at least in some importantinstances, seem to have had a similar impacton researchin both countries.Instead of regardingpost-war Soviet science as a monstrousdeviation from the ideal norms of science, one mightrather see it as a particularform of academic practicein a politically chargedenvironment. If, politically, the Cold Warpushed the SovietUnion and the United States apart, in terms of scientificand technological developmentit may have broughtthem closer together. In 1956, the book Mathematics,Its Content,Methods, and Meaning, whose authors' ideological vacillationsI discussed in the introductionto this paper, was eventuallypublished. Its introductorychapter made no mention of American mathematicians,except for Oswald Veblen and J.H.C. Whitehead:those two were criticizedfor failing to give a dialectical materialistdefinition of geometry.'36The authorsargued that mathematics under capitalism experienced an 'ideological crisis', which consisted in 'detachingmathematics from material reality', and fallinginto the trap of idealism and metaphysics.Following the strategyof 'de-ideologization', however,the authorsdrew a line betweenthe philosophicalerrors and the core of mathematicaltheories:

This [ideological] crisis does not at all mean that mathematicsin the capitalist countries is totally stalled. A number of scientists,though standingon idealisticpositions, have achieved importantand sometimes outstandingsuccesses in solvingconcrete mathematical problems and in

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elaboratingnew theories.Suffice to point out brilliantdevelopments in mathematicallogic.'37

It was well knownthat logical research in theUnited Statesand Britainhad laid a theoreticalfoundation for computer programming. A fewyears later, theAmerican Mathematical Society translated this book into English.The translationeditor acknowledgedthat 'the passages on the historyand culturalsignificance of mathematicalideas' presented'even greaterdiffi- cultiesthan are usuallyassociated with the translationof scientifictexts'.'38 Some of thesedifficulties were solved simply: those sectionsthat contained the ideological critique of mathematicsin the capitalistcountries were omittedfrom the translation.This was, however,part of a differentstory - one about Americanmathematics in the Cold War.

Manuscript Archives Consulted In thispaper, I drawon a numberof archivalsources. All the archivesI cite are located in Moscow. In the Notes below,the main collectionsare coded as follows:

ARAN RussianAcademy of Sciences Archive(Arkhiv RossiiskoiAkad- emiiNauk) RGANI Russian State Archive of ContemporaryHistory (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyiarkhiv noveishei istori?) RGASPI Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyiarkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorit) TsAODM CentralArchive of Social Movementsof Moscow (Tsentral'nyi arkhivobshchestvennykh dvizhenii Moskvy)

Notes I would like to thankMark Soloveyand Alexei Kojevnikovfor very helpful comments and suggestions.Research for this paper was supportedin part by a postdoctoralfellowship fromthe Dibner Institutefor the Historyof Science and Technology,and a grantfrom the InternationalResearch & ExchangesBoard, withfunds provided by the US Departmentof State (Title VIII Program)and the US National Endowmentfor the Humanities.None of these organizationsis responsiblefor the views expressed. 1. ARAN, f. 383, op. 1, d. 325, 1. 51. The workwas eventuallypublished in Russian in 1956 (see note 136), and in an Englishtranslation in 1963 (see note 138). Unless otherwisenoted, I am responsiblefor all the translationsof Russian textsquoted in thispaper. 2. ARAN, loc. cit. note 1, 1. 57. 3. See AlexanderVucinich, Empire of Knowledge: The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917-1970) (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1984), esp. Chapter4. 4. See Paul R. Josephson,'"Projects of the Century"in Soviet History:Large-Scale Technologiesfrom Lenin to Gorbachev',Technology and Culture,Vol. 36, No. 3 (July 1995), 519-59. 5. See David Holloway,'Physics, the State, and Civil Societyin the Soviet Union', HistoricalStudies in thePhysical and BiologicalSciences, Vol. 30, Part 1 (1999), 173-92. 6. See Loren R. Graham,Wlhat Have WeLearned About Science and Technologyfrom the RussianExperience? (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1998), Chapter3.

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7. See Mark B. Adams, 'Science, Ideology,and Structure:The Kol'tsov Institute, 1900-1970', in Linda L. Lubrano and Susan Gross Solomon (eds), The Social Context ofSoviet Science (Boulder, CO: WestviewPress, 1980), 173-204. 8. Nikolai Krementsov,Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997), 6. 9. See Alexei Kojevnikov,'Rituals of StalinistCulture at Work:Science and the Games of IntrapartyDemocracy circa 1948', The RussianReview, Vol. 57, No. 1 (January1998), 25-52. 10. In Krementsov'spointed formulation, 'had the Cold War militarycompetition between East and West concentratedupon the developmentof biologicalweapons ... instead of an atomicbomb, geneticistswould probablynot have been routedin 1948, [and] academyphysicists might well have been purgedin 1949': see Krementsov,op. cit. note 8, 282. 11. Alexei Kojevnikov,'President of Stalin'sAcademy: The Mask and Responsibilityof SergeiVavilov', Isis, Vol. 87, No. 1 (March 1996), 18-50, at 49. 12. Paul R. Josephson,'Review of Nikolai Krementsov,Stalinist Science', Slavic Review, Vol. 57 (Spring 1998), 215-16, at 216. 13. On militarycomputing in the USA, see I. BernardCohen, 'The Computer:A Case Study of Support by Government,Especially the Military,of a New Science and Technology',in EverettMendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smithand PeterWeingart (eds), Science,Technology and theMilitary, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, No. 12, Part 1 (Dordrecht:Reidel, 1988), 119-54; and Paul Edwards,The ClosedWorld: Computers and thePolitics of Discourse in Cold WarAmerica(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), Chapters2 & 3. There is no systematicstudy of militarycomputing in the Soviet Union. Some relevantinformation can be gatheredfrom Boris N. Malinovskii,Istoriia vychislitel'noitekhniki v litsakh(Kiev: Kit, 1995). Anne Fitzpatrickis currentlywriting a comparativehistory of computingin the Americanand Soviet nuclearweapons programmes. 14. See Edwards, op. cit. note 13, Chapters6 & 7. 15. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 2,1. 119. 16. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 2,1. 54. 17. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 4,1. 87. 18. losifV. Stalin,'Rech' na predvybornomsobranii izbiratelei Stalinskogo okruga goroda Moskvy9 fevralia1946 g' [1946], in RobertH. McNeal (ed.), I V Stalin. Sochineniia, Vol. 3 [XVI] (Stanford,CA: The Hoover Institution,1967), 1-22, at 19. 19. Quoted in D.G. Nadzhafov,'Antiamerikanskie propagandistskie pristrastiia stalinskogo rukovodstva',in Il'ia V. Gaiduk, Natal'ia I. Egorova and Aleksandr0. Chubar'ian (eds), Stalinskoedesiatiletie kholodnoi voiny: fakty i gipotezy(Moscow: Nauka, 1999), 134-50, at 137. 20. ARAN, f. 1922, op. 1, d. 538,1. 9. 21. David Joravsky,Russian Psychology: A CriticalHistory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1989), 406. 22. On the Lysenkocontroversy, see Loren R. Graham,Science, Philosophy, and Human Behaviorin theSoviet Union (NewYork: Columbia UniversityPress, 1987), Chapter4; David Joravsky,The LysenkoAffair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1970); Krementsov,op. cit. note 8; Zhores A. Medvedev,The Rise and Fall ofTD. Lysenko (New York& London: Columbia UniversityPress, 1969); and ValeryN. Soyfer,trans. Leo Gruliow and Rebecca Gruliow,Lysenko and theTragedy of Soviet Science (New Brunswick,NJ: RutgersUniversity Press, 1994). 23. KirillRossianov, 'Editing Nature: JosephStalin and the "New" Soviet Biology',Isis, Vol. 84, No. 4 (December 1993), 728-45. 24. See VladimirP. Vizgin,'Spasennaia dvazhdy:sovetskaia teoreticheskaia fizika mezhdu filosofieii iadernymoruzhiem', in V.P.Vizgin (ed. and comp.), Istoriiasovetskogo atomnogoproekta: dokumenty, vospominaniia, issledovaniia, vyp. 1 (Moscow: Ianus-K, 1998), 329-91. Cf. Kojevnikov,op. cit. note 11, at 43-47. On the conflictbetween

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the Academyand the Universitygroups, see Gennadii Gorelik,'Fizika universitetskaia i akademicheskaia',Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki (1991), No. 1, 15-32. 25. See Kojevnikov,op. cit. note 11, 38. 26. See AleksandrD. Aleksandrov,'Leninskaia dialektikai matematika',Priroda (1951), No. 1 (January),5-16; Aleksandrov,'Ob idealizmev matematike'[Part I], Priroda (1951), No. 7 (July),3-11; and Aleksandrov,'Ob idealizmev matematike'[Part II], Priroda(1952), No. 8 (August), 3-9. 27. Aleksandrov(August 1952), op. cit. note 26, 8. 28. Ibid., 4. 29. Ibid., 9. 30. See Graham, op. cit. note 22, Chapter 10. 31. In the post-warperiod, historians largely gave up the Marxistsociological analysis developedin the 1920s and 1930s, and exemplifiedby Boris Hessen's famous 1931 paper on the social and culturalroots of Newton's Principia.In an attemptto protect both theirsubject from'ideologization' and themselvesfrom political complications, Soviet historiansnow favouredstrict internalism, which lifted scientific knowledge out of its politicaland socioculturalcontext. On Soviet writingson the historyand social studyof science, see Slava Gerovitch,'Writing History in the PresentTense: Cold War-EraDiscursive Strategies of Soviet Historiansof Science and Technology',in ChristopherSimpson (ed.), Universitiesand Empire:Money and Politicsin theSocial SciencesDuring the Cold War (New York:The New Press, 1998), 189-228; and Loren R. Graham, Sciencein Russia and theSoviet Union: A ShortHistory (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993), Chapter7. 32. See Alexei Kojevnikov,'Dialogues about Power and Knowledgein Totalitarian PoliticalCulture', Section 5, 'Drawing the Boundarybetween Ideology and Science', paper presentedat the Conferenceon 'Physicistsin the PostwarArena: Comparative Perspectives'(Berkeley, CA, January1998); and Kojevnikov,op. cit. note 11, 39. 33. See Graham, op. cit. note 31, Chapter 8; and Alexei Kojevnikov,'Dialogues about Knowledge and Power in TotalitarianPolitical Culture', Historical Studies in the Physicaland BiologicalSciences, Vol. 30, Part 1 (1999), 227-47. [The latterpaper omits Section 5 of Kojevnikov'searlier conference paper, op. cit. note 32.] 34. See PeterL. Galison, Imageand Logic:A MaterialCulture of Microphysics (Chicago, IL & London: The Universityof Chicago Press, 1997), Chapter8. 35. Michael S. Mahoney,'The Historyof Computingin the Historyof Technology', Annalsof the History of Computing, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1988), 113-25, at 116-17. 36. See 'Tsikl stateipo matematicheskoitekhnike', Uspekhi matematicheskikh nauk, Vol. 1 (1946), 3-174. 37. MikhailL. Bykhovskii,'Novye amerikanskieschetno-analiticheskie mashiny', Uspekhi matematicheskikhnauk, Vol. 2 (1947), 231-34. The nextyear, a somewhatmore substantivearticle on Americancomputing appeared: see M.L. Bykhovskii, ' "ENIAK" - Elektronnaiaschetnaia mashina', ibid.,Vol. 3 (1948), 146-58. 38. MikhailL. Bykhovskii,'Osnovy elektronnykhmatematicheskikh mashin diskretnogo scheta', Uspekhimatematicheskikh nauk, Vol. 4 (1949), 69-124. 39. AleksandrFeklisov, Za okeanomi na ostrove:Zapiski razvedchika (Moscow: DEM, 1994), 105. 40. MikhailA. Lavrent'ev,'Puti razvitiiasovetskoi matematiki', in Sergei I. Vavilov(ed.), Obshcheesobranie Akademii nauk SSSR, posviashchennoetridtsatiletiiu Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoirevoliutsii (Moscow & Leningrad:AN SSSR, 1948), 393-402, at 402. On Lavrent'ev,see A.P. Epifanovaand V.P. Il'ina (comps), MikhailAlekseevich Lavrent'ev:Materialy k biobibliografii(Moscow: Nauka, 1971). He was an active participantin the nuclearweapons programme;in 1952 he was even viewed as a potentialreplacement for the leadershipof the thermonuclearproject if the firsttest of the Soviet hydrogenbomb was to fail: see AndreiSakharov, Memoirs (NewYork: AlfredA. Knopf, 1990), 160-61. 41. The patternof transferringcomputer applications originally created for the militaryto the civiliansector has continuedto thisday, including such highlightsas artificial

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intelligenceand the Internet.See JanetAbbate, 'Cold War and White Heat: The Originsand Meaning of Packet Switching',in Donald Mackenzie and JudyWajcman (eds), The Social Shapingof Technology (Milton Keynes,Bucks.: Open UniversityPress, 2nd edn, 1999), 351-71; and ArthurL. Norbergand JudyE. O'Neill, Transforming ComputerTechnology: Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986 (Baltimore, MD: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1996). 42. NorbertWiener, Cybernetics, or Controland Communicationin theAnimal and the Machine (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1948). 43. Paul Edwards and Lily Kay have tracedhow cyberneticsand informationtheory translatedsuch patternsinto new conceptualschemes for psychology, psycholinguisticsand biology:see Edwards, op. cit. note 13, Chapters6 & 7; and Lily E. Kay, 'Cybernetics,Information, Life: The Emergenceof ScripturalRepresentations of Heredity',Configurations, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter1997), 23-9 1. 44. See Ian Hacking,'Weapons Researchand the Form of ScientificKnowledge', Canadian Journalof Philosophy, Suppl. Vol. 12 (1986), 237-60. 45. The trackingof an enemyairplane by an anti-aircraftgunner, for example, became for Wienera universalmodel forpurposeful human behaviour:see PeterGalison, 'The Ontologyof the Enemy:Norbert Wiener and the CyberneticVision', CriticalInquiry, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Autumn 1994), 228-66; and Philip Mirowski,'Cyborg Agonistes: Economics Meets OperationsResearch in Mid-Century',Social Studiesof Science, Vol. 29, No. 5 (October 1999), 685-718. 46. See Edwards,op. cit. note 13, esp. Chapter 1. 47. On the historyof the anti-cyberneticscampaign in the Soviet Union, see Slava Gerovitch,'"Russian Scandals": Soviet Readings ofAmerican Cybernetics in the EarlyYearsof the Cold War', The RussianReview (2001, forthcoming);and Lee R. Kerschner,'Cybernetics: Key to the Future?',Problems of Communism, Vol. 14 (November-December1965), 56-66. 48. BernardE. Bykhovskii,'Kibernetika - amerikanskaialzhenauka', Priroda (1952), No. 7 (July),125-27, at 125. 49. Materialist[pseudonym], 'Whom Does CyberneticsServe?' [1953], trans.Alexander D. Paul, SovietCybernetics Review, Vol. 4 (1974), 31-45, at 34. 50. Teodor K. Gladkov,'Kibernetika - psevdonaukao mashinax,zhivotnykh, cheloveke i obshchestve',Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta (1955), No. 1, 57-67, at 59. 51. Materialist,op. cit. note 49, 34. 52. Boris Agapov,'Mark III, kal'kuliator',Literaturnaia gazeta (4 May 1950), 2. 53. On the Soviet atomicproject, see David Holloway,Stalin and theBomb: The Soviet Unionand AtomicEnergy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1994); andVizgin (ed. and comp.), op. cit. note 24. 54. On Soviet rocketry,which developed in close connectionwith the space programme, see: JamesHarford, Korolev: How One Man Mastermindedthe Soviet Drive to Beat Americato theMoon (NewYork: JohnWiley & Sons, 1997); WalterA. McDougall, . . . theHeavens and theEarth: A PoliticalHistory of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985); and Roger D. Launius, JohnM. Logsdon and RobertW. Smith (eds), ReconsideringSputnik: Forty Years since the Soviet Satellite (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers,2000). 55. On the Soviet anti-missiledefence programme, see O.V. Golubev,Yu.A. Kamenskiy, M.G. Minasyan and B.D. Pupkov,'Problems of Control and EffectivenessEvaluation in the Developmentof the SovietAntimissile Defense System.1. Experimental ProvingGround System(System A)', Journalof Computer and SystemsSciences International,Vol. 32 (1994), 81-88; and GrigoriiKisun'ko, Sekretnaiazona: Ispoved' general'nogokonstruktora (Moscow: Sovremennik,1996). For a broad overviewof the Soviet defenceindustry, see Nikolai S. Simonov,Voenno-promyshlennyi kompleks SSSR v 1920-1950-e gody:tempy ekonomicheskogo rosta, struktura, organizatsiia proizvodstva i upravleniie(Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1996).

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56. I.V. Bystrovaand G.E. Riabov,'Voenno-promyshlennyi kompleks SSSR', in VitaliiS. Lel'chuk (ed.), Sovetskoeobshchestvo: Vozniknovenie, razvitie, istoricheskii final, Vol. 2: Apogeii krakhstalinizma (Moscow: RGGU, 1997), 150-208, at 162. 57. Ibid., 167. 58. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 36,1. 48. 59. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 118, d. 758,11. 22-23. 60. Malaia elektronnaiaschetnaia mashina. 61. On Lebedev and his firstcomputers, see GregoryD. Crowe and SeymourE. Goodman, 'S.A. Lebedev and the Birthof Soviet Computing',Annals of the History of Computing,Vol. 16. No. 1 (Spring 1994), 4-24; and Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 17-81. 62. Malinovskii,ibid., 42-43. 63. On Bruk and the M-1, see ibid., 175-88. 64. Ibid., 43. 65. Ibid., 67. 66. Ibid., 42. 67. Ibid., 183, 187. 68. See SergeiA. Lebedev and MstislavV.Keldysh, 'Bol'shie schetnyematematicheskie mashiny'(1952): ARAN, f. 1939, op. 2, d. 2,11. 55, 57. 69. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 48. Lesechko headed the Special Design Bureau No. 245; Bazilevskiiwas the Bureau's chiefdesigner. 70. ARAN, f. 1559, op. 1, d. 14,1. 49. 71. Archiveof the Instituteof Precise Mechanics and ComputerTechnology, 'Godovoi bukhgalterskiiotchet ITMVT' (1950),1. 22. 72. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 3,1. 134. 73. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 4,1. 164. 74. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 2,1. 119. Beforethe war, Khrushchevled the Ukrainian Partyorganization and Lavrent'evheaded the Instituteof Mathematicsin Kiev; they then'met manytimes and establisheda verygood, friendlyrelationship': see R.G. Ianovskii'scomments in N. S. Khrushchev(1894-1971): Materialynauchnoi konferentsii (Moscow: RGGU, 1994), 164. On one occasion Khrushchevremarked: 'I have known academicianLavrent'ev for many years. He is a good scientist';see Pravda (2 July 1959). 75. Bol'shaia (Bystrodeistvuiushchaia)elektronnaia schetnaia mashina. 76. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 58. 77. Ibid., 187-88. 78. The Departmentof ComputationalMathematics was organizedin 1949; Sobolev chairedit from1952 to 1959. The ComputationCentre of Moscow Universitywas establishedin 1955. See Ivan S. Berezin,trans. John Schneider, 'The Chair of ComputerMathematics and the ComputationCenter of Moscow University',Soviet Cybernetics:Recent News Items,Vol. 3 (1969), 38-44; Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 280-89. 79. Harford,op. cit. note 54, 220-21. 80. See Kh. Rutiskhauzeret al., 'Elektronnyetsifrovye schetnye mashiny s programmnym upravleniem',Voprosy raketnoi tekhniki, vyp. 2-5 (1952). This publicationwas a translationof Heinz von Rutishauser,Ambros Speiser and Eduard Stiefel, Programmgesteuertedigitale Rechengerate (elektronische Rechenmaschinen) (Basel: Birkhauser,1951). 81. See AndreiP. Ershov and MikhailR. Shura-Bura,trans. Ken Kennedy,'The Early Developmentof Programmingin the USSR', in Nicholas Metropolis,Jack Howlett and Gian-Carlo Rota (eds), A Historyof Computing in theTwentieth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 137-96, esp. 154-55, 179; and Rimma I. Podlovchenko,'O nauchnomvklade A.A. Liapunova v oblastiteorii programmirovaniia', Problemy kibernetiki,Vol. 32 (1977), 45-57. 82. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 189-90. 83. Feklisov,op. cit. note 39, 89.

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84. See AnatoliiI. Kitov,'Rol' akademikaA.I. Berga v razvitiivychislitel'noi tekhniki i avtomatizirovannykhsistem upravleniia', in VladimirI. Siforov(ed.), Put' v bol'shuiu nauku: akademikAksel' Berg (Moscow: Nauka, 1988), 131-34, at 131; V. Neskoromnyi,'Chelovek, kotoryi vynes kibemetiku iz sekretnoibiblioteki', Komp'iuterra(1996), No. 43 (18 November),44-45. 85. The ComputationCentre No. 1 was organizedin August 1954 to carryout calculationsfor the design of nuclearweapons and intercontinentalballistic missiles; see '27 TsNII - stareishaianauchnaia organizatsiiaMinisterstva oborony', Chelovek i komp'iuter(1996), No. 21-22, 4. 86. Kisun'ko, op. cit. note 55, 277. 87. Golubev et al., op. cit. note 55, 83. 88. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 68-70. 89. Ibid., 189. 90. ARAN, f. 471, op. 1/1947-1956,op. 1, d. 144a, 1. 159. 91. ARAN, f. 1918, op. 1, d. 3,1. 4. 92. ARAN, f. 1918, op. 1, d. 3, 1. 1. 93. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 54. 94. Quoted in Harford,op. cit. note 54, 220. 95. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 68-70. 96. Martin Campbell-Kellyand WilliamAspray, Computer: A Historyof the Information Machine (NewYork: Basic Books, 1996), Chapter 5. 97. Lebedev & Keldysh,op. cit. note 68, 1. 10. 98. ARAN, f. 471, op. 1(47-56), d. 87a, 1. 149. 99. For a list of major Soviet translations,see Ershov & Shura-Bura,op. cit. note 81. 100. DmitriiIu. Panov, 'Ot redaktoraperevoda', in Bystrodeistvuiushchievychislitel'nye mashiny,trans. from English (Moscow: Izdatel'stvoinostrannoi literatury, 1952), no paginationin mynotes. 101. Nikolai A. Zheleznov,'Predislovie', in Zheleznov (ed.), Teoriiaperedachi elektricheskikh signalovpri nalichiipomekh, trans. from English (Moscow: Izdatel'stvoinostrannoi literatury,1953), 5-6, at 6. 102. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 31. 103. Eduard A. Meerovich,in 'Obsuzhdenie doklada professoraA.A. Liapunova "Ob ispol'zovaniimatematicheskikh mashin v logicheskikhtseliakh" ' (1954), in DmitriiA. Pospelov and Iakov I. Fet (eds and comps), Ocherkiistorii informatiki v Rossii (Novosibirsk:OIGGM SO RAN, 1998), 52-83, at 64. 104. The Russian translationof Wiener's Cybernetics (1948) appeared in 1958. 105. 'Obsuzhdenie doklada', op. cit. note 103, 72. 106. Ibid., 75. 107. Malinovskii,op. cit. note 13, 212-31. 108. Ibid., 197-207. 109. Ibid., 192-93. 110. On the displayvalue of large-scaleSoviet technologies,see Josephson,op. cit. note 4. 111. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 230,1. 156. 112. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 230,11. 155, 158. 113. TsAODM, f. 7341, op. 1, d. 7,1. 78. 114. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 174, 1. 129. The newspaperarticle in questionwas E. Obodan, 'Vychislitel'nuiutekhniku - na sluzhbu tekhnicheskomuprogressu', Izvestiia (28 August 1951). 115. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 174,1. 138. 116. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 174,1. 147. 117. RGANI, f. 5, op. 17, d. 458,1. 106. 118. RGANI, f. 5, op. 17, d. 458,1. 95. 119. RGANI, f. 5, op. 17, d. 458,1. 106. 120. RGANI, f. 5, op. 17, d. 509,1. 34. 121. Alston S. Householder,'Digital Computersin Eastern Europe', Computersand Automation,Vol. 4 (December 1955), 8-9.

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122. On the historyof Soviet cyberneticsin the Khrushchevperiod, see BorisV. Biriukov (ed.), Kibernetika:proshloe dlia budushchego.Etiudy po istoriiotechestvennoi kibernetiki (Moscow: Nauka, 1989); Slava Gerovitch,'Striving for "Optimal Control": Soviet Cyberneticsas a "Science of Government"',in Miriam R. Levin (ed.), Culturesof Control(Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers,2000), 247-64; RichardD. Gillespie,'The Politicsof Cyberneticsin the Soviet Union', in AlbertH. Teich (ed.), Scientistsand PublicAffairs (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974), 239-98; Graham,op. cit. note 22, Chapter 8; David Holloway,'Innovation in Science -The Case of Cyberneticsin the Soviet Union', ScienceStudies, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 1974), 299-337; Kerschner,op. cit. note 47; and Pospelov & Fet (eds and comps), op. cit. note 103. 123. ViktorD. Pekelis,'Chelovek, kibernetika i bog', Nauka i religiia(1960), No. 2, 25-30, at 27. 124. For diverseperspectives on the ways the Cold War affectedthe productionof scientific knowledgein the United States,see worksby Michael A. Dennis, Ronald E. Doel, Paul Forman,Peter L. Galison, Roger L. Geiger,Bruce W. Hevly,Daniel J.Kevles, StuartW. Leslie, Rebecca S. Lowen, Donald MacKenzie, Allan A. Needell, and essays elsewherein thisSpecial Issue. 125. On ideologicalconstructions of science in the United States in the post-warperiod, see David A. Hollinger,'Science as a Weapon of Kulturkampfein the United States During and AfterWorld War II', Isis,Vol. 86, No. 3 (September1995), 440-54. 126. These two quotationsare takenfrom: Yaron Ezrahi,'Technology and the Illusion of the Escape fromPolitics', in Yaron Ezrahi,Everett Mendelsohn and Howard P. Segal (eds), Technology,Pessimism, and Postmodernism(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,1994), 29-37, at 30; and JessicaWang, 'Merton's Shadow: Perspectiveson Science and Democracy Since 1940', HistoricalStudies in thePhysical and Biological Sciences,Vol. 30, Part 1 (1999), 279-306, at 301. 127. Thomas F. Gieryn,Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on theLine (Chicago, IL & London: The Universityof Chicago Press, 1999), 23. 128. See Daniel Lee Kleinman and Mark Solovey,'Hot Science/ColdWar: The National Science FoundationAfter World War II', Radical HistoryReview, No. 63 (Fall 1995), 110-39. 129. JessicaWang, American Science in an Age ofAnxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the ColdWar (Chapel Hill & London: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1999), 8-9. 130. Krementsov,op. cit. note 8, 8. 131. For a comprehensivehistoriographic survey, see StuartW. Leslie, 'Science and Politics in Cold WarAmerica', in MargaretC. Jacob (ed.), ThePolitics of Western Science, 1640-1990 (AtlanticHighlands, NJ: HumanitiesPress International,1994), 199-233. 132. See McDougall, op. cit. note 54, esp. his Introduction. 133. For completecitations and discussion,see Leslie, op. cit. note 131. 134. IV. Bystrova,'Razvitie voenno-promyshlennogo kompleksa', in VitaliiS. Lel'chuk and EfimI. Pivovar(eds), SSSR i kholodnaiavoina (Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv,1995), 160-202, at 162; Krementsov,op. cit. note 8, 5. 135. Bystrova,op. cit. note 134, 201. 136. AleksandrD. Aleksandrov,Andrei N. Kolmogorovand MikhailA. Lavrent'ev(eds), Matematika,ee soderzhanie,metody i znachenie,Vol. 1 (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1956), 69. 137. Ibid., 77. 138. SydneyH. Gould, 'Forewordby the Editor of theTranslation', in AleksandrD. Aleksandrov,Andrei N. Kolmogorovand MikhailA. Lavrent'ev(eds), trans.S. H. Gould and T. Bartha,Mathematics, Its Content,Methods, and Meaning,Vol. 1 (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1963), vii-viii,at vii.

Slava Gerovitchis a postdoctoralfellow at the DibnerInstitute for the Historyof Scienceand Technologyin Cambridge,Massachusetts, and a researchassociate at the RussianAcademy of SciencesInstitute for the

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Historyof NaturalScience and Technologyin Moscow.He is currently workingon a book on the historyof Sovietcybernetics; his research interestsalso includethe historyof computingand of artificialintelligence. Address:Dibner Institute for the Historyof Scienceand Technology,E56- 100, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology,38 MemorialDrive, Cambridge, Massachusetts02139, USA;fax: +1 617 258 7483; email:[email protected]

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