A Cyber-Socialism at Home and Abroad: Bulgarian Modernisation, Computers, and the World, 1967-1989 Victor Petrov Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Victor Petrov All rights reserved ABSTRACT A Cyber-Socialism at Home and Abroad: Bulgarian Modernisation, Computers, and the World, 1967-1989 Victor Petrov The history of the Cold War has rarely been looked at through the eyes of the smaller powers, especially ones in the Balkans. Works have also often ignored the actual workings of the international socialist market, and the possibilities it created for some of these small countries. The conventional wisdom has also prevailed that the Eastern Bloc was irreversably lagging technologically, and its societies had failed to enter the information age after the 1970s, one among a myriad of reasons for the failure of socialism. Using the prism of a commodity history of the Bulgarian computer and an ethnography of the professional class that built it and worked with it, this dissertation argues that such narratives obscure the role of small states and the importance of technology to the socialist project. The backward Bulgarian economy exploited the international socialist division of labour and COMECON’s mechanisms to set itself up as the “Silicon Valley” of the Eastern Bloc, garnering huge profits for the economy. To do so, it did not hue a politically maverick road but exploited its political orthodoxy and Soviet alliance to the full, securing huge markets. Importantly, this work also shows that the state facilitated massive transfers of knowledge and technology through both legal and illicit means, using its state security and economic organisations to look to the West. This made the Iron Curtain much more porous for a growing cadre of technical intellectuals who were trusted by the regime in order to create the golden exports of the country. This transfer and mobility helped create an internationally plugged-in and fluent class of engineers and managers, at odds with most of the rest of the economy. At the same time, the Global South became an important area of exchange where these specialists competed with both nascent protectionist regimes and international firms. Using India as a case study, this dissertation shows how Bulgarian met the First World on the grounds of the Third and learned to market, negotiate, advertise, and service customers – a skillset that was then applied to its socialist dealings. Finally, the dissertation examines the domestic impact of such policies. The regime wished to use cybernetics and computing to solve the problems of its lagging economic growth, as well as usher in communism. It introduced both the widespread discourse of technological revolutions to its population, and robots and automation to some of its factories. This created both anxieties and hopes among workers, as well as vibrant philosophical debates about the future roles of humans in the information society, among both technical and humanistic intellectuals. Ultimately, however, the economic inefficiency undermined the promise and this failure was utilised by some technical managers to call for reforms, playing a hand in the end of the regime. They managed to negotiate the transfer to capitalism better than most, utilising their financial and business links, while thousands of engineers also found a better life than the vast majority of Bulgarian workers, through emigration or their possession of cutting edge skills. Using Bulgarian, Russian, Indian archives as well as interviews with living actors, the dissertation thus intervenes in both the view of the Iron Curtain as an impenetrable barrier for ideas, and 1989 as a convenient end point for communism’s legacies. It shows both the creation of new professional classes and how they were plugged into global developments, arguing that some people in the socialist bloc did enter the information age, and it is by paying attention to their actions and interests that we can get a better understanding of the developments of late socialism and its end. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ii Acknowledgments iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. A Victory, a Crisis, a Possibility: The Pre-History of 44 Bulgaria’s Electronic Industry Chapter 2. The Golden Factories & the Captive Market: The 83 Development and Apogee of the Computer Industry Chapter 3. Access Denied: Spying and Technology Transfer Across 149 the Iron Curtain Chapter 4. Entangled Electronics: Bulgaria in India, and the Global 195 South as a Space of Exchange Chapter 5. Automatic for the People: the Scientific-Technical 253 Revolution, Automation, and Society Chapter 6. The Socialist Cyborg: Education, Intellectuals, and Popular 317 Discourse in the Information Age Chapter 7. Networked & Plugged-In: The Emergence of Transnational 375 Professional Classes and the Fall of Communism Conclusions 435 Bibliography 445 i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ASU Automated System of Governance BAS Bulgarian Academy of Sciences BCP Bulgarian Communist Party BNB Bulgarian National Bank CICT Central Institute for Computer Technology COCOM Coordinating Committee for Export Controls COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CSTP Committee for Scientific and Technical Progress (Bulgaria) DKMS Dimitrov Komsomol Youth Union DS Bulgarian State Security DSO State Economic Union ES Unified System (of Computers) ESGRAON Unified System for Civilian Registration and Administrative Services for the Population ESSI Unified System of Social Information GKNT Committee for Scientific and Technical Progress (USSR) ICCT Intergovernmental Commission on Computer Technology ITCR Institute for Technical Cybernetics and Robotics IZOT Computational, Recording and Organisational Technology KESSI Committee for the Unified System of Social Information RB Robot series (Bulgaria) SM System of Minicomputers STI Scientific-Technical Intelligence SPC State Planning Commission TITz Territorial Computer Centre VTO Foreign Trade Organisation ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writing of any dissertation is often a solitary pursuit, but it is never one of isolation. Intellectually and personally this work is in debt to so many people that it would be difficult to list all of them here, but I will give it a try as it is the least I can do to repay the efforts and care of everyone involved. Of course, the first and greatest debt has to go to my supervisor Mark Mazower. Not only was the very concept of this topic born as a paper in one of his classes, but his constant encouragement to make the Balkans a globally connected area has been inspiration to the directions my work has taken. His keen sense of style has taught me to be a better writer, while his wide-ranging questions and comments have always made my work sharper and more concise. Without him, this project would not have been likely to exit the confines of Bulgaria to become one of more global history. It has only benefited from that, much as I have from his mentorship during my time in graduate school. For this, I will be eternally grateful. The rest of my dissertation committee have been invaluable both as readers and mentors. Adam Tooze has been incisive in always pushing me to clarify problematic areas, but also situate my own work against much larger arguments about European or economic history – ones that I would have overlooked if not for him. His endless enthusiasm for this work has been inspirational to me. I thank Malgorzata Mazurek for reading this work of prolix closely and always helping me think in the long duree of Eastern European developments. I must also thank her for her invitation to and comments during conferences and workshops that came at a key moment between research and writing, shaping the path I wanted to take my arguments. I must thank Matthew Jones for agreeing to join my committee despite the short notice, and for his penetrating comments about the history of technology, an area that was brand new to me at the start of this project. His expertise in computer and iii science history have allowed me to really realise what kind of argument I was making, and it was always delivered with humour. Last but not least I must thank Elidor Mehilli, whose guidance, comments, conversation and support have been with this project from the very start. It was his own dissertation, read during this fateful class with Mark Mazower, that launched me towards both my topic and my methodology. There have been many others whose comments and guidance have helped me sharpen my research, or learn how to be a historian. I must thank Columbia University’s department of history for its global outlook and encouragement to follow local stories wherever they take us. Tarik Amar has been a great illuminator of Soviet modernity, and a tireless companion through socialist spying in its various guises. Victoria de Grazia helped me realize what claims I was making to wider European relevance, as well as giving me my first opportunity to lecture and teach in a university setting. Susan Pedersen’s class on modern state formation has always been at the back of my mind when thinking about state projects and their uses of technology. Others throughout the world must also be thanked. I want to thank my first mentors, Dimitar Bechev and Robert J W Evans, during both my undergraduate and master’s days, for patiently and steadfastly teaching me what it is to be a historian. I hope this work is a fitting culmination to their efforts while in Oxford. Odd Arne Westad first listened to my inochoate theories, and suggested looking to India for a case study – for that I can’t thank him enough. Mary Neuburger has been a tireless commentator and friend during the writing of this project, and her own work has helped me immensely in approaching Bulgaria through a commodity angle.