THE SOVIET INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DILEMMA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R000700180012-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2009
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: July 11, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20505
National Intelligence Council
NIC #04003-84
11 July 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
FROM: David Y. McManis
National Intelligence Officer for Warning
SUBJECT: The Soviet Information Technology Dilemma
VC/NIC and I have discussed on numerous occasions the impact of the
computer revolution on the Soviet Union, particularly the impact of the
personal computer. The attached analysis from Computerworld is an excellent
treatise and I commend it to your attention. In sum, it notes that the Soviet
Union and indeed the Bloc, need computer technology to remain economically
competitive, but at the same time full adoption of an information society is
counter to Soviet-style Marxist7hzninicm
Attachment:
a/s
C- /O (o
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 Approved For Release 2009/02/09: CIA-RDP86M00886R000700180012-6
NIC #04003-84
11 July 1984
SUBJECT: The Soviet Information Technology Dilemma
Distribution:
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1 - Exec/Dir
1 - ER
1 - C/NIC
1 - VC/NIC
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UNCLASSIFIED
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Communism vs. the computer
Can the USSR survive the information age?
The hardware. and software
gap between East and West is
about 10 to 12 years - some-
what less.in robotics, consider-
ably more. in offlce automa-
tion. The Soviet bloc follows, it
does not lead; the reasons are
ideological and structural.
By Rex Malik
The arrival of inexpensive digital information
technology poses a fundamental challenge to the
survival of the Soviet system. The USSR and its
associated countries cannot survive the large-
scale introduction of information technology in
any meaningful way and be recognizably the
same system that has evolved, in the case of the
USSR, over 70 years.
The main reason is this: The infrastructure
.necessary for the USSR to reap the benefits is
absent and cannot be created without a massive
administrative restructuring, which would be.
ideologically and politically more than difficult.
In a recent broadcast from Moscow, the Soviet
commentator Boris Belitsky said that the'.'fifth-
cgeneration" computers the Soviet Union is set-
ting out to create "embody the most. valuable
expertise built up by the computer industries of
many countries, which was cars1izUy and crib
caUy reviewed by the computer designers gjthe
On March 29, the Soviets announced that.
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IN DEPTH/USSR IN THE INFORMATION AGE
"centralized system of automated ac-
cess to foreign computer networks
and data banks has gone into service
in Moscow." Note the use of the
word "centralized."
On Soviet television a week later,
the chairman of the Siberian Depart.
ment of the USSR Academy of Sci-
ences criticized the incompatibility
of two systems in different parts of
the Soviet Union, both built at about
the same time to do similar tasks.
One would expect centralized plan-
ning to eliminate incompatibility.
Within the last year, senior party
members and academicians have
made unusual public statements re-
flecting their recognition that com-
puting brings change:
^ Electronics are changing the na-
ture of labor.
^ It is an urgent socioeconomic
and important political task to intro-
mind that Europe's long evolution.
ary chain produced is essentially .
stituted, cannot manage this t
possible, but whereas Western Eu?
rope could survive that, the Soviet
bloc probably could not. The chal.
lenge that faces the Soviet bloc is
quite fundamental, and that chal-
lenge is caused by information tech..
l
no
ogy, its requirements, its appliq.
bons and what it sets in train. The
growth of information technology is
duce electronic equipment and mi-
croprocessors into the national econ-
omy.
^ The use of computer technology
could eventually release 50% of the
productive work force and increase
production by 214 times. ? `
^ Most of the USSR's population
should acquire skills In handling
computer technology.
What is not at issue here is the
eventual capability of the Soviet bloc
to produce - if it so chooses - the
right and appropriate technology, al-
though Its hardware and software
are likely to remain at least a decade
behind that offered by the West. The
gap between East and West is about
10 to 12 years - somewhat less in
robotics, considerably more in office
automation.
The Soviet bloc follows, it does
not lead, and the reasons for its lags
are ideological and structural.
Why should the challenge take
different forms in the Soviet bloc
than elsewhere? What is inherent in
the technology that poses a threat to
the continuance of the Marxist ideo.
logical state system set up by Lenin
'and his inheritors?.
Western European ascendancy
was the product of two sets of
forces, one of which gave rise to the
other. The first was an attitude of
mind, a product of the evolution of
religion, philosophy, climate and lan-
guage, which created a framework in
which change became possible. The
second was its product, the Industri.
al revolution.
We are now witnessing the pass-
ing of that order in its second sense.
It is the first set of qualities, howev.
er, that is likely to ensure that if
anyone can pass through in relative-
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lion technology is- inimi-
cal to the continuation of
the industrial society.
That is the problem.
And the Soviet system
has the industrial soci-
ety at its heart.
inimical to the continuation of the
industrial society. That is the prob.
lem. And the Soviet system has the
industrial society at its heart.
We are talking here of Soviet-style
communism. We are not referring to
the USSR alone, but to the European
bloc of the USSR, Bulgaria, Czecho-
slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania
and East Germany. In many matters,
these countries are best understood ,,
as one bloc; and that is especially
true with the development of infor.
mation technology. The linking
structure is the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance, known as Co-
mecon. Strict Soviet-style commu-
nism, as described here, centers on
the USSR (notably Russia) and the
satellite countries in Eastern Europe.
To say that the bloc must be
looked at as a whole is not to imply
that it is a monolith. To a degree, the
different countries evince different
attitudes and behavior to the West
and to information technology. In
relative terms,4he USSR is taking a
stricter, mo~otthodox line, whereas
some of th - lites are being more
adventurglis and innovative. This is
not happeging with the encourage-
ment of Moscow, only with its grudg-
ing acquiescence.
In Bulgaria and Hungary, especial.
ly, a new generation of management
is taking risks with a series of eco-
nomic reforms. In Hungary, planning
is indicative, not prescriptive. Man-
agers are increasingly accepting the
opportunities for decentralization.
Whereas in Hungary the managers
tend to act independently, albeit
with the tacit support of the party,
in East Germany the management
and Party apparatchiks tend to favor
collaboration. The result is progress,
if somewhat slow. In contrast, the
USSR moves hardly at all.
Before we go any further, let me
make my obeisance to the year of
George Orwell, 1984. It is appropri-
ate that one does, for computerized
information technology is seen by
many in the West as an Orwellian
technology. They stress the power
that it can give its operators should
they choose to apply it to the
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IN DEPTH/USSR IN THE INFORMATION AGE c
purposes of social control - and the
ability it can give the rulers to main-
tain surveillance of the ruled at a
more detailed level than previously
possible - and end by substituting
"will" for "can."
It does not follow that repression
and social control cannot work in
mase.eocleties without computer
power. The USSR, among others,
managed quite effectively in that de-
partment long before the first com-
puter was brought into action. True,
it was not always thorough and ef-
fective, but capriciousness can be
Just as effective an instrument of
terror and work just as successfully
if not as finely. And sometlpee it can
be cheaper. Computers ha* played
little part in getting thereputed
three million people 1nygYiet labor
camps. T,
'
A scenario is poselb$ n which
computing in the Soviet bloc is used
primarily as an instrument of con-
trol, in the sense of police control.
But if this is all that it does, the
system has essentially conceded the
economic race. And this it-cannot do.
The bloc is a political entity whose
ideological justification is economic,
and competitively so. To give up the
race would be unthinkable.
It is important to understand that
the challenge now facing the Soviet
bloc is not an immediately dramatic
one; forget Hollywood and High
Noon. The decline instead will be
gradual; the processes by which it
occurs are akin to erosion. And this
in turn could lead to political steps
that could have unfortunate conse-
quences for the Soviet bloc and for
nonal lnterest.'Properfy applied and
We are on trackf or a hi hl des used it Is an Immense amplifier of
g y ngerous-situation. human es1,ab lily. Tdiepeople - at
The way we have chosen to 90 ~'"t~le Soviet ? whatever let et - waft this without
leviathan with some very stark chtaicwhich, any m.s of status, Income or career
however,it wriggles, it will eventually have to make.` ProspectL The way information technology
is now developing Is Inimical to the
continuation of the structure of the-
Sovk% bloc is
(and theta little possl.
ourselves. Given that we seem to be advances in -1/0 devices and prove- ' .:
able to steer through the escalation dures, which will make even cheaper ~ ) because
of nuclear weapons and, still remain electronics possible, developments technology may is not ahem neutral. rputrri'rlainge co
are
at peace, one can see a situation - in high-speed, very lar rge scale { s- onerka on track for ii highly dangerous situ
arising in which the Soviet system is g ration: Also incl
d
d
d
c
u
e
: a
van
es in attn. The way we have chosen to go
relegated to the second division of software, development of abstract. pr4ae cis Soviet leviathan with : .
economic power, a supplier of raw, theories of mathematics to give our, .:, aotfe rery stark cholcei w
how-
materials and not muchlelse. What. selves a bett
er
_ _ psychology anal systems " In a market.based er vfronm et,
any of its people (let alone their development. This last gives us the wher'e?tnvaetroeet'andotherbugpese^
leaders) would be willing to accept. likelihood of & technology with a lfectrionaase!lade from the,bottom
Yet It remains clear that informa. "humalt face", one that can be ser'I t"tp (in' its broadest sense)-and the
lion technology will bite deepest and ouply. applied to the care of the sick, people". may not initiate but still
have its most profound ffecia in the disturbed and the elderly, as well have the power of; rejection, one can
"free" societies, which !lave a tradi- ae giving powerful datts, tool combl say that,. however Imperfect the
Lion of a relatively unf$tered free,' nations to expand the performance system, it has enougb plasticity to
dom of inquiry, a treed m from di- of thereat of tea. reshape itself se chaioc urs. A
rection as to where Intellectual There may be
'even In th
O
_A
,
e
rg_
Itey factor here Is theextent to
vicuriosity may take you and the Indl- satien for Economic Coopetstion and which the society kgener'ates new
dual freedom to acquire the skill. _
f
cation
th
v.
-pp-
e wear distribute rt.
important. It wad IIou h beet in nniogy. But we have enough expert- No such adaptation in possible in a
which
societies in , as Jo Milton ence (and evidence) of behavior, top-down economy: without the con-
put it more than three nturies ago, even in Its sometimes still surprising.. sent of than at the top. Now there
there is "an open market of ideas." primitive state, to have some indica-are good reasons whythis an
Lions of the main thrusts. They can' will be NtR t Ppert
Broad t?wge cult to obtain; why it
be briefly summarized. Those people would not he forthcoming, unless the
Information technology? That who have or can obtain access to the Soviet bloc were to face the sort of
should be read as covering digital technology want It to do the hard, convulsion experienced by China af-
electronics and ranges from comput- the dull, the boring tee routine' ter the cultural revolution, the death
ing in all forms and applications to
ori
whil
t
di
w
p
e ex
en
ng their own = of alto Tastung and the Ilse of Deng
cable and satellite technology; from control and providing greater per ..' ?pww,