Russians suspicious of micro’s

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 22

Russians suspicious of micro’s

Reprinted from the “Economist,” London

Feeling persecuted by the squeaking space-invaders that have occupied your local bar? Demoralised by the six-year-old electronic chess masters at the nearby computer store? Don’t despair. There is still one bolthole in the developed world for refugees from the third industrial revolution: the Soviet Union. Even as east Europeans begin to share the boom in computer sales, the Russians are still asking themselves whether, not when, to accept personal computers, which are not ordinarily obtainable in the Soviet Union. The Russians are used to large computers. Officials from Gosplan, the State planning agency, would be lost without them. One of Gosplan’s jobs is to calculate some 12M prices each year as part of the national economic plan. The real challenge to a highly centralised system comes from the smaller personal computers — the Apples, Apricots and other fruits of the silicon chip. Widespread use of microcomputers would enable enterprise managers and officials to collect and store information for their own purposes. That would increase the pressure on Ministries and planning agencies to allow economic

decisions to be decentralised. At the moment, control of information about the economy is vital to party officials’ control of economic decisions. Naturally, many of them treat the personal computers as a threat to their power. Politically, the personal computer is equally alarming to the powers that be, with its possibilities of linking up private citizens in electronic networks. It could free Russia’s samizdat, or underground press, from the age of the hand-turned duplicator. Party officials who fear computers can take some comfort from the fact that Soviet society is less com-puter-friendly than Japan or the United States, which are already wired up and primed to exploit the new communications technologies. The Soviet internal telephone network is oldfashioned and inefficient. It could not as it stands support a large scale personal computer network. Direct dialling to the outside world was stopped in 1982. This was supposedly for “technical” reasons. Many think the real reason was to cut communications between Soviet dissidents and their friends abroad. Computers are useful for storing and manipulating in-

formation. But reliable facts and figures are restricted in the Soviet Union. Unless information were more easily available, the spread of personal computers, in industry and government, might have less of an impact than in the West. This, in theory, ought to ease the fears of officials who treat computers as a threat. Just as government departments in the West restrict access to secret computer information, so Russian authorities could police the use of microcomputers. By no means all Russians

are hostile. Middle-grade managers are fascinated by computers. But they also have reason to be wary of them. Astute managers normally conceal extra stocks to beat the sudden shortages of raw materials that afflict a tightly planned economy. Computerised inventories would make it more difficult to hide such deliberate mistakes. The need for economic reform and the fear of losing their political control pull party officials in opposite directions when they think about the new technology. Economically, resis-

tance to microprocessors is self-defeating. In a cen-trally-run economy, bad information is the ’ planners' plague. Equipping factorybosses with computers could be a partial cure. Politically. it is the sort of gamble a conservative elite is unlikely to take.

There is little doubt about the cost of Luddism in Russia. Unlike the Xerox machine, which is simply an administrative aid, the microcomputer can play a direct role in the production process. As computer time becomes increasingly cheap, industries that do not use the new technology will become less and less able to compete with those that do. That will increase Russia’s difficulties in selling industrial goods in the West.

The Russians at least appear to be aware of their dilemma. They are trying to close the East-West gap in electronics technology. In 1981, Comecon (the Soviet bloc’s economic grouping) launched a joint programme to develop advanced microelectronics equipment by the end of the 1980 s. The Soviet Union is known to have produced several microcomputers based on American technology of the mid-19705. (Only one of these is thought to be driven by a single microprocessor chip; the rest are less advanced multichip models.)

But the number of these computers produced each year in the soviet union is secret. The figure is almost certainly small compared with production in the West. By itself, IBM reckons it can make one machine every 15 seconds, and it plans to double that pace by the end of this year. If Russia is to adapt, schoolchildren will have to be taught about computers. Although Russian higher technical education is excellent, schoolchildren are less familiar with new equipment than those in the West. Many Russian teachers are still against allowing pocket calculators in the classroom — perhaps for the sensible reason that they want children to be able to do sums in their heads. But the computer gap in schools is beginning to be treated with concern. Russian pride may help to nudge the Soviet Union into accepting more of the new technology. The Hungarians. Czechs, and East Germans are already using it. Hungary, in particular, leads Comecon at developing computer software. It would be galling if the Soviet Union’s junior partners in Comecon mastered floppies and disk drives, while the Russians were still labouring with calculating machines and tvpewriters. Copyright: the "Economist."