Why Didn't the Soviets Automate Their Economy?: Cybernetics in the USSR

The Soviet Union had a chance to computerize and automate its economy. Why did efforts to achieve this vision not succeed? This video covers a brief history of cybernetics in the USSR and offers some explanations for the ultimate demise of automated planning in the Soviet context.
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Narration, script, and editing by M.
Animated intro by Jack, co-host of the Auxiliary Statements podcast @AuxStatements on Twitter.
Intro music by Charles Tristan:
  / charles-tristan  
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Twitter:
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References:
Abramov, Roman Nikolaevich. 2016. “Soviet Technocratic Mythologies as a Form of the ‘Theory of Missed Opportunities:’ On the Example of the History of Cybernetics in the USSR.” Sociology of Science and Technology 8 (2): 61–78.

“Computers to Improve Soviet Industrial Management.” 1965. Central Intelligence Agency.

Gerovitch, Slava. 2008. “InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network.” History and Technology 24 (4): 335-350.

Peters, Benjamin. 2016. How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet. The MITPress.

Safronov, Alexei Vasilievich. 2020. “Computerization of the Planned Economy in the USSR: Projects of Scientists and the Needs of Practitioners.” Sociology of Science and Technology 11 (3): 22–41.

Safronov, Alexei Vasilievich. 2022. “Bureaucratic and Technological Limitations of Computerization of Planning in the USSR.” Economicheskaya Politika 17 (2): 120–45.

Trachtenberg, Anna Davidovna. 2006. “The Myth of the Greatness of Electricity Within the Soviet Technocratic Utopia: Glushkov’s ‘OGAS’ [ Миф о Величии Электричества в Рамках Советской Технократической Утопии: «ОГАС» Академика Глушкова.].” Discourse-P 6 (1): 45–47.
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00:00 - 00:48 Background
00:49 - 01:01 Intro
01:02 - 03:55 A Brief History
03:56 - 05:44 Picturing Automated Socialism: Motivations for Automated Planning
05:45 - 07:06 Picturing Automated Socialism: EASU
07:07 - 10:21 Picturing Automated Socialism: OGAS
10:22 - 13:50 What Went Wrong?: The Political
13:51 - 15:16 What Went Wrong?: The Technical
15:17 - 16:17 What Went Wrong?: A Fundamental Incompatibility?
16:18 - 18:29 Conclusion