From Newspeak to Cyberspeak

Abstract

In this book, Slava Gerovitch argues that Soviet cybernetics was not just an intellectual trend but a social movement for radical reform in science and society as a whole. Followers of cybernetics viewed computer simulation as a universal method of problem solving and the language of cybernetics as a language of objectivity and truth. With this new objectivity, they challenged the existing order of things in economics and politics as well as in science. The history of Soviet cybernetics followed a curious arc. In the 1950s it was labeled a reactionary pseudoscience and a weapon of imperialist ideology. With the arrival of Khrushchev's political "thaw," however, it was seen as an innocent victim of political oppression, and it evolved into a movement for radical reform of the Stalinist system of science. In the early 1960s it was hailed as "science in the service of communism," but by the end of the decade it had turned into a shallow fashionable trend. Using extensive new archival materials, Gerovitch argues that these fluctuating attitudes reflected profound changes in scientific language and research methodology across disciplines, in power relations within the scientific community, and in the political role of scientists and engineers in Soviet society. His detailed analysis of scientific discourse shows how the Newspeak of the late Stalinist period and the Cyberspeak that challenged it eventually blended into "CyberNewspeak."

“Lions – Marchuk”: The Soviet-French Cooperation in Computing

“…In October 1955, the existence of Soviet computers was revealed to the world at the now famous Darmstadt Conference, prior to being officially declassified for the Soviet Union's own citizens. 5 After this date there were rare visits and contacts between Soviet and Western computer scientists under the inter-academies exchange agreements and under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). [3] High level scholars connected with computing, such as academician Dorodnitsyn, were looking for every possibility of international contacts, and advanced the following reasons when arguing at the governmental level: to access easy sources for information collection; but also to prevent negative propaganda of the USSR's technological underdevelopment, provoked by insufficient demonstration of the Soviet achievements in computing.…”

“…The focus of the book is the complex relation between Soviet science and politics, which was responsible for the checkered nature and destiny of Soviet cybernetics. [5] Akademgorodok became home for Alexey Liapunov and Sergei Sobolev, two of three authors of the famous article-manifesto "Essential Characteristics of Cybernetics" [Osnovye cherty kibernetiki], which appeared in Questions of Philosophy [Voprosy Filosofii] in 1955 and marked a turning point in favor of cybernetics, previously publicly abused as pseudo-science. [14] Moreover, some new generation computer scientists, like Andrey Ershov, a talented pupil of Liapunov, gathered in Siberia at the very moment when Soviet cybernetics was gaining in power.…”

From Cybernation to Feminization: Firestone and Cyberfeminism

“…Slava Gerovitch points out how cybernetic concepts "acquired the degree of generality characteristic of ultraflexible categories of dialectical materialism," and "cybernetics" itself becoming something of a buzzword, a fashionable trend. 28 This tendency-combining cybernetics with Soviet Marxism-gained popularity internationally in the social sciences as well as in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. 29 In studies of media and society, cybernetic terminology was employed in discussing not only computer technology or the emerging information society, but also electronic media such as television and video.…”

Historiographic Conceptualization of Information: A Critical Survey

“…The Lysenkoites turned their attack upon Kolmogorov, reproaching him for having the audacity and indiscretion to subordinate biology to mathematics. Threatened with what Gerovitch calls ''a dangerous philosophical and ideological debate,'' 83 Kolmogorov judiciously backed off his earlier claims. Henceforth Kolmogorov steered clear of the life sciences and advised his students to do the same.…”