The Soviet government and its leaders made significant strides in computer development during the period immediately following the end of the Great Patriotic War. They considered this issue to be the most critical for the national economy, despite the acute need for capital investments in rebuilding the war devastated country and philosophical polemics on the role of cybernetics in society.
The Central Committee and Council of Ministers established the ITMVT, SKB-245, and the Schetmash by 1948. At the same time, the government's budget was expanded to accommodate economic growth. One should remember that in the early 1950s the Soviet Union was producing only a small number of punch-card calculators: electronic calculating technology was in its infancy and lacked production resources for basic components.
The development of a modern computer production base came at the end of the 1950s, after the successful completion of the first industrial models of electronic computers: the M-20, the Ural-1, and the Minsk-1, the forerunners of the semiconductor computers M-220, Ural-11, 14, Minsk-22 and -32, which were issued in the 1960s. These were the basic models available in the Soviet Union before the third generation of computers began production in the early 1970s.
Beginning in the early 1950s, the Moscow SAM plant and the Penza EVM plant were the main producers of those machines, later joined by the Minsk Mathematical Machine factory, the Astrakhan Progress plant, and several other factories. In 1955-56, there was a significant expansion of scientific research and construction bases across the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1960s, they were all prepared to mass-produce semiconductor computers. By 1964, the manufacturing of the first generation of computers stopped and in 1965, the production of semiconductor computers commenced with Ural-11, Ural-14, Minsk-22, Minsk-23, BESM-4, Razdan-3, and others.
Notably, most of this developmental phase coincided with the fact that the Soviet national economy consisted of regional economic councils, or Sovnarkhozes, which dealt with all basic production issues in the Soviet Union.[6] At the same time, all computer scientific research was managed by the State Committee on Radio Electronics, governing scientific research institutes for electronic machine construction (SRIs), and electronics construction bureaus (KBs).
This separation of science and manufacturing into different departments was not the most efficient method of production, although it had positive aspects – the operational assistance to companies involved in mass-production was approved much faster and implemented more efficiently.
In 1965-1966, the national economy was restructured again to a branch control system and all SRIs and KBs for computer technology came under the control of two ministries: the Soviet Ministry of the Radio Industry, responsible for universal and specialized computers, and the Ministry of Machine Construction, responsible for Automation and Control Systems. This restructuring of the Soviet economic system coincided with the beginning of work on the third generation computers based on integral microchips.
The difficulties of this period consisted not only of solving scientific and technological problems (ranging from general architecture to the element base of the new computers), but also complex problems of creating a new branch of computer technology based on new methods and never before manufactured equipment. Shifting of economic policy from a defunct regional control system to an internal branch structure only contributed more problems. In many cases, the development of the next generation of computers happened simultaneously with the construction of production plants and training of personnel.
Due to the economic restructuring and high production quotas demanded by the Soviet government, we had to solve all of these problems in three to five years, more than triple the volume of computer production, and make many internal components and peripheral devices. This required the development and implementation of mass-production of a universal family of software-compatible computers that would be constructed at a single technological installation.
The drastic reduction in research and development timetables was predicated on the assumption that we would be able to sign contracts with leading Western firms to legally obtain their expertise, as well as utilize all of the available domestic experts to design and manufacture these new computers. On December 30, 1967, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union along with the Council of Ministers issued a government decree, Resolution No. 1180/420. This was an order for the creation of domestic computer technology collectives that would offer solutions to every problem – from development and implementation of production materials and base components to the guaranteed production of a new generation of computers and the increased effectiveness of their integration into the national economy. The order provided for:
A budget increase in the production means for computer manufacturing from 304 million rubles in 1965 to 1 billion rubles in 1970 and 3 billion in 1975.
An increase in computer output (income) from 2.47 billion rubles in 1966-1970 to 7.5 billion rubles in 1971-1975.Growth of annual computer output from 5,800 in 1966-1970 to 20,000 computers in 1971-1975.
The order called for the construction of up to 28 new plants and the expansion of 22 existing plants – their operational-industrial space during 1968-1975 increased by more than 2 million square meters.
Appropriate decisions were taken for the development of computer components, practically starting from zero to 65 million integral circuits (microchips) per year.
The program outlined above was, of course, "top of the line." It was not fully realized, but supported the expansion of production resources, and enabled the Soviet Union to nearly double its computer output capacity. Thanks to this resolution, during 1968-1985, manufacturing plants for computer devices and components were built in Kiev, Boyarka, Kanev, Vinnitsa, Kamenets-Podolskii, and Odessa. And this was just in Ukraine. The production potential at other existing plants throughout the Soviet Union, in cities such as Minsk, Brest, Kazan, Kishinev, and others, increased significantly.
When the government decided to build the ES system, nearly 100 organizations and enterprises including 200,000 scientists, engineers and technicians, as well as about 300,000 workers from the Soviet republics, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were involved in the project.
One leader who made a huge contribution to the Soviet computer industry was Mikhail Kirillovich Sulim. He served as Deputy Minister of the Radio Industry and was a close associate of Glushkov, with whom he worked to save the development of the domestic computer technology. After our long conversation and reading the documents that he shared with me, I realized that the Soviet past still haunted him, but no less than the complexities of the present day in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
[6] Translator's Note: These were regional economic councils established by Khrushchev.