Talk:History of computing in the Soviet Union

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History of computing in the Soviet Union has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: February 22, 2018. (Reviewed version).

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:History of computing in the Soviet Union/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Rosguill (talk · contribs) 22:52, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): General structure is fine, but sections for individual eras could use additional subheaders, splitting individual milestones and trivia (like the invention of Tetris or the impounding of American chess software bound for Moscow) away from narrative sections describing the state of the industry It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): Claims about the Ninth Five-Year-Plan are exclusively sourced to a Fortune.com piece with a clear ideological bone to pick and bases its assessments on a PhD dissertation. A brief look at the wikipedia page for the Ninth Five-Year-Plan would suggest that while the Plan faced general failures in implementation, the implementation of improvements in the computer technology sector was one of the few successful elements c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: The appraisal section is of questionable neutrality. In particular, the claims from the Hudson Institute are extreme enough that they would appear to contradict the article as a whole, and the comparison to South Korea and Taiwan seems unfair. Additionally, Strayer's analysis is tautological--without specifying a causal mechanism, they blame the Soviet's command economy; this method of reasoning could be used to dismiss or affirm virtually any claim about Soviet industry and relies on pre-existing ideological perceptions of the desirability (or lack thereof) of non-market based economies. If nothing else, I would recommend reordering this section so that it leads with what is currently the second paragraph "Although soviet computer software..." It is stable. . No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Good quality overall, but specific issues of sources and neutrality should be addressed. Some additional copyediting for the structure for history sections wouldn't be remiss either. Upon review and discussion below, the article was deemed to have passed. Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Hi Rosguill, thank you for taking the time to review the article.

1a: Agreed, I have removed such milestones until enough of them can be gathered for a separate section.

2b: The Fortune source has been replaced by Benjamin Peters' How Not to Network a Nation: it seems that a heavily simplified version of the original proposal was indeed implemented.

4: I still need to do any work on this section, but per capita incomes in the USSR in the early 80s were 85-90% of the Japanese level, and 2 to 3 times higher than South Korea and Taiwan, so I can't agree that the comparison is unfair.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 08:37, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Noted for the SK and Taiwan comparison. Originally I had based the objection on disparities in foreign investment, not per capita income. That having been said, ultimately no comparison between countries is going to be perfect, so I suppose we can leave it in. Rosguill (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Update about #4: I found two sources, one again lists the lack of market forces as the reason for decline; the other provides a more detailed breakdown but it is from those same Hudson researchers.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosguill: Hi again! Let me know if further improvements are needed for the GA nomination. Cheers, --eh bien mon prince (talk) 12:53, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, sorry for the delay. Looking over the article now, it appears to be in good shape and I will change the evaluation status to "pass"

Additional comments by Lingzhi

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Comment

I think that this page could do with some expansion around the (saratov - capatob) system.

I own the front panel from one of these systems and have done a little research on the equipment (vs PDP8).

It seems strange that no mention of this computer. If that one - which I know about - is missing, what else is missing?

I dont know enough about the technicals nor the science/political to make any comments. All I can supply are photographs! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iainmaoileoin (talk • contribs) 15:44, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Soviet Union under Stalin opposed cybernetics, not computing

Stalin did not oppose computing, he opposed cybernetics, which are two distinct things. Cybernetics, on the one hand, seeks to analyze the universe as a large system containing many smaller machine-like systems (really, it is a metaphysical philosophy). Cybernetics was seen as pseudo-scientific, while on the other hand computing was seen as a useful tool and was supported by the Stalin administration and the press. The provided source for the claim that Stalin "considered the computer an evil product of capitalism" is just an American computing newspaper, which does not support its claim in any way, and which cannot be considered an expert source on the politics of the Soviet Union.

The following quote from anti-communist David Holloway indicates the falsehood of the claim that the USSR under Stalin opposed or suppressed computing:

“In 1960 Academician Berg wrote that ‘it took such a long time to form a sensible attitude to cybernetics that undoubted harm was done to our science and technology ‘… Berg had referred to the way in which the fears of philosophers had held up the development of computer technology; but, as has been mentioned, computer technology was exempted from the initial attacks on cybernetics. In 1949 the first department of Computer Mathematics in the Soviet Union had been set up at Moscow University, and in the following year the Academy of Sciences established an Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering. Work on digital computers had begun in the late 1940s, and by 1953 several different computers had been completed.” (David Holloway, Innovation in Science-The Case of Cybernetics in the Soviet Union, p. 312) 132.160.49.90 (talk) 01:17, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]