COMMUNICATIONS AND COMPUTERS IN THE USSR SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88G01117R001004310003-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 27, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: September 12, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

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COMMUNICATIONS AND COMPUTERS IN THE USSR
STAT
September 12, 1986
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STAT
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In a project little noted in the West, the Soviet Union is moving
to an integrated nationwide telephone system which AT&T at its peak would
have envied, and they appear to be succeeding in their ambitious plan. At
the same time, they are having serious problems in developing computer
systems at a level comparable to those in the West. In this paper I will
examine their telecommunications experience in some depth, compare it with
their much less successful computer experiences, and hazard some guesses on
why they are succeeding in one, and failing in the other.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS: The Planned Soviet System
Several years ago the Soviets decided to put an end to the proli-
feration of special-use local and long distance communications circuits,
many of which were being developed independently by various ministries and
institutions. Instead they decided to develop a single, all-encompassing,
centrally planned and managed telecommunications system.
This system will make extensive use of conventional cable, but
most of the expansion will be based on satellite communication channels for
all-digital, high data. rate communications between cities and other major
nodes, supplemented by fiber optics within cities and heavily built up
regions. Major digital, computer-controlled switching centers are to be
involved. For the most part the distinction between military and civilian
circuits will soften. A very high degree of encryption and security can be
expected for a significant portion of the traffic.
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Attempts to standardize modulation techniques and devices will be
made. Eastern Europe is expected to be fully integrated into this system.
This is a massive project, and a great consumer of resources. It
is possible, given the hard choices facing the Soviet economy, that at some
point Soviet planners will stretch out funding of the telecommunications
system. But if they do not, progress to date suggests that it will be
completed before the turn of the century.
Current Soviet Telecommunications
In order to appreciate what the Soviets are trying to accomplish
in telecommunications we have to know where they are today.
Transmission The current Soviet transmission network consists of
cable carrying analogue signals over long distances, heavily supplemented
by microwaves carrying less secure digitized signals, and by communications
satellites. There is a trend towards digitized signals on the copper cable
as well.
Shorter haul communications are also primarily via copper cable
carrying analogue signals, but with generous use of fiber optics cables for
high-capacity, short-haul digital transmission.
Soviet international communications rely heavily on microwave and
communications satellites.
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Architecture The architecture of the Soviet civilian system fol-
lows international standards. There is a single international gateway at
Moscow, and a standard hierarchy consisting of high level Districts each of
which connects to a number of secondary centers which are in turn connected
to many low level centers.
There appear to be about fifteen District centers, each of which
is connected to the international gateway and to all other District centers
by trunk lines. Each secondary center within a District is connected
upwards only to its own District center, and can communicate only with
other centers within the District.
Thus the Soviet telephone system is interconnected in a mesh net-
work. The telephone systems of the Eastern European countries are integra-
ted into this system, using the same types of equipment, the same architec-
ture, and generally speaking the same numbering system.
The adherence to international architecture and signalling stand-
ards is a key feature of the Soviet system. It permits the Soviets to up-
grade their telephone network via standard Western commercial equipment.
Message Accounting and Security Most telephone systems outside
the USA use a method known as periodic pulse metering to monitor and de-
termine charges for toll calls. Although this method is cheap, it does not
determine the called number, nor does it produce records of individual
calls.
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A more expensive system is called CAMA -- centralized automatic
message accounting. CAMA identifies individual calls, including the call-
ing and called numbers. The Soviets decided to invest in CAMA as long ago
as the 1950's, perhaps to achieve the level of accountability and counter-
intelligence that CAMA provides.
The use of CAMA has a very interesting side effect, relevant to
the military use of the civilian system. Since calling subscribers are
identified, they can be segregated into classes. This feature allows sub-
scriber classes to be assigned discrete priorities. In particular it ena-
bles military subscribers to be identified and given override privileges, a
prerequisite in Soviet eyes for joint military/civil use of a single inte-
grated telecommunications network.
Military Implications We do not really know a great deal about
the degree to which the Soviet Ministry of Defense uses the Ministry of
Communications public network, but a reasonably informed guess can be made
based on technology and defense requirements.
The public network is well-deployed geographically to meet mili-
tary needs. The high level District centers use relatively modern computer
controlled electronic technology. The geography of these centers lines up
well with the Soviet Military Districts and Groups of Forces, and with So-
viet ICBM complexes. Finally, the automatic subscriber identification fea-
ture of the CAMA accounting system allows high priority users to be identi-
fied and facilitates military preemption of channels when required.
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These features combine to make the first level of the public net-
work an appropriate vehicle for long-haul military communications in the
USSR. The extensive use of cable for this network has the additional ad-
vantage of preventing intercepts of telecommunications traffic. A reason-
able guess is that the Ministry of Defense relies on the public network for
long-haul non-tactical communications. This common network is probably
suppimented by dedicated, survivable circuits for long-haul tactical use
(e.g. control for ICBM launches), and short-haul military communications
within a District via dedicated military circuits.
Soviet Trends and Prospects
This picture of Soviet telecommunications shows a country with a
clear idea of what it wishes to achieve in telephony, which has made a
number of basic technical and managerial decisions consistent with its
objectives, and which has chosen a technical approach that takes advantage
of its penchant for very large projects of relatively straightforward
technology ("brute force" approach).
A far less rosy picture emerges with respect to data communica-
tions. On the positive side, the underlying telecommunications network
will be digital, obliterating distinctions between voice and data as far as
transmission is concerned. Nevertheless problems of local interconnections
among processors remain to be solved; there is no provision for maintenance
and multiple access to common data bases; and protocols for computer-to-
computer communications are lacking.
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In the West we have at times tried to set standards from above for
local area networks and for teleprocessing. The efforts failed, in part
because of the very wide variety of users and applications to be served,
and in part because of the high rate of change in these areas. Instead, we
have learned to rely on market-dictated standards. This will be difficult
for the Soviet Union, with its rigidities, its propensity to centralize
development as well as decisionmaking, its abhorence of the messiness and
inefficiency of uncoordinated, competitive, small-team research, and its
tradition of ignoring the wishes of its users.
In short, the USSR will probably achieve its plan for an integra-
ted, centralized, mostly digital telephone network by the end of the centu-
ry. However, it is much less likely to achieve the other, potentially
critical benefits of such a network, either in distributed processing for
enterprises, or in bringing computational and data capabilities to the many
organizations and individuals who could greatly benefit by them.
THE WORLD OF SOVIET COMPUTERS
The review of Soviet telecommunications indicated that the Soviets
appear to be doing well where they benefit from economies of scale and cen-
tralization, but they are doing poorly in those areas which require compet-
ition, decentralization, customer feedback, and individual initiative.
This pattern of strengths and weaknesses is observed in computers
as well. Some aspects of computers also benefit from economies of scale
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and highly centralized management. Examples are very large, batch oriented
mainframe computers; centralized storage and processing of information; and
megamodels.
These are the areas of computing in which the Soviets have done
best. One example of a relatively successful effort is technical support
to the State planning effort (GOSPLAN). The Soviets attempt not only to
describe but also to plan and control their huge economy with a single set
of centralized programs operated by GOSPLAN. For pure tenacity, it would
be hard to find a set of programmers and programs anywhere in the world to
match those of GOSPLAN. When the rulers of the Soviet Union change the
guidance under which their planners are operating -- as Gorbachev did at
the beginning of this year -- the planners can produce a new plan in only a
few weeks time.
Even in GOSPLAN, however, the Soviets have succeeded only in
single-site computing. They have not been able to link the Moscow site to
planning and reporting computers around the country for a single, all-Union
network.
Of course, the plan is notorious for its inaccuracy. When faced
with this situation, top political and economics figures in the Soviet
Union seem to split into diametrically opposed camps, one side attributing
the problem to the need for even bigger and faster computers, while the
other lays the blame on the intrinsic faults of the highly centralized
planning process itself.
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There are other examples of moderately successful, large-scale
computer projects, such as the centralized command post for controlling
many of the municipal operations of the City of Moscow, or the huge process
control operations that occur in large refineries and petrochemical plants.
But Soviet computing failures far outnumber the successes, for
many of the same reasons cited above. Before examining these cases in some
depth, it is worthwhile to consider what appear to be Soviet objectives for
"informatics", the Soviet term for the combined fields of computer science
and computer applications.
Apparent Soviet Goals for Computing
In considering Soviet goals it is important to bear in mind sev-
eral major factors, different from those in the US, which affect the Soviet
computing scene.
In Soviet society, information is power and, in direct contrast to
the US, it is a monopoly of the State. In a country in which copier ma-
chines are kept under lock and key, and relatively innocuous data such as
economic or morbidity statistics are held secret, access to computers and
information is a prize that the State will award only to its most favored
and trusted citizens.
Another aspect of Soviet informatics that must be born in mind is
its prestige -- many institutions attempt to automate, to start computer
science projects, or to obtain a charter for computer manufacture, for
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reasons of prestige rather than need. Thus one goal of many Soviet insti-
tutions is to participate in the informatics program, whether or not any
practical goal is foreseen.
Bearing in mind these factors -- closely held authority for compu-
tation, the prestige of informatics, and the paucity of decentralized deci-
sionmaking -- we can make a guess at Soviet goals for computing.
Scientific The Soviet Union attempts to have state of the art
theoretical and experimental programs in all fields of science -- in this
respect they are like the US but different from every other country in the
world. This objective includes all branches of computer sciences.
Separately, there is a need for computational facilities to sup-
port Soviet programs in other sciences, ranging from astronomy to zoology.
Military I know very little about the plans and the progress of
Societ military computer programs.
Central Planning As mentioned earlier, the level of computational
support required by Soviet central economic planning and monitoring is
enormous.
Industrial The Soviets appear to put a very high priority on aut-
omation of factory operations.
Soviet objectives for computing in this area are much more limited
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than their American analogues. The Soviets are striving for productivity
and quality control in their production process, but they have much less
need than we do for the associated planning, ordering, and inventory con-
trol functions, because theirs is a supply-push, not demand-pull system
like ours. The factory receives inputs more or less according to the Plan,
and has to do the best it can with them. Furthermore, changes are few in
what the factory is supposed to produce. They do not have the frequent mo-
del changes, retooling, or shift to a new product line that characterizes
so much of American industry. Consumer goods are defined by the Plan, not
by rapid response to the latest market research or sales figures.
Business Applications Most computing applications in the U.S.
fall in the area of business data processing, i.e. the support of planning,
management, accounting, and general white collar business functions.
When we. think of Soviet computing problems and failures, we first
think of business applications. Yet it is clear that Soviet priorities for
computing are lower in this area than in any other, in large part because
of the much lower status and independence of mid-level managers in Soviet
bureaus and enterprises, compared to their American counterparts.
Soviet Progress Against Computing Priorities
One source of trouble for the Soviets is their relative backward-
ness in the manufacture of miniaturized electronics, especially in micro-
circuits for computers. This problem, coupled with their weaknesses in
quality control and the unavailability of advanced Western computers, af-
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fects all the application areas discussed next. Of course, their problems
go beyond hardware into software, organization, economics and leadership.
Scientific The Soviets have made fine progress in the mathematics
of computing, but when it comes to the non-mathematical aspects of computer
sciences they have had serious problems. One source of their problems is
the scarcity of computer resources. A visit to a Soviet research institute
reminded me of an American computing facility of the 1960s -- a great deal
of pencil and paper analysis, the computer center operating as a closed
shop with jobs submitted across a counter to the technician, and machines
so expensive that the researcher gets only one turn per week.
Another example is instructive. Last year the Soviets decided to
invest widely in small computers for educational purposes. However, the
program has gotten hung up between those who want to buy Western machines
quickly, and those who see the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone
and develop another Soviet machine.
This case is an example of the broader political problem that
afflicts the field. Since informatics is a high prestige field, the Party
is loathe to cede real control to the scientific community; within this
community access to plum assignments go to senior people as rewards rather
than the junior specialists who could contribute the most.
The scientists are making some progress in getting control of
their program, but the shortage of computing equipment at all levels, and
the pervasiveness of Party and bureaucratic meddling, will continue to
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Central Planning Soviet progress here is rather impressive, given
the limitations in equipment, in software, and in interactive development
facilities with which they have to deal. However, further progress appears
to me to be virtually blocked until they agree on the diagnosis of their
problem.
I have visited an institute which supports GOSPLAN's economic
planners, and was appalled by the mismatch between the theoretical know-
ledge of the workers and their lack of practical opportunities. They were
developing relational data bases, elegant computational models, and some
networking software, all of which they were implementing on hopelessly ob-
solete POP-9s and -IIs. If the Soviets do finally come down on the side of
even more highly centralized planning, they will come up short in the areas
of software and interactive support for modelling and testing.
Furthermore, if they opt for a more decentralized planning and
control function, they will be almost completely without tools to implement
the decision. But even before having to deal with computer problems, they
would have to face the economic implications of delegating real decision-
making to managers who today are allowed to do no more than maximize the
output of factory output against quotas handed down from on high.
There have been discussions in the Soviet press of the need to
measure profit, and to build large-scale financial systems for large enter-
prises as part of a decentralized planning system. Such financial systems
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are really useful only if managers are given much greater freedom to vary
their inputs and outputs. In my visits to Soviet computer institutes none
of my hosts appreciated the revolutionary changes implied by the widespread
use of automated information systems.
Industrial Use Even against the limited Soviet objectives for
industrial automation one would have to conclude that progress is slow.
Productivity is low, quality control is very poor, and ability to change
output is terrible. I have visited a number of automated plants, and
generally found that shortage of good equipment and software was a problem,
but confusion on objectives was a greater problem. Generally I found a
very bad copy of a Western production system, rather than a clear idea of
what should be accomplished in the Soviet context.
Business Applications In this area, even more than the others,
the visitor finds a chicken-and-egg situation. On the one hand, there-is
very little economic demand for good computing at the enterprise level, ex-
cept to automate record-keeping and improve white collar productivity in
carrying out pre-planned tasks. Soviet enterprises are really just opera-
tions facilities, not planning and decision-making units, so as matters now
stand, little would be gained by giving them planning and decision support
tools.
On the other hand, all of the economic reforms that Gorbachev is
calling for would require a revolution in computing, one that the Soviet
political system would find very difficult to respond to.
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Computing Prospects
Prospects depend on what path the USSR chooses for its economy and
its information strategy. Although the state of informatics is very poor
in the Soviet Union, the only really serious civilian performance shortfall
is their inability to support their scientific and technical establishment
adequately. A secondary shortfall is the lack of automation in current
industrial processes.
Much of the problem can be attributed to their lack of good manu-
facturing technology for making mainframe computers and related devices de-
pendent on microelectronics. If they had computer equipment in abundance,
I am confident that they would eventually overcome many of their scientific
and engineering problems in the development of large computer systems. How-
ever, they would still face formidable problems in applying large-system
technology, and in extending technology to decentralized systems and deci-
sionmaking.
In the areas of central planning and of business applications,
their computing weaknesses have not yet really limited their performance --
economic theory, political control, and organization seem to be much more
limiting factors. But as the Soviets try to change their economic strategy
the situation changes.
Even the modest economic reforms that Gorbachev has proposed will
require additional information and computational tools. If they choose
fundamental economic reform more along the Chinese model, where establish-
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ments have some freedom in deciding what to produce and where to get their
supplies, the needs for business data processing will increase exponent-
ially.
If this happens, the Soviets will face crippling problems in com-
puting. The problems fall into four main areas:
Hardware Discussed earlier.
Data Where will the managers obtain the needed economic and mar-
ket data, prices and sources of supply, and transportation and distribution
information? In addition to computational problems, the reforms would re-
quire direct communication between low-level nodes in the telecommunication
network, which would not be well supported by the telephone system that the
Soviets are installing.
Software Development and Distribution Development of hardware and
system software in the USA is often carried out by very large organizations
which are roughly comparable to Soviet institutes plus a market research
capability. But applications software is better produced by small suppli-
ers developing many competitive offerings, with extensive marketing net-
works to distribute the software and stay in close touch with the users.
Such a distribution network is practically unthinkable in the
USSR, where all the prestige accrues to the remote, grand institutes who
decide for themselves what the establishments need, and the establishments
are left to cope as best they can with the products they receive. There is
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no customer support, no users groups, no configuration control, no mainte-
nance and enhancement program. To picture what life is really like for the
director of a Soviet establishment, imagine that you were the head of an
American consumer products company, but you were forced to get all of your
business software from Harvard or the University of California.
Control The more important informatics becomes to the modern So-
viet economy, the less amenable the Party will be to turning control over
to the scientists and the new businessmen. It would be hard to imagine a
group of people less qualified to manage informatics than the Party appar-
atchiki, who lack familiarity with computers and consider information as a
resource to be husbanded, rather than as bread to be cast upon the waters
for a ten-fold return.
The Soviet Union will probably achieve its plan for a massive,
highly integrated telephone system, benefitting for once from their pen-
chant for centralization. The system will look like a large version of a
Western European PTT except for the lack of residential subscribers, i.e.
it will be relatively efficient as long as its functions do not change, but
unresponsive if the Soviet leaders decide to change the economy it is de-
signed to serve. It will serve data users poorly.
The state of Soviet computing is poor, but as disappointing as it
must be to the Soviet leadership, their economy is not yet at the point
where their computing limitations are a serious constraint. Currently the
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computing limitations are more of a drag on scientific progress and
probably on the military.
These two fields would benefit from a highly integrated computa-
tional system, featuring networked mainframe computers and massive data
bases. Such a system would not require the Soviets to change their cen-
tralizing ways, although they would face major problems in security. The
lack of Western computers in significant numbers has been a major impedi-
ment to their achieving this large scale system.
As far as support for business data processing is concerned, the
Soviets do not now have an economic system which requires much computing
support, but they could not provide the needed support if they decided to
move to a reformed economic system. Business data processing requires
exactly the kind of decentralized computing that would most severely strain
the Soviet system of centralized control, planned innovation centered at
massive research institutes, and highly classified data. Access to Western
technology at the microcomputer end of the scale is probably also a prere-
quisite for this type of computing, to support a move away from the Stalin-
ist and towards the Chinese model of economic and political control.
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