From Newspeak to Cyberspeak:

A History of Soviet Cybernetics

Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2002) (Japanese translation)

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."

Award

In November 2003, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak received an honorable mention from the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for an outstanding monograph in Russian, Eurasian, or East European studies. Gerovitch's book "offers a scientifically-informed, sociologically-acute and politically-savvy account of cybernetics in the Soviet Union in the post war era, but also moves beyond to an impressive comparison with developments in the United States," wrote the Prize committee in its citation.

Endorsements

"An exceptionally lively and interesting book. This is by far the best-informed and most insightful account of cybernetics in the Soviet Union."

-- David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University

"Cybernetics was among the most important intellectual movements of the mid-twentieth century. Nowhere was its curious blend of mathematical technique, ideology, information technology, and postmodern scientific universalism more controversial or more interesting, than in the Soviet Union during the early Cold War. Slava Gerovitch is among the first scholars to command the linguistic skills, cultural resources, and historical awareness to offer a definitive account. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak not only sheds new light on the byzantine intellectual world of the Soviet Union, but holds up a fascinating mirror to the West as well. This is a groundbreaking achievement that deserves a wide audience."

-- Paul N. Edwards, Director, Science, Technology and Society Program, University of Michigan