''Cybernetics—in the Service of Communism'' was the title of a

symposium In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...

and accompanying publication sponsored by

Aksel Berg Aksel Ivanovich Berg (; – 9 July 1979) was a Soviet scientist in radio-frequency engineering and Soviet Navy Admiral, Hero of Socialist Labour. He was a key figure in the introduction of cybernetics to the Soviet Union. Early life Aksel Marti ...

, a prominent promoter of

cybernetics in the Soviet Union Cybernetics in the Soviet Union had its own particular characteristics, as the study of cybernetics came into contact with the dominant scientific ideologies of the Soviet Union and the nation's economic and political reforms: from the unmitig ...

. He provided an eponymous introduction noted for its length and programmatic nature. The symposium was held in 1961, prior to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where cybernetics was declared one of the "major tools of the creation of a communist society".

The response from the USA

An American

organizational theorist An organization or organisation ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution (formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a par ...

, Donald G. Malcolm, remarked: “If any country were to achieve a completely integrated and controlled economy in which ‘cybernetic’ principles were applied to achieve various goals, the Soviet Union would be ahead of the United States in reaching such a state”.Malcolm, D. G. Operations Research 11, no. 6 (1963): 1007-012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/167842. He also suggested that cybernetics “may be one of the weapons Khrushchev had in mind when he threatened to ‘bury’ the West”. As a result of such concerns the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

established a special unit to study the Soviet cybernetics.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cybernetics-in the Service of Communism Cybernetics Science and technology in the Soviet Union 1961 in the Soviet Union