How Bulgaria transformed the computer industry behind the Iron Curtain—and the consequences of that transformation for a society that dreamt of a brighter future. Bulgaria in 1963 was a communist country led by a centralized party trying to navigate a multinational Cold War. The state needed money, and it sought prestige. By cultivating a burgeoning computer industry, Bulgaria achieved both but at great cost to the established order. In Balkan Cyberia, Victor Petrov elevates a deeply researched, local story of ambition into an essential history of global innovation, ideological conflict, and exchange. Granted tremendous freedom by the Politburo and backed by a concerted state secret intelligence effort, a new, privileged class of technical intellectuals and managers rose to prominence in Bulgaria in the 1960s. Plugged in to transnational business and professional networks, they strove to realize the party's radical dreams of utopian automation, and Bulgaria would come to manufacture up to half of the Eastern Bloc's electronics. Yet, as Petrov shows, the export-oriented nature of the industry also led to the disruption of party rule. Technicians, now thinking with and through computers, began to recast the dominant intellectual discourse within a framework of reform, while technocratic managers translated their newfound political clout into economic power that served them well before and after the revolutions of 1989. Balkan Cyberia reveals the extension of economic and political networks of influence far past the reputed fall of communism, along with the pivotal role small countries played in geopolitical games at the time. Through the prism of the Bulgarian computer industry, the true nature of the socialist international economy, and indeed the links between capitalism and communism, emerge.
Author(s): Victor Petrov
Series: History Of Computing
Edition: 1
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF | Full TOC
Pages: 426
Tags: Electronic Digital Computers: History: 20th Century; Computers: Bulgaria: History: 20th Century; Computers: Soviet Union: History; Computer industry: Bulgaria: History: 20th Century; Cold War
Cover
Half title
Series title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Note on Transliterations and Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction | The Worlds of the Bulgarian Computer
Two Prisms: Computers And Small States
What Worlds?
Structure
1 | The Conjuncture: The Road to the Bulgarian Electronics Industry
Always the Periphery?
The Congress of Victory
Bankruptcy
Together Against Capitalism
Fathering Bulgarian Electronics
Existing Capacities
The State Of Socialist Computing And Cybernetics
2 | The Captive Market: The Rise and Apogee of an Industry
The First Bulgarian Computer
Calculating Success
Big In Japan
From Piecemeal To Policy
Besting Your Teacher
The Payoff
3 | Access Denied: Spies, Technologies, and Circulation across the Iron Curtain
The Barrier: Cocom And The Rationale Of STI Work
The Rise Of The Spies
Cooperation In An Electronics Key
In The Service Of The Nation
The Symbiosis
4 | Roses and Lotuses: Bulgaria’s Electronic Entanglement with India
Facing South
Profit And Prestige: Electronic Paths In The Global South
The Roses Meets The Lotus
Computers Versus Workers: The Indian Situation
Enter Bulgaria: The 1970s
From Personal Computers To Supercomputers: The 1980s
Learning To Advertise
5 | Automatic for the People: The Scientific-Technical Revolution and Society
STR As The New Dogma
The March Of The Machines
Networks
Microprocessors And Robots
Rational Control And The Masses
6 | The Socialist Cyborg: Education, Intellectuals, and Culture
Training The Technical Intellectuals
Information -Age Philosophy
A Computer For Whom?
The New Laws Of Robotics
7 | Networked and Plugged in: Computer Priests and their Pathways
International Professionals
The Socialist Business Class
Reform And Transformation
Cyborg Afterlives
Networks
Conclusion | The Uneven Future
Appendix A | Snapshot of Automation in 1989
Appendix B | Types of Machines Produced
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Conclusion
Index
