Ruling the World
Cybernetics in the Cold War
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The history of cybernetics is the history of a misunderstanding in the Cold War. Because the United States was fascinated by cybernetics in the 1950s, the Soviet Union rejected the subject. When Soviet scientists extolled the new possibilities for management, the CIA sensed danger. In the United States, cybernetics were now rejected rhetorically, but in reality developed further in narrowly defined research projects. In the Soviet Union, the opposite happened: Cybernetic visions of society flowed into official doctrine, but concrete technical projects failed due to the hierarchical apparatus of power.
(Osteuropa 10/2009, pp. 43–56)