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“Overtake and Surpass”: Soviet Algorithmic Thinking as a Reinvention of Western Theories during the Cold War

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Cold War Social Science

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of Cold War exchanges in the human sciences that shaped Soviet research on programmed instruction during the 1960s and 1970s. Pioneered by psychologist Lev Landa, this field sought to describe human learning in terms of logical structures and offered the theoretical foundation for the development of special teaching computers. Landa’s research had distinct resemblances to the quantitative orientation in American behavioral sciences of that time. His approach also made use of the conception of bounded human rationality produced in the US by mathematically inclined fields of social science. Nonetheless, while drawing on Western approaches to programmed instruction and cybernetics, Landa also adapted those to Soviet political, social, and ideological contexts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics, 1st ed. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002), 157.

  2. 2.

    On the rise of a quantitative orientation in American behavioral sciences, see Roger L. Geiger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Steve Joshua Heims, The Cybernetics Group (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991); Mark Solovey, Shaky Foundations: The Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus in Cold War America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013).

  3. 3.

    On the prominence of cognitive psychology in the US, see Jamie Cohen-Cole, The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016); Christopher J. Phillips, The New Math: A Political History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

  4. 4.

    Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak, 2002.

  5. 5.

    S. M. Amadae, Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Paul Erickson, The World the Game Theorists Made (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Joy Rohde, Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research during the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013); Paul Erickson, et al., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2015); Hunter Heyck, Age of System: Understanding the Development of Modern Social Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015).

  6. 6.

    Ivan Boldyrev and Olessia Kirtchik, “On (Im)Permeabilities: Social and Human Sciences on Both Sides of the ‘Iron Curtain,’” History of the Human Sciences 29, no. 4–5 (October 2016): 3,7.

  7. 7.

    Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak, 2002, 156.

  8. 8.

    B. F. Skinner, “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching,” Harvard Educational Review 24, no. 2 (1954), 153.

  9. 9.

    See Alexandra Rutherford, Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner’s Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life, 1950s–1970s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 27.

  10. 10.

    B. F. Skinner, “Programmed Instruction Revisited,” The Phi Delta Kappan 68, no. 2 (1986): 104.

  11. 11.

    Letter, Keppel to Pusey, May 26, 1961, Records of the Office of Programmed Instruction, 1961–1969 (inclusive), box 3, folder “Keppel’s Letter to Pusey,” Harvard University Archives.

  12. 12.

    B. F. Skinner, “Russia, 1961,” The Spanish Journal of Psychology 9, no. 1 (2006): 115–142.

  13. 13.

    A. I. Berg, “Nauchnai͡a Organizat͡sii͡a Pedagogicheskogo Truda [Scientific Organization of Pedagogical Labor]” (Mezhduvedomstvennyĭ nauchnyĭ sovet po programmirovannomu obuchenii͡u [Interdepartmnetal Academic Council for Programmed Instruction], May 31, 1966, 9, f. 1810 d. 35, ARAN.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    “Postanovlenie T͡SK KPSS, Sovmina SSSR Ot 21.05.1964 N 499 [Resolution of the Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 21.05.1964 N 499],” May 21, 1964, accessed March 10, 2019. http://www.libussr.ru/doc_ussr/usr_6082.htm

  16. 16.

    E. V. Šorohova, Osnovnye Napravleniâ Issledovanij Psihologii Myšleniâ v Kapitalističeskih Stranah [Major Directions in the Research on Cognition in Capitalist Countries] (Nauka, 1966), 138.

  17. 17.

    Lyudmila Ivanovna Ant͡syferova, Materialisticheskie Idei v Zarubezhnoĭ Psikhologii [Material Ideas in Foreign Psychology] (Moskva: Nauka, 1974), 8–10.

  18. 18.

    Institute of Psychology, “Otchet o Nauchno-Issledovatel′skoĭ i Nauchno-Organizat͡sionnoĭ Rabote Instituta Za 1973 God i Prilozhenie k Otchetu [Report on Research and Administrative Work of the Institute in 1973 and Attachments],” 1973, 10, f. 2097 o. 1 d. 6, ARAN; Ant͡syferova, Materialisticheskie Idei v Zarubezhnoĭ Psikhologii.

  19. 19.

    See A. A. Smirnov, “Leninskai͡a Teorii͡a Otrazhenii͡a i Psikhologii͡a [Lenin’s Theory of Reflection and Psychology],” Voprosy Psikhologii [The Issues of Psychology], no. 2 (1970): 3.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 11.

  21. 21.

    Ant͡syferova, Materialisticheskie Idei v Zarubezhnoĭ Psikhologii, 55–59.

  22. 22.

    The fact that Soviet scholars preferred man–computer over man–animal metaphors is quite peculiar. Slava Gerovitch has demonstrated that Soviet physiology was dominated by man–machine metaphors as well. Even when they relied on Pavlovianism as the founding theory, Soviet physiologists used the metaphor of the telephone–switchboard to describe the higher nervous activity. Later, Soviet cyberneticists, replaced this metaphor with the analogy between the nervous system and feedback-controlled servomechanisms. See Slava Gerovitch, “Love-Hate for Man-Machine Metaphors in Soviet Physiology: From Pavlov to “Physiological Cybernetics,” Science in Context 15, no. 2 (2002): 341–342.

  23. 23.

    Ronald R. Kline, The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), 19.

  24. 24.

    Ibid.

  25. 25.

    Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak, 139–40.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 139, 142, 167.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 209.

  28. 28.

    See Gerovitch, 202.

  29. 29.

    On one of the most prominent notions of STR in Eastern Europe, see Vitezslav Sommer, “Scientists of the World, Unite! Radovan Richta’s Theory of Scientific and Technological Revolution,” in Science Studies during the Cold War and Beyond: Paradigms Defected, edited by Elena Aronova and Simone Turchetti (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 117–204.

  30. 30.

    Egle Rindzeviciute, The Power of Systems: How Policy Sciences Opened Up the Cold War World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), 28.

  31. 31.

    “NauchnoTekhnicheskai͡a Revoli͡ut͡sii͡a i Formirovanie Novogo CHeloveka [Scientific-Technical Revolution and the Formation of the New Man],” Voprosy Filosofii, no. 7 (1975): 14.

  32. 32.

    “Reshenie, Spisok Uchastnikov, Tezisy Dokladov Soveshchanii͡a Po Programmnomu Obuchenii͡u [The Resolution, the List of Participants, Theses Presented at the Meeting on Programmed Instruction],” June 7, 1962, 48, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 17, ARAN.

  33. 33.

    “Istorii͡a Fakul′teta [Department’s History],” Sankt-Peterburgskiĭ Gosudarstvennyĭ Universitet Fakul′tet Psikhologii [Saint Petersburg State University Department of Psychology], accessed April 1, 2019, http://www.psy.spbu.ru/department/history.

  34. 34.

    “Lev Naumovich Landa,” Voprosy Psikhologii [Problems of Psychology], no. 5 (1999), 157–158.

  35. 35.

    “Reshenie, Spisok Uchastnikov, Tezisy Dokladov Soveshchanii͡a Po Programmnomu Obuchenii͡u [The Resolution, the List of Participants, Theses Presented at the Meeting on Programmed Instruction],” June 7, 1962, 51, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 17, ARAN.

  36. 36.

    Landa L. N., “Opyt Primeneniâ Matematičeskoj Logiki Teorii Informacii k Nekotorym Problemam Obučeniâ [An Attempt to Apply Mathematical Logic of Information Theory to Some Instructional Problems],” Voprosy Psikhologii [Problems of Psychology], no. 2 (1962): 19–25.

  37. 37.

    Amadae, Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy; Erickson, The World the Game Theorists Made; Rohde, Armed with Expertise; Erickson et al., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind; Heyck, Age of System.

  38. 38.

    Erickson et al., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind, 1–8.

  39. 39.

    “Reshenie, Spisok Uchastnikov, Tezisy Dokladov Soveshchanii͡a Po Programmnomu Obuchenii͡u [The Resolution, the List of Participants, Theses Presented at the Meeting on Programmed Instruction],” June 7, 1962, 51, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 17, ARAN.

  40. 40.

    “Reshenie, Spisok Uchastnikov, Tezisy Dokladov Soveshchanii͡a Po Programmirovanomu Obuchenii͡u,” 56.

  41. 41.

    Nekotorye predlozhenii͡a ob organizat͡sii nauchno-issledovatel′skoĭ raboty po programmirovannomu obuchenii͡u [Some suggestions regarding the organization of research on programmed instruction], 19 May, 1962, 60, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 17, ARAN.

  42. 42.

    T͡SK KPSS, o Razvitii Rabot po Programmirovannomu Obuchenii͡u s Tsel′i͡u Povyshenii͡a Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov [The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on the Work on Programmed Instruction and the Improvement of the Training of Human Resources], n.d., 77, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 17, ARAN.

  43. 43.

    Mark Solovey, Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the ‘Other Sciences’ at the National Science Foundation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020), 77, 169–171.

  44. 44.

    “Otchety o Nauchno-Issledovatel′skoĭ i Nauchno-Organizat͡sionoĭ Rabote Instituta za 1972 god i Prilozhenii͡a k nemu [Institute’s Research and Administrative Reports for the Year of 1972 and Supplemental Materials],” n.d., 4, 11, f. 2097, o. 1, d. 2, ARAN.

  45. 45.

    “Otchet o Rabote Sekt͡sii Kibernetika i Psikhologii͡a Za 1962 God [Report on the Work of the Section ‘Cybernetics and Psychology, 1962],” n.d., 63, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 11, ARAN.

  46. 46.

    On the role of computing and cybernetics in the development of American engineering psychology during the Cold War, see Edward Jones-Imhotep, “Maintaining Humans,” 175–195 in Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature ed. by Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), esp. “Cybernetics and Ideas of the Digital,” 276–306.

  47. 47.

    For a brief description of Boiko’s research, see Ushakov, “E. I. Boiko- Issledovatel Mekhanizmov Umstvennoi Deiatelnosti [E. I. Boiko – The Researcher of the Mechanisms of Mental Activity],” Psikhologicheskff Zhurnal 24, no. 4 (2004): 92–98.

  48. 48.

    “Reshenie Koordinat͡sionnogo Soveshchenii͡a Po Voprosam Primenenii͡a Kibernetiki v Psikhologii [Resolution of the Meeting on the Application of Cyberntics in Psychology],” n.d., 2, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 60, ARAN.

  49. 49.

    Cohen-Cole, The Open Mind, 143.

  50. 50.

    “Pervoocherednye Zadachi v Razvitii Issledovaniĭ po Programmirovannomu Obuchenii͡u v SSSR [The Most Important Tasks in the Research on Programmed Instruction],” December 7, 1964, 142, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 60.

  51. 51.

    Letter, A. I. Berg to E. K. Fyodorov, September 18, 1962, 2, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 24, ARAN.

  52. 52.

    Alexei Kojevnikov, Stalin’s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (London: Imperial College Press, 2004).

  53. 53.

    V. N. Pushkin, “Psikhologicheskie Osnovy Problemnogo Obuchenii͡a [The Psychological Foundations of Problem-Based Learning],” Voprosy Psikhologii [Problems of Psychology], no. 3 (1973): 158.

  54. 54.

    V. D. Nebylit͡syn, “Nauchno-Issledovatel′skai͡a Rabota Instituta Psikhologii APN SSSR v 1967 godu i v Svi͡azi s Nekotorymi Problemami Kibernetiki [Research of the Institute of Psychology APN SSSR in 1967 and its Connections to Cybernetic Problems], n.d., 82, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 122.

  55. 55.

    Lev Nakhmanovich Landa, Algoritmizat͡sii͡a v Obuchenii [Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction] (Moskva: Prosveshchenie, 1966), 11; An English translation of this work came out in the U.S. in 1974: Lev Nakhmanovich Landa, Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1974).

  56. 56.

    Lev Nakhmanovich Landa, Algoritmy i Programmirovannoe Obuchenie [Algorithms and Programmed Instruction], 1965, 13.

  57. 57.

    Landa, Algoritmizat͡sii͡a v Obuchenii], 96.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 99–100.

  59. 59.

    “Zadachi Informat͡sionnogo Tsentra Programmirovannogo Obuchenii͡a [The Tasks of the Information Center on Programmed Instruction],” January 31, 1967, 73, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 153, ARAN.

  60. 60.

    N. F. Talyzina, Problemy Programmirovannogo Obuchenii͡a. Materialy Pi͡atogo Sovetsko-Frant͡suzskogo Seminara Po Programmirovannomu Obuchenii͡ui. [The Problems of Programmed IInstruction. Materials of the Fifth Soviet-French Seminar on Programmed Instruction.] (Moskva [Moscow]: Izdatel′stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1979).

  61. 61.

    A. I. Berg, “Perepiska Ob Uchastii Sovetskikh Spet͡sialistov v Konferent͡sii Po Programmirovannomu Obuchenii͡u v Glazgo (SHotlandii͡a) [Correspondence about the Participation of Soviet Specialists in the Conference on Programmed Instruction in Glasgow (Scotland)],” n.d., f. 10,049 o.1a d. 596, GARF.

  62. 62.

    Robert M Gagné, “Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction by L. N. Landa,” Instructional Science 5, no. 2 (April 1976): 223–25.

  63. 63.

    Lev Nakhmanovich Landa, “V Mezhdunarodnyĭ Otdel APN SSSR [To the Department of Foreign Relations of the APN USSSR],” September 26, 1970, f. 10,049 o.1a d. 1269, GARF.

  64. 64.

    Robert M Gagné, “Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction by L. N. Landa,” 224–225; Other reviews of the translation of Algorithmization in Learning and instruction: J. Feldhusen, “Review of Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction by L. N. Landa,” Educational Psychologist 11, no. 2 (1974): 123–24; J. Leplat, review in Le Travail Humain 40, no. 1 (1977): 181–83; Philip Peak, review in The Mathematics Teacher 68, no. 3 (1975): 227.

  65. 65.

    “Avtomat-Ėkzamenator [Automat - Examiner],” Nauka i Zhizn′ [Science and Life], no. 3 (1962): 81.

  66. 66.

    Komissii͡a Nauchno-Metodicheskogo Soveta MĖI Po Vnedrenii͡u Tekhnicheskikh Sredstv v Obuchenii [The Commission on MEI Research and Methodological Council on the Introduction of the Technical Devices into Instruction] (Moskva [Moscow]: Moskovskiĭ Ėnergeticheskiĭ Institut [Moscow Energy Institute], 1976), 5.

  67. 67.

    Sbornik Dokladov Moskovskogo Ėnergeticheskogo Instituta Po Voprosu Ob Ėffektivnykh Metodakh Obuchenii͡a [The Edited Volume of Moscow Energy Institute on the Questions of Effective Methods of Instruction] (Moskva [Moscow], 1966).

  68. 68.

    I͡U. N. Kushelev, Tekhnicheskie Sredstva Obuchenii͡a i Kontroli͡a [Technical Means of Instruction and Control] (Moskva [Moscow]: Vysshai͡a SHkola, 1973), 56–57.

  69. 69.

    “Reshenie Kollegii Ministerstva Vysshego i Srednego Spet͡sial′nogo Obrazovanii͡a SSSR [The Resolution of the Advisory Board of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education USSR],” March 1973, 62, f. 9606 o. 1 d. 5462, GARF.

  70. 70.

    Numerous letters documenting attempts to build and implement teaching computers in various parts of the Soviet Union can be found in f. 1807, o. 1, d. 60, ARAN.

  71. 71.

    Letter, V. P. Bespalko to A. I. Berg, July 29, 1964, f. 1807, o. 1, d. 60, ARAN.

  72. 72.

    “Lev Naumovich Landa.”

  73. 73.

    Otis Port, “Lev Landa’s Worker Miracles,” Business Week, September 21, 1992.

  74. 74.

    Boldyrev and Kirtchik, “On (Im)Permeabilities,” 7.

  75. 75.

    Erickson et al., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind, 75.

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  1. Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA

    Ekaterina Babintseva

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  1. Ekaterina Babintseva
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Correspondence to Ekaterina Babintseva .

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  1. Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Mark Solovey

  2. Science, Technology and Society Unit, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria

    Christian Dayé

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Babintseva, E. (2021). “Overtake and Surpass”: Soviet Algorithmic Thinking as a Reinvention of Western Theories during the Cold War. In: Solovey, M., Dayé, C. (eds) Cold War Social Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70246-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70246-5_2

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