00:00When one thinks of the Soviet Union, one invariably tends to picture endless breadlines and brutalist architecture.
00:07But, believe it or not, my friends, in the early 1960s, the Soviets were at the cutting edge of computer
00:15technology and were this close to inventing the Internet.
00:18When you think about it a little deeper, the USSR and the Internet do seem like a natural fit.
00:25Not for freedom of speech, of course, but for data processing.
00:30You see, the Soviet Union had a command economy, where the central planners in Moscow had to plan, track and
00:37price every nut, bolt and bushel across the Union.
00:42These 1 million or so bureaucrats also managed a network of over 10 million inspectors, who would visit the USSR's
00:51factories and farms as many as 100 times per year.
00:56Collectively, Soviet central planning produced over 800 billion documents per year and was quite literally drowning Moscow in paperwork.
01:05Early Soviet cybernetics pioneers were quick to figure out that a nationwide computer network would be far more efficient.
01:14So, while the US was still figuring out how to get two computers to talk to each other without catching
01:21on fire, a Soviet military engineer called Anatoly Kitov had already mapped out a digital nervous system for the sprawling
01:29Soviet economy.
01:31To be clear, Colonel Kitov's entire science career was a miracle.
01:36The communists had initially banned cybernetics, labelling it as pseudoscience and imperialist propaganda, almost as soon as it had appeared
01:47in 1948.
01:48It was only thanks to his special military access that Kitov was able to learn about and work on cybernetics.
01:56It took a few years before the central committee could be convinced to reverse its ban.
02:02Stalin had to die first.
02:04But by 1955, Kitov and others had made the case that computer science was valuable.
02:11And so cybernetics was rebranded from pseudoscience to cutting-edge high-tech.
02:17New institutes were built across the Soviet Union, and the field developed rapidly.
02:23And over the next five years, Kitov's books would become foundational material for cyberneticists across the world.
02:32In the wake of his newfound fame, Kitov sent a daring letter to Premier Khrushchev,
02:37detailing his master plan to digitalize the Soviet economy.
02:42His idea was simple.
02:44He knew the military already had powerful computer centers that sat idle for large parts of the day.
02:52Kitov would hook up the civilian economy to these military machines during their downtime to process economic data, saving billions
03:00of rubles.
03:02Unfortunately, the Red Army's leaders weren't keen on sharing their toys,
03:06especially with civilian bean counters.
03:10Marshal Rokossovsky, the famous defender of Stalingrad, fiercely opposed Kitov's project and formed a commission to review his proposal.
03:20It vetoed Kitov's plan, dismissed him from the military, and even got him kicked out of the Communist Party for
03:27good measure.
03:28Now, if you want to be less technologically illiterate than Field Marshal Rokossovsky,
03:33you'll be happy to learn about our good friends over at boot.dev.
03:38If you've ever tried to learn coding and quit because you were bored to tears by dry lectures,
03:43then this is exactly what you've been waiting for.
03:47Boot.dev takes you from a complete beginner to a back-end software engineer
03:52using the most powerful educational tool known to man, video game mechanics.
03:59That's right, my friends.
04:00They have turned learning Python, SQL, and Go into a full-blown RPG
04:05where you earn XP, level up, and collect achievements just by writing real code.
04:11I've been trying it out myself to make the SideQuest Beaver RPG we showed in our Beaver video a while
04:18ago,
04:19and I have to say, the new Training Grounds feature is brilliant.
04:23It lets you grind infinite coding challenges to sharpen your skills,
04:28which is perfect for building the muscle memory you need to actually get hired.
04:33And don't worry about getting stuck on a difficult quest.
04:37You have a personal AI companion named Boots who knows the context of your lessons
04:42and nudges you toward the answer without just giving it away.
04:47Boot.dev is all about learning to build real projects in an age
04:51when everyone just copy-pastes code they don't understand.
04:55And when you consider that the median salary for a back-end developer in the US
05:00is over $100,000, levelling up this skill tree is a very smart investment.
05:07So, stop procrastinating and start your own coding quest
05:11by clicking the link in the description
05:13and use the promo code SIDEQUEST
05:16to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan.
05:21Now, while Kitov got burned for his idea of a Soviet Internet,
05:26one of his cybernetics protégés at the Kiev Institute picked up the torch.
05:31Viktor Glushkov, a brilliant mathematician,
05:34made the easy calculation of avoiding the military entirely.
05:39Starting in 1962, he focused his designs on an entirely civilian computer system
05:45with over 20,000 production terminals feeding data into 200 regional computer centers
05:52across the Soviet Union, which would ultimately converge on Moscow.
05:57This project was even more ambitious than Kitov's
06:01and would eventually entail the USSR's transition to a paperless electronic economy.
06:07This massive undertaking was estimated to cost some 20 billion rubles,
06:13more than the Soviets had spent on their nuclear and space programs put together.
06:18When the CIA learned of Glushkov's plan,
06:21it was absolutely terrified that the USSR would eclipse the West with its economic gains.
06:28But the CIA needn't have worried,
06:30because Glushkov faced a much more dangerous enemy than American spies,
06:35Soviet bureaucrats.
06:37As is tradition in Russian history,
06:41before you can build the future,
06:43you must first survive the politics of the present.
06:46And what Glushkov's vision failed to account for
06:49was the sprawling network of corruption
06:52that had infected every part of the Soviet economy.
06:55Factory managers lied about their output to get bonuses,
06:59and ministers lied about quotas to keep their heads.
07:03An automated, objective computer system
07:07that tracked every single screw in real time
07:10was an existential threat for every Soviet middle manager.
07:15And so, despite tremendous progress in design and technology,
07:20Glushkov's project got delayed year after year
07:23until it was finally rejected altogether in 1970.
07:27Among the various reasons the Finance Ministry came up with
07:31to divert funding from Glushkov's project
07:34was to install computer-controlled lighting and music in chicken coops
07:39to boost egg production.
07:41In the end, all the Soviet ministries had to compete with each other
07:46for funding to build out their own computer networks.
07:49So, thanks to capitalist-like competition,
07:53the Soviet Union ended up with a thousand incompatible networks
07:57rather than a single Soviet intern yet.
08:01Meanwhile, the United States built out their first network, ARPANET,
08:06to withstand nuclear attacks
08:08and then let all its universities and agencies hook up to it over time.
08:13The irony really is palpable.
08:16The capitalists built a communal network
08:19while the socialists were too paranoid to share their data.
08:23Glushkov died in 1982
08:26and then, just under a decade later,
08:28the Soviet Union followed him into the grave,
08:31collapsing exactly as his models had predicted it would
08:35without computer modernization.
08:37Had Ogas succeeded,
08:39we might be living in a very different timeline,
08:42perhaps one where the Soviet Union didn't crumble
08:45under the weight of its own inefficiency.
08:47We'll never know for sure,
08:49but we can be certain that somewhere in a parallel universe,
08:53there is a Soviet version of SideQuest
08:55asking you to like and subscribe.
08:58Speaking of which,
09:00if you want to help us keep our own little digital node running,
09:03please consider supporting us on Patreon
09:05so that we can navigate the bureaucratic maze of the YouTube algorithm
09:09and keep the lights on in our own little chicken coop.
09:13Don't forget to check out boot.dev
09:16using the link in the description to start your coding journey.
09:21Maybe you can build the network that Glushkov never could.
09:25Thanks for watching
09:26and stay tuned for the next algorithmically approved episode of SideQuest.
09:34Why did the Soviet computer go to the doctor?
09:38Because it had a terminal illness.
09:40See you next time!
