Soviet Internet and other thoughts.

I was listening to this audiobook today (Revolution 1989), and started thinking about what the internet would look like in the Soviet Union. I'm not caring about how it survived, but what if it did survive until today? How would modern technology impact the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact?

Would they have their own internet, or be part of the WWW?

Would they have the People's News Network and RedstarSoft?

What about cellphone technology? Would they be allowed, and just how monitored would they be?

Would new computers be used to sort through these phone calls, as well as E-mails, for less-than-pure thoughts?

Would miniturization of electronics result in bugs in everything? Maybe even you own silverware being bugged?

Would certain people be tagged with RFID?

How would the Warsaw Pact react to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the violence there? (no butterfly nonsense either, just take the question at face value please)

Would terrorism be largely the problem of the Second World? And would the CIA be supplying groups like Al Qaeda in fighting them?

Or if there was a war on terror, how would the Soviets react to the Iraq War (I have the feeling they'd be laughing themselves silly when they heard the US was going into Afganistan: "Ok Comrades, have fun.")?

What about KGB UCAVs?

If you think computers would have gotten beyond the bureaucrats and into the hands of the workers in the Soviet State, you are laughably wrong.

Aranfan said:

If you think computers would have gotten beyond the bureaucrats and into the hands of the workers in the Soviet State, you are laughably wrong.

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Except that computers were used as office tools in the satellite states at least in the 80s onwards, I know that for sure.

BlackWave said:

Except that computers were used as office tools in the satellite states at least in the 80s onwards, I know that for sure.

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I hasted to add it was uneven. Some had computers, some had typewriters.

It's pretty silly to imagine that the overwhelming majority of the Soviet workers in 2010 would have computers let alone internet. It's just as silly to think that USSR wouldn't have an internet presense today; though participation rates would probably be low.

If there was a Soviet Internet it would be very heavily censored and or policed, or rather attempts would be made a la China's Internet services OTL to prevent too much access to the decadent imperialist websites

Aranfan said:

If you think computers would have gotten beyond the bureaucrats and into the hands of the workers in the Soviet State, you are laughably wrong.

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They definitely wouldn't be the same as in the West, but they would be there. In fact, there already were home computers in the USSR in OTL.

Quoting Planet Sinclair:

By far the biggest numbers of clones of Sinclair computers were produced in countries behind the Iron Curtain, particularly in the Soviet Union. More types were produced in the USSR than in the rest of the world combined, but Sinclair clones also appeared in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania.

During the Cold War, high technology exports to the communist bloc were strictly controlled by Western countries, out of fear that Western technology would be used or reverse-engineered for military purposes. This made it very difficult and expensive to obtain Sinclair machines legitimately. In the USSR, at a time when the average monthly income was just 250 roubles a month, a Spectrum cost 40,000 roubles - equivalent to 13 years' wages. Despite this or perhaps even because of this, a technologically literate population wanted access to home computers. A near-complete lack of IP laws meant that clones proliferated rapidly.

Unlike the more-or-less straight copies produced in South America and Hong Kong, eastern European Sinclair clones were often heavily re-engineered. Many included features which Western Sinclair owners would have given their back teeth for, such as more memory, faster processors, disk drives - even hard disks - and proper full-size keyboards.

Remarkably, even though the Spectrum effectively died out in the West in the early 1990s, Spectrum clones are still being made in eastern Europe and a thriving user community is still producing software.

And links:

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/clones/russian.htm

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/clones/e_european.htm

So, yes, there would be computers in the USSR. But they would be very weird.

In Soviet Russia, internet browses you.

Readman said:

If there was a Soviet Internet it would be very heavily censored and or policed, or rather attempts would be made a la China's Internet services OTL to prevent too much access to the decadent imperialist websites

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Indeed.

However, inside the great Internet Red Curtain, I could see it used as a giant book repository, accessible through phone lines by authorized users. Given that the USSR had no IP protection laws, which was a major hurdle to legal content distribution.

Distributing state approved cultural items, particularly in text form (course material, technical manuals, books, novels, etc.) from central repositories might be a possible use of home computers.

I see it as something like a Soviet Project Gutenberg run by GOSPLAN. Printing books, exams, whatnot on demand for rural communities, with faster access for cities and academic institutions.

E-Mail from BBSs run by the government might also be a possibility. No expectation of privacy, of course.

Lib.ru was actually a very good repository run by the federal government, though the rate and quality of updates has decrease lately.

So you may be onto something there.

I think the shrinking down of phones would have an impact, and the KGB would take full advantage of all sorts of listening devices that could now be made.

East Europeans were surprisingly software-savy. How censored the internet is really depends on the PoD. I would probably say a minimum of China-level censorship though.

Or maybe some Soviet video games. They did invent Tetris after all. Maybe something like Dictatorship of the Proleteriat Online.

The Kiat said:

Or maybe some Soviet video games. They did invent Tetris after all. Maybe something like Dictatorship of the Proleteriat Online.

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I'd imagine that they could knockoff western games and refurbish them per Party regulations or something. Making a Halo clone where you shoot Americans in Korea or something, for example.

Online games I'm not so sure about. The KGB could see them as potential cover for dissident online meetings. Depending if the Soviet internet isn't a seperate, more controlled one from the rest of the world.

BlackWave said:

I'd imagine that they could knockoff western games and refurbish them per Party regulations or something. Making a Halo clone where you shoot Americans in Korea or something, for example.

Online games I'm not so sure about. The KGB could see them as potential cover for dissident online meetings. Depending if the Soviet internet isn't a seperate, more controlled one from the rest of the world.

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Economy management games... how do you manage production, distribution and logistics so that the proletariat can get more consumer goods and outproduce the West? (And actually this has some online potential, and communication can be quite structured and thus not require heavy supervision. In fact it might not require any.)
Strategy games would be popular
Same with Sports simulations
Soccer Manager games? Might not be impossible although without player purchases and sales they might not have that much depth as the equivalent Western option... but online capability and leagues would make it a popular pastime. Communication can be restricted to preapproved standard messages, rather than chat.
Adventure games based on works of literature would be popular.

I wonder if they'd have an excess of Great Patriotic War games, both strategy and FPS. Maybe some WWIII games where the player has to fight off the NATO invasion of East Germany.

Seeing as China now has hundereds of millions of internet users, I see no reason the USSR wouldn't have gone the same route.

Yeah, I think modern China would be the best comparison we have. They have access to the WWW, but it's censored in what sites you can visit. The SU would probably have done something similar IMO.

DISSIDENT said:

In Soviet Russia, internet browses you.

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In capitalist USA, google searches you.

The Kiat said:

I wonder if they'd have an excess of Great Patriotic War games, both strategy and FPS. Maybe some WWIII games where the player has to fight off the NATO invasion of East Germany.

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Possibly, but given what a big deal the GPW was in the Soviet Union, I imagine that a few grizzled Party members would be outspoken about considering such things distasteful.

About video games: might internet piracy be extremely popular in the SU?
Also, about the War on Terror: perhaps Islamic Terrorists consider Communism to be worse than the Western corruption? After all, IIRC, they suppress millions of Muslims in Chechnya, Azerbaijan, and the 'Stans, not to mention the Invasion of Afghanistan.