page_title: History of computing in the Soviet Union
section_title: Perestroika
hierarchical_section_title: History of computing in the Soviet Union / History / Perestroika
caption_attribution_description: English: BK-0010
context_page_description: The history of computing in the Soviet Union began during the late 1940s, when the country began to develop MESM at the Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology in Feofaniya. Initial ideological opposition to cybernetics in the Soviet Union in general was overcome during the Khrushchev era, and computer production was officially encouraged.
  By the early 1970s, uncoordinated work by competing government ministries left the Soviet computer industry lacking common standards in peripherals and digital capacity which led to a significant technological lag behind Western producers. The Soviet government decided to abandon the development of original computer designs and encouraged the pirating of Western systems.
  Soviet industry lacked the technology to mass-produce computers with acceptable quality standards, and locally manufactured copies of Western hardware were unreliable. As personal computers spread to industries and offices in the West, the Soviet Union's technological lag increased.
  Nearly all Soviet computer manufacturers ceased operations after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
context_section_description: A program to expand computer literacy in Soviet schools was one of the first initiatives announced by Mikhail Gorbachev after he came to power in 1985. That year, the Elektronika BK-0010 was the first Soviet personal computer in common use in schools and as a consumer product. It was the only Soviet personal computer to be manufactured in more than a few thousand units.
  Between 1986 and 1988, Soviet schools received 87,808 computers out of a planned 111,000. About 60,000 were BK-0010s, as part of the KUVT-86 computer-facility systems.
  Although Soviet hardware copies lagged somewhat behind their Western counterparts in performance, their main issue was generally-poor reliability. The Agat, an Apple II clone, was particularly prone to failure; disks read by one system could be unreadable by others. An August 1985 issue of Pravda reported, "There are complaints about computer quality and reliability". The Agat was ultimately discontinued due to problems with supplying components, such as disk drives.
  The Vector-06C, released in 1986, was noted for its relatively advanced graphics capability. The Vector could display up to 256 colors when the BK-0010 had only four hard-coded colors, without palettes.
  In 1987, it was learned that Kongsberg Gruppen and Toshiba had sold CNC milling machines to the Soviet Union in what became known as the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal. The president of Toshiba resigned, and the company was threatened with a five-year ban from the US market.
  The passage of the Law on Cooperatives in May 1987 led to a rapid proliferation of companies trading computers and hardware components. Many software cooperatives were established, employing as much as one-fifth of all Soviet programmers by 1988. The Tekhnika cooperative, created by Artyom Tarasov, managed to sell its own software to state agencies including Gossnab.
  IBM-compatible Soviet-made computers were introduced during the late 1980s, but their cost put them beyond the reach of Soviet households. The Poisk, released in 1989, was the most common IBM-compatible Soviet computer. Because of production difficulties, no personal computer model was ever mass-produced.
  As Western technology embargoes were relaxed during the late perestroika era, the Soviets increasingly adopted foreign systems. In 1989, the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology acquired 70 to 100 IBM XT-AT systems with 8086 microprocessors. The poor quality of domestic manufacturing led the country to import over 50,000 personal computers from Taiwan in 1989.
  Increasingly-large import deals were signed with Western manufacturers but, as the Soviet economy unraveled, companies struggled to obtain hard currency to pay for them and deals were postponed or canceled. Control Data Corporation reportedly agreed to barter computers for Soviet Christmas cards.
  Human-rights groups in the West pressured the Soviet government to grant exit visas to all computer experts who wanted to emigrate. Soviet authorities eventually complied, leading to a massive loss of talent in the computing field.
caption: The BK-0010, the most widely produced Soviet home computer
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