Government Decisions on Production Facilities for Computing Equipment and Computer Complex Ryad

In the current geopolitical situation, the Russian Federation needs a scientifically optimal strategy to achieve a technological sovereignty, which has become a factor of national security. This research relied on newly-declassified archival documents that describe governmental decisions made in the second half of the 1960s on the Ryad computer complex. The research objective was to explain the technological backwardness of the USSR in the field of computer technology. The theory of modernization made it possible to conclude that the Ryad project was slowed down due to poor technical documentation, element base, mathematical support, and allocations, not to mention the insufficient production facilities and slow construction. The project turned out to be much less effective than expected and failed to bridge the technological gap. The Soviet authorities chose to copy American samples at the expense of the domestic R&D. As a result, Soviet computing centers accumulated computers that were based on borrowed technologies, and the domestic computer manufacturing never became a catalyst for structural adjustment. It happened as a result of poor planning and management, as well as the priorities of the contemporary economic policy. The defense and civil sectors had no proper interaction while the immediate interests of ministries dominated over long-term prospects. Soviet enterprises did not invest in modernization, and the government ignored the recommendations of leading scientists.

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