ABSTRACT
Cybernetics today enjoys more prestige in the Soviet Union than in any other country in the world. The term "cybernetics" is often improperly understood as being synonymous with automation. The aspiring scientific discipline of cybernetics did not base itself upon the technological innovations which permit the construction of modern computers. Instead, it rested on the concept of entropy, taken from thermodynamics and broadened to mean the amount of disorder in any dynamic system. Cybernetics coincides with the materialism and optimism of Marxism, but it also raises a number of serious philosophical and sociological problems. Cybernetics is closely connected to a number of fields–such as psychology, econometrics, pedagogical theory, logic, physiology, and biology–which were subjected to ideological restrictions in Stalin's last years. The movement toward cybernetics grew gradually but continually until it began to assume the dimensions of a landslide. Cybernetics has caused a great deal of nervousness for the ideologists, especially those held over from the Stalin era.
