Anatoly Kitov: Technology vs ideology. The story about the first in the USSR project of nationwide computer network

This article examines the first Soviet initiative to develop a national computer network as the basis for an automated information system for the management of the national economy. This initiative was made by prominent Soviet scientist Engineer Colonel Anatoly Ivanovich Kitov whose 90 th anniversary is celebrated in 2010. The article attempts to view the history of Soviet computer networks as part of Soviet history, in which technology and politics closely intertwined.