Information Technology
State planning of the economy required processing large amounts of statistical data. The Soviet State had nationalized the Odhner calculator factory in St Petersburg after the revolution. The state began renting tabulating equipment later on. By 1929 it was a very large user of statistical machines, on the scale of the US or Germany. The State Bank had tabulating machines in 14 branches. Other users included the Central Statistical Bureau, the Soviet Commissariat of Finance, Soviet Commissariat of Inspection, Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Trade, the Grain Trust, Soviet Railways, Russian Ford, Russian Buick, the Karkov tractor factory, and the Tula Armament Works. IBM also did a good deal of business with the Soviet State in the 1930s, including supplying punch cards to the Stalin Automobile Plant.
Read more about this topic: Five-Year Plans For The National Economy Of The Soviet Union
Famous quotes containing the words information and/or technology:
“On the breasts of a barmaid in Sale
Were tattooed the prices of ale;
And on her behind
For the sake of the blind
Was the same information in Braille.”
—Anonymous.
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)