Volume 25 issue 1 (2020)

This article explains how scientific-technical intelligence (STI) supported the Polish economy during the communist period. It focuses on the 1970s and 1980s. During the first period of the communist regime in Poland, 1945-1970, the state economy was centrally planned and rather isolated from the OECD countries. After the government was taken over by technocrats led by the general secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) Edward Gierek in late 1970, Poland began to open up to business contacts in the West. This, in turn, provided excellent opportunities for STI (established by the late 1950s) which from that time on began to be considered as a significant factor in the acquisition of know-how for industrial and R&D centers in Poland.

STI should be understood as more than just an organizational structure within the Ministry of the Interior. STI divisions had employees, a task-oriented budget, and infrastructure at its disposal. STI divisions contracted tens (the 1950s) and then hundreds (1980s) of consultants representing various disciplines of natural sciences, engineering, and humanities. At the same time, it relied on tens and then hundreds of agents (information contacts and operational contacts), recruited from the citizens of Polish People’s Republic and citizens of other countries. However, STI was also an extensive network of formal and informal links between the Ministry of the Interior and industrial ministries, research and development institutions, and counterparts of STI in other COMECON countries.

The main object of this article is to present the modus operandi and extent of cooperation between Polish STI, situated within the First Department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the ministries responsible for individual industrial branches. It illustrates how Polish industry communicated with the secret world of special services: how the requests and requirements of R&D institutions were transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and changed into operational tasks of espionage. STI offered the People’s Republic of Poland many benefits. The electronics and pharmaceutical industries particularly profited from its clandestine operations. Furthermore, The Polish state could economize as a result of STI operations aimed at western companies.

The industrial architectural space raises interest and arouses people’s curiosity. Many authors have written about the relationship between industrial space and machines, the meaning of space in relation to the concept of work, the nature of industrial products and their aesthetic value. But a major problem posed by industrial spaces comes when the machines leave a space, due to the obsolescence or degradation of the building. At this point, such spaces begin their relationship with the “void.” But if through dismantling a factory, a “vacuum” is created, then soon another entity will emerge to give the space form and characteristics. How does a productive “vacuum” fill up? Which new entity will replace the heavy material presence of the machines? What kind of activities are related to this form of “sublimation of matter”? In re-appropriations of industrial spaces, this task is often entrusted to various forms of art. Then the concept of production “normality” is replaced by artistic “exceptionality.”

This articles analyses some of the leading examples of the filling of industrial “voids” in Italy and Portugal, focusing on how the spaces in question maintain or deny their previous relationship with machines.

This article discusses the significance of politics to technology by reference to product design and process development in mechanical engineering during the period of the Soviet government from 1917 to 1991, paying particular attention to the years following introduction of the First Five Year Plan in 1928. The article commences with a brief summary of the industrial legacy inherited by the Soviet government from its Tsarist predecessors. This is followed by a description of the major features of industrial policies, practices and administration in the Soviet centrally planned economy. The core of the article discusses the impacts of those policies on product quality, vertical integration, product and process innovation, and technology imports. After concluding, it gives suggestions for further research on Russian mechanical engineering in the post-Soviet era.

In 1964, Soviet cyberneticist Victor Glushkov first proposed a National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing (EGSVC/ЕГСВЦ) (the term “OGAS” appeared in 1970s). The system was meant to neutralize the deficiencies of the Soviet planned economy but failed to find extensive government support. In addition to making strategic long-term forecasts (both economic and scientific), OGAS was to gather and process the information that was needed for monitoring and coordinating the work of the economy by creating a nation-wide, automated computer network. With his colleague, Dobrov, Glushkov developed a new method of scientific and technical forecasts that the system was to use. A project initially as important as the national space program, OGAS was nevertheless gradually ignored. Still, Gluskov sought to keep improving the way that scientific-technical forecasting was done. Using original project documents and memoirs, this article shows that its essence, the OGAS project was a project of the information society. Although never realised in the Soviet Union, something like OGAS is extremely relevant to today’s problems of setting priorities in science and technology research.

The introduction of new techniques and technological equipment into the Portuguese marble industry led to an exponential increase in production and, consequently, to profound environmental and landscape changes. The fact that the techniques had previously been adopted in other marble mining regions, like Wallonia (Belgium) and Carrara (Italy), confirms the standardization of the extraction and transformation process. However, despite using the same technology, each region’s local know-how and landscape features gave rise to different working contexts, many of which are not documented in written sources. Indeed, moving images and iconography prove to be a relevant source for studying local working techniques, machinery adaptations, or work distributions. Visual sources can be used to update previous studies and produce new ones, such as comparisons between quarrying techniques. Furthermore, these images prove to be a suitable and appealing educational instrument to show how technology has changed to allow firms to overcome market challenges and quarry vast mineral deposits.

Kyrgyz people have centuries-old, national traditions of culture, scientific thought and technology. Consequently, it is very important to research all the origins, as well as the development of technology and technical thought. The study of the development of technology and scientific achievements from a historical point of view allows us to identify the main development trends as well as the features of their formation.

Investigations of the centuries-old period of the formation of technical creativity’s traditions in Kyrgyzstan and familiarization with the global development of scientific and technical progress makes possible tracing the origin and formation of the fundamental basis for the development of the leading branches of production in Kyrgyzstan. This reveals the specific features of the development of the scientific and technical potential of the republic that related to the unique culture and peculiar natural conditions.

Kyrgyzstan is rich in archaeological monuments, including architectural complexes, bridges, and irrigation systems. They date from the Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages. The flourishing of the nation’s technological development began in the twelfth century. In Kyrgyszstan, the twelfth century was the time of urban development and also the stabilization of feudal relations. The development of rafts and mining entailed the establishment of trade and cultural relations with China, Tibet and Central Asia. These connections changed the technology, art, and culture of the Kyrgyz people.

This article is devoted to the history of the development of major industries on the territory of Kyrgyzstan from the second millennium BC to the twelfth century. Kyrgyzstan should be perceived not only as a geographical object, but also as a historical and cultural entity in world history and culture. This article focuses on the creation and development of the ceramic and metallurgical industries on the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan.

This review essay provides readers of ICON with an overview of recent publications in the history of technology in modern China. It focuses on contributions made by Chinese colleagues, but it also discussed a few selected books by Western scholars. The authors acknowledge the impressive amount of work done in the field, but they also note that most Chinese authors apply a fairly descriptive and internalist methodology. Although many historians of Chinese technology still focus on the Ming and early Qing dynasties (what in Europe is called the Middle Ages or the Early Modern Period), there is a clear tendency toward giving the last two centuries more space.

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