Electronic Battlefields, Visions of Progress and Computer Networks in State Socialist Poland

Abstract

This essay discusses how imageries of scientific, economic, and social progress influenced the development of computer‑based telecommunication networks in state socialist Poland. The author argues that attempts at establishing communication networks between computers were interdependent with imageries of electronic communication as a vector of economic and scientific progress. While discussing the development of particular telecommunication systems such as academic computer networks and privately owned personal computer modems, the author shows how such imagery, juxtaposed with a vision of the so called “electronic battlefield,” influenced public understanding of computer networks. Based on archival documents, legislative acts and computer periodicals, this article shows how computer professionals, policy makers, and the scientific community influenced the social construction of computer networks as vectors of modernity and social and scientific development.