One way or another, students in the Soviet Union often adopt, belatedly at least, Western fads. By turning to the thriving black market in Moscow and other cities, many Soviet teens manage to spend their spare rubles on imported designer jeans or bootleg tapes of Michael Jackson and Boy George. But Soviet youth have so far missed out completely on one craze that is sweeping much of the West: the computer boom. Most Soviet teens have never touched a personal computer, much less spent hours hacking away happily at a keyboard. ;
Soon, however, the U.S.S.R. may have its own generation of computer kids. The Kremlin has decreed that in September computer classes will begin "on a large scale" for the 8 million ninth- and tenth-grade students in the Soviet Union's 60,000 high schools. Said a statement issued by the Politburo: "All- round and profound mastering by young people of computers must become an important factor in speeding up the scientific and technological progress in the country." While computers are widespread in American high schools, most Soviet students have no chance to learn about the machines until college.
The drive to put computers in the classroom is apparently part of a plan by Soviet Party Boss Mikhail Gorbachev to revitalize the sluggish Soviet economy. Last year's growth in national income, the closest Soviet equivalent to gross national product, was a disappointing 2.6%, down from 3.1% in 1983 and only about half the size of the gains achieved in the 1960s. Many industries, including transportation and communications, are a decade or more behind the West in their use of computers, and that has retarded productivity increases. Moscow now seems to recognize that unless the Soviet Union produces a new generation of industrial engineers, workers and managers who are skilled and comfortable with computers, the country will suffer economically.
Nonetheless, the U.S.S.R. is not exactly a backwater when it comes to computers. Its scientists, many of whom are top notch by international standards, have built large machines that are powerful and accurate enough to guide cosmonauts into orbit. The military has many weapons that incorporate advanced computer technology, some of it stolen or copied from Western nations. The Soviets have lagged far behind the West in developing smaller computers that are used in offices and factories. They have been unable to master the precision manufacturing techniques needed to mass-produce computers. Says Vico Henriques, head of the Washington-based Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association: "The Soviets' capability in computer science is probably equal to ours. Just look at the very sophisticated things they're able to do in space. But from a computer manufacturing standpoint, they are nowhere near us."
The Soviets will be hard pressed to have the high-school computer program in full swing by the Politburo's September deadline. Western experts doubt that enough computers will be available to equip all the schools. Even if the ; machines arrive, there will probably be shortages of computer textbooks and teachers who know how to use them. "There are still many obstacles," admits an article about the new computer program in Pravda, the official party newspaper.