(Essay by Robert Betchov, Nov. 10, 1989.) (Edited by HN.)

To try to understand the nature of the situation in the USSR, I will start from the assumption that the human brain works day and night, but in two different modes.

When we are awake, the brain uses the eyes, the ears, the fingers and the vocal chords to communicate with the outside world. When awake, we can direct our brain to study a particular problem and carry out a particular activity.

When our body is asleep, the full power of the brain is available, but we are not able to direct it. Sometimes the brain dreams, sometimes it re-examines a problem left over from the day-time, with full freedom to explore and imagine. When we awake, a new answer to the problem comes to our mind, unexpected and luminous.

After the Russian Revolution, the new leaders decided that land and natural resources would be the common property of the nation, and that the economy will use a system of five-year plans. A few specialists in Moscow will prepare directives to be carried out by workers and farmers. These specialists are presumably thinking day and night to reach the best possible plan. But the workers and farmers spend their energy on working in the day-time and restoring their energy at night, in deep sleep, confident in the wisdom of their leaders.

Experience showed that, when a farmer informs the administration that something is wrong, he is not listened to. So he works only as directed and at night he sleeps, without trying to solve any problems.

As the years passed by, the children imitated their parents. They used their day-time brain for the assigned daily task and the night-time brain for their personal life.

Since the daily task did not require much thinking on their part (that was up to the planners), they did a lot of night-type of thinking also in the day-time.

The USSR produced a steady stream of chess champions and outstanding mathematicians. The creativity of its artists has gained world recognition. But its agricultural production did not grow as expected.

The day-time brain of the Soviet farmer thinks by square kilometeres, according to the plan. But his night-time brain thinks of the tomatoes and lettuce that he can grow in his back-yard; he thinks by square meters. Eventually he thinks (in an imaginative leap) of selling them downtown.

With the space age and the spreading of computers, a new generation appeared that increasingly relies on night thinking. The free brain formed its own opinion on communism and the centrally planned economy.

A law excluded every use of machines that can produce multiple copies, except for those under police control. In 1970, Soviet engineering students could practice on small computers, but all printing had to be done through one central office, with delays. But the modern information revolution cannot proceed without printers. These can print pictures as well as texts. A political message can easily be coded, copied, and any number of diskettes mailed around and decoded. The freedom of the press has become the freedom of the needle and the freedom of the bit.

The night brain is now breaking through to see the light of day.