> The history there takes a turn and after 70s they just started mostly copying Western machines. It was interesting how they would justify it to themselves copying the product of the "decadent and failing Western capitalism" while they also had to attend parades and sing songs to Lenin about how their country was at the forefront and leading the world to better and brighter future.

Oh, COME ON. Did you really think that every Soviet citizen was completely brainwashed? It was PROPAGANDA. It was not true by definition. Almost noone believed it. Your sentence is as disingineous in the same way as me wondering how Americans can build planes, vaccines and green energy plants when OBVIOUSLY they're all rednecks that shoot guns on their backyard and don't believe that global warming exists. Soviet people were significantly more aware of the shortcomings of the political system - after all they were the ones being the most affected by economical issues.

Remember that US propaganda from cold war wasn't significantly weaker when it came to USSR and a lot of things you heard repeated constantly are hugely exaggerated, wrong and built in times when authors of texts didn't really have insight into what's going on inside the country and had motivation to omit things to fit their narrative.