Story from my step-grandfather:
He was a village school director and teacher in Ukraine at times of 1932/33 famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...). With students from senior classes he developed piece of farm land just to feed junior classes - make real breakfast at list for them.
Each day he walked to school with knapsack - prepared for detention, as all agricultural surplus should go to collectors. All that was real, indeed.
...
At WWII, he served as an artillery lieutenant, literally walked by foot from Voronezh/Russia to Berlin/Germany. They were crying "for the Motherland, for the Stalin" all way along. And that one was also real.
Later he was a father of an academic and two doctors of science in USSR.
History is really not that black and white.
You cannot rationalize away the horrors of 20th century Russia, certainly not with these bullet points.
So we killed 30 million people, but look! Sputnik!
Nor was industrialization. You’re giving them credit for something basically every european country did in that timeframe. And many other countries besides.
Not strictly saying you’re wrong. I haven’t done the comparative argument so it’s possible they did have a comparative advantage on either front. But you’d need to compare to other countries to have a meaningful claim.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-ra...
In particular try Italy and Spain, countries with many peasants circa 1900. Virtually identical trajectories.
The USSR, if around today, would have a population of 300 million. They were a superpower. Only large powers made it to space. It was certainly impressive, but also a natural result if you have a large portion of your economy devoted to military spending and missile research. The space program in both USA and USSR allowed for ICBM delivery of nuclear warheads, a crucial strategic goal.
Basically with that base anyone could do it (I don't dispute that having a gun pointed at your and your family head wasn't mobilizing for scientists, but that's normal for authoritarian states).
What about plantations? Who worked there? Sigh, under each stone of European squares you can find 1kg of gold that came from the "third world".
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll assume it is not.
France and Poland send their regards.
Poland was unlucky by having mountains in south, where we have rather peaceful nations. Sea from north (Swedes invaded Poland once, but that's mostly it) and nothing (except forests) from west (with Germany) and Russia in the east. (of course now it is a bit different, but lack of natural obstacles from east/west is still real).
it was called "colony" back then and Western Europe was doing it for several centuries. For example the wonderful rubber being a major part of the European technological leap at the end of 19th - beginning of 20th century was produced in Belgian Congo where not doing your daily quota would for example result in your family members mutilated or killed:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964
"How to get that rubber, as much and as quickly as possible?
In the absence of scruples, the answer was distressingly simple. Send armed men to a village, kidnap the women and children, and if their menfolk did not bring back enough rubber, chop off a hand - or kill a family."
After hundreds of years of european colonization, half of africa still has no electricity.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/11/13/more-tha...
The poorest people in america, australia, etc are the indigenuous people.
Most of india, after 200+ years of colonization is mired in poverty.
https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/news/poverty-in-india-60...
And "the West" didn't create the modern world. The "modern world" doesn't exist without india, china, africa, etc.
[1] Thus not including battlefield deaths of soldiers.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...
in there it says that he ran away from home early and "during revolution was just a street hooligan breaking streetlamps for amusement". He did eventually complete engineering school and wound up designing and building ports and hydroelectric dams during all the heavy industrialization and the war. He said he was happy about that change that allowed him to become educated.
Just in case: pretty much each country, including US, handles COVID problem in typical socialistic state way.
It's funny how Bitcoin was created as a response to 2008 but all it merely did is replicate the flaws of conventional fiat currencies that lead to 2008 in a much shorter time span. All it shows is that the demand for greedy money is unstoppable.
The Chinese probably have it more right than the Soviets in that they manage a few big things and then let the market more or less self manage to a point so long as the CCP is getting their cut and gives their blessing.