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Comment by irusensei | Hacker News Reader

> Why didn’t they have more computers?

> The USSR was hardly a backward country — they’d launched Sputnik

> It (the computer) performed 250,000 calculations for artillery tables in about 2 and half hours.

> Nearly all the computer usage was in the military and academia.

One common argument ideologically charged people make to counter capitalism advancements is that cell phones were invented in the USSR. That might be the case but I suspect such technology was never intended to be distributed to the common person but for war and propaganda. I'm not a big fan of this kind of incentive.

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USSR was almost destroyed by German invasion in 1941-1945. Because most of the population and almost all the industry resided (and continue to reside) in the western part of Russia/USSR, Germany destroyed immense amount of industry, infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals. Even after capturing territories, Germany destroyed industrial plants because their plan was to completely eliminate people of Russian nationality and to use the captured lands for agriculture - to feed the Third Reich.

Also, they killed almost 30 million of young productive citizen of USSR.

It was a huge knock which almost no other country ever endured. And it set back the development of USSR.

Also, those comments about war and propaganda are also inaccurate. USA started much more wars than USSR/Russia, and as the result of those wars USA killed at least 20 million of people, destroyed infrastructure and industry, plundered resources, e.g. oil of Iraq and Libya. And haven't built anything.

If you'd really study the history, although I'm pretty sure you won't find any accurate information about USSR in the western history books, you'll learn, for example, how USSR built kindergardens, hospitals, schools and industry in Afghanistan and other countries. Investing the money and labor of Russian people in 3rd world countries. Had ever USA did the same?.. Other than printing another billion of USD and "giving" it to some other country, with 90% disappearing in somebody's pocket in transit.

And don't get me even started on propaganda. Do you believe western society doesn't have propaganda? How comes then that you all have the same opinion about everything? Especially on external politics.

I'm not downsizing the capacity of their industrial and engineering prowess. I'm questioned the incentives. During the 50s the US and USSR promoted national exhibitions about each countries products and technology. The USSR exhibition happened in America and likewise the US exhibition happened in Moscow.

Guess which side was more stunned by the achievements of the other country? The USSR version was all about satellites and factory projects while the US version was a showcase of modern housing utensils. This triggered the famous "Kitchen Debate" between Nixon and Krushev.

In fact Nikita who had tasted Pepsi for the first time during the exhibition liked it so much he ordered tons of syrup. They paid in vodka and then in military ships. This is an interesting story about how Pepsi became one of the largest military forces of the planet for a very brief time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrwMrPIHOIw

So my entire point is yes Soviet tech might have been impressive but the incentives were never to deliver this technology into the hands of common people. All those nice computers were used to stuff like calculate artillery precision.

As for the propaganda part, the USSR suffered from a severe form of NIN illness. If the west can do it then we need to do it too! See Tupolev 144.

C'mon, let's be honest. Computing technology in the US for the first couple decades was all about calculating artillery and navigating ships and fighter jets, too.

The initial push to computing tech came from the need for cryptographic and artillery purposes. The true first microprocessor was the Central Air Data Computer in the F-14 fighter jet. The defense industry in many ways led the way on almost all fronts -- super computing, networking (DARPA etc), cryptography, etc. etc.

Initial public and defence investment. Later, private market application. The USSR mostly lacked the latter, though.

Not really. Business applications were key to computers success in USA. First really widely used microprocessor had zero connections to the military.

USSR copied OS/360 not because of military's requests, but because it lacked computers for civil applications and lacked software for it. OS/360 was never a military project in USA.

During the 50s the USSR had yet to spend lots of resources to restore the country after the war. USSR also knew very well that even before the WWII ended, US already had plans to destroy it with nuclear weapons.

So we had to invest all the available resources into developing a technology that would protect us from US nuclear strike.

Although I agree that in many (but not all) cases USSR tried to copy western technology and goods, Tu-144 is a bad example as it had flown 2 months before the Concord, so it clearly couldn't be a copy of Concord.

USSR wanted world dominance, not peace with USA. Iran was first target, then Turkey. USSR demanded Libya. Then Korea happened.

It wasn't about protection of USSR, it was about exporting communism to other countries.

Yes, the USSR and its citizens suffered a lot in WW II. Yes of course that set back USSR technological innovation.

Trying to weigh what state did more damage is not a useful metric. Recognising specific damage _is_ useful.

Here's an example of really bad stuff by the USSR government I'm intimately familiar with. Friends had their relatives deported to Siberia by the USSR. Twice. This happened during both USSR occupations of Latvia, in 1941 (before the nazis arrived) and 1949 (right after they were kicked out). Some of them died. Some people I've met now in their sixties were born in a Siberian gulag in the mid-1950's. They were not alone to suffer. A bit over 2% of Latvia's population was deported.

Does any other injustice somehow make that less wrong? No.

My comment wasn't about justice. It's about that when your country is basically destroyed: nearly all young men killed and the remaining population has their homes destroyed, you have all the industry and agriculture destroyed as well, it's very hard to make excellent consumer goods and personal computers for everyone. First, you need to rebuild the houses for the people, it's a lot of work. Then you need to feed the people. Then you need to restore the industry to give people jobs and prepare for the next inevitable invasion.

And BTW, despite all that, USSR invested a lot in development of those Baltic states like Latvia. Like really a lot. They were swimming in money compared to RSFSR or other republics (maybe only Georgia had the same level of allowance in the USSR). USSR built industry and power plants there, that they later happily sold for scrap after 1991. And closed fine nuclear power plant built for them by the USSR. Now they have no jobs, population is rapidly declining (during the "awful" USSR times it was growing), they have no energy. Good luck to them.

I think it was a mistake to invest so much in those states, one of the reasons for USSR decline. Russian people worked hard to make those Baltic states happy and now they are the most ungrateful nations saying only dirty words about USSR and Russia. Just as Georgia.

It seems the more you give to people, the more ungrateful they become. Just look at British/USA colonies: they still respect the master. E.g. Japan didn't invite Russia this year for the ceremony on the anniversary of US nuclear bombings. But invited USA. We joked: "Why the didn't invite us, but invited USA that bombed them? Because without USA this ceremony wouldn't even exist in the first place".

USSR never did anything good for Baltics - it created non-efficient factories and sent a lot of Russians to work there, while prosecuted most of the local pre-war elites.

In late 80s no one in USSR wanted to choose stuff from Latvia over imported goods. When USSR collapsed Latvia got a lot of non-efficient factories with dated equipment and had to close them and also masses of Russian factory workers who where very hostile to new Baltic states.

"Russian people worked hard to make those Baltic states happy and now they are the most ungrateful nations saying only dirty words about USSR and Russia."

Ahem.

I didn't expect to find an actual Tankie here!

I agree, the USSR invested many many helicopters in Afghanistan. Many tanks too! Clearly money well-spent.

USSR built Kabul Polytechnic University and taught teachers that later worked there. It also was building industry where graduates would work.

What did USA did for Afghanistan besides bombing it into stone age and leaving tons of weapons and deceived people behind?

That's actually a great example. The Kabul Polytechnic University was defunct when the US showed up in 2001. That's what the USSR left behind in Afghanistan — the Taliban and a stone-age culture. Nothing else except death.

The Kabul Polytechnic University has remained open since 2002 when the US set up a new government.

Will it last? Who knows. But so far, the US has left a stronger positive legacy than the USSR ever managed.

There's a very simple explanation - namely USA had untouched industry with already big investment into computer-related areas by the end of the war, while europe was heavily destroyed, and USSR not only got heavily hit in industry, agriculture and manpower, but also even by 1991 didn't really stop being on a crash build-up program due to Russian Empire being, well, a shithole[1]. The trade war component of Cold War meant that while cooperation (or plain exploitation) in the west made certain stuff more available, that didn't happen to East of the divide, even disregarding issues in how industry was run (which aren't necessarily due to "socialism", but get associated with it).

[1] In Poland, the eastern side of the country is still noticeably less developed, with lower development marking the parts that were in Russian Partition - and that was one of the (on average) best developed regions in Tsardom.

People romanticising the idea of communism and USSR probably never lived under such a system or base their opinion on propaganda.

That being said, if teachers found you had a talent for engineering and you weren't from a blacklisted family, your life would be completely owned by the state. You would be brainwashed and manipulated to become the engineer the state wants and then as a reward sent off to a prison city living and working with other engineers for the rest of your life. One mistake, wrong comment about the regime and you would end up in the forest with a bullet in your head. That's why they had some impressive advancements here and there, but in the grand scheme of things USSR was just one big pile of steaming excrement.

I think your comment is purely based on propaganda. The comment is false on so many levels. Maybe be it describes the 30's and Stalinism but nothing like that was from 50's and onward.

It was happening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city#Russia

Closed cities were a thing, but they weren't prisons. And "you would end up in the forest with a bullet in your head" certainly wasn't a thing from the 60s on.

Prison for your political view was a common thing until about 1986. And a lot of people died there.

Forced institutionalization would be far more common than prison for political dissenters in 1970s already.

People denigrating USSR/communism are also repeating the same thoughts induced by the very powerful western propaganda. These things that you repeat: "blacklisted family", "owned by the state", "brainwashed and manipulated", "prison city", "forest with a bullet in your head" - all of them didn't exist in the USSR (maybe for a short period of time after the October revolution).

USSR wasn't an ideal society, but you're either inventing imaginary horrors or repeating lies invented by somebody else.

> "prison city"

Perhaps they meant "closed towns" which have existed even in the late 80s.

Well, these are far from being prison cities

This is what I meant exactly.

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