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Comment by avmich | Hacker News Reader

The point you seem to be missing is that even with all that, Soviets both had their own ideas, their own implementation of ideas and got ahead of the West in some of the areas. Yes, I'd agree that harsh societal environment greatly diminished the possible outcome - and also that lots of spying was being done by Soviets (to say nothing about the West).

> to the front, the GULAG, or to a wall

Right, but still, after Stalin's death, USSR had a renaissance of sorts - art, science, tech, quality of life improvements across the board. Still not enough to win the Cold War - was likely impossible - but enough to maintain for some time the lead in some areas and be not terribly outpaced in most others. Unfortunately, effects (and conditions) of Khrushchev Thaw could hardly be repeated, and until Gorbachev the country leadership wasn't allowing enough of progress.

One of the points of the article, I believe, is to remind that USSR had their own achievements.

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I’m not missing that at all, they did some novel stuff like their work with phages. But the whole of their nuclear industry and several others were built on NKVD theft. And the all of it was fueled by grain stolen from Ukraine and mines and logging camps full of millions of slaves. The brutality in my opinion overshadows everything else.

> But the whole of their nuclear industry and several others were built on NKVD theft.

What do you mean? They didn't have world-class scientists? They didn't compete in thermonuclear weapon race, with test of their own design (Sloika)? They didn't built world first nuclear power plant for the grid in Obninsk? They didn't participate in particles research, e.g. with invention of Tokamak? Did they steal all of that? Or you're just saying that whatever they did, early on they used most important data from spying? Learning from others, and spying for your adversaries both predate USSR by millenniums.

> And the all of it was fueled by grain stolen from Ukraine

You mean, different part of the same country specialized in different activities? Which grain was stolen - and by whom - from Ukraine (you mean, Ukrainian SSR?) when nuclear research was going on, mostly after WWII?

> What do you mean? They didn't have world-class scientists?

The did in fact have some, of course it was a huge place, but the theft of nuclear secrets is well documented, as are other episodes of industrial tech. In fact the Mitrokhin Archives[1] revealed that industrial espionage was one of the primary purposes of Soviet spying. For example in 1971 Agent TONDA gave the KBG two volumes of documents on micro electronic components developed in Tokyo for US aerospace use.

> Which grain was stolen - and by whom - from Ukraine (you mean, Ukrainian SSR?)

I'm referring of course to The Holodomor[2] which was executed at gun point and overseen by Moscow via the NKVD. The whole thing was used by Stalin to clear our rebellious Ukrainians and to fund industrialization.

What I'm saying is that a lot of touted Soviet achievements were built on a foundation of theft, slavery, and ethnic cleansing unrivaled since WWII.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

So you're condemning USSR as a whole, not just in the scope of this discussion?

I replied above[1], to paraphrase yes. The USSR was founded and build on brutality, and sustained on brutality and repression long after Stalin was gone. If there is such a thing as evil, the government of the USSR was truly and deeply evil.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33269000

USSR had a lot of really, really bad sides. I just think we're talking about something different here. But overall I agree with you.

From down thread

> So you're condemning USSR as a whole, not just in the scope of this discussion?

Yes. I'm am 100% fully condemning the whole USSR for its full history. The purges, the Holodomor, forced relocations, anti-Jewish programs, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, all of it. The USSR condemned racism in the US while at the same time running an ethnic cleansing program across its whole land mass so massive and pitiless that it would have made an SS officer blush. They condemned colonialism and yet ran South Yemen as a colony until 1990. The evil didn't stop with Stalin, the repression just became a little more graceful.

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