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On the subject of interesting/eccentric Russian/Soviet scientists, I recently learned about Nikolai Morozov[1] who spent 25 years in prison for fighting against the Tsarist government before becoming a pioneer of aviation in Russia. He also had some weird ideas about history which became the basis for a popular Russian conspiracy theory[2]. And finally at age 88 became the oldest known combatant in World War II when he insisted on enlisting as a sniper in the Red Army to field test a telescopic sight of his own design. What a life!

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)

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"Father" of the soviet rocket program - Sergey Korolev was also imprisoned in 1937 for false charges, put into labor camp, tortured, moved to a prison for scientist and engineers, and finally released in 1944. Charges were not dropped for him up until 1957 when Sputnik 1 was launched [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev

Yuri Kondratyuk - Soviet engineer and mathematician, who developed the first known lunar orbit rendezvous. In 1927 he built a 13,000 ton wooden grain elevator without a single nail. The lack of nails in the structure was used as evidence that he had planned it to collapse. Convicted of "anti-Soviet activity", Kondratyuk was sentenced to three years in a GULag.

The building stood 60 years before burning down in middle 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Kondratyuk

That's one of those things about history that still don't add up in my mind. How come that so many breakthroughs were made by Russian/Soviet researchers who were tortured, imprisoned, or sent to a gulag, sometimes in the middle of working on those major achievements? You'd think that with the political climate in Russia/USSR in the 19th and 20th century, there would be near-zero scientific output coming from there - but it turns out the opposite was true.

I first started thinking about it when I read about Korolev. I can't imagine continuing to do any kind of work after spending years in prison and almost dying in a gulag.

There is also the reverse relationship: The kinds of geniuses capable of such original thought, were precisely the kinds of persons the regime would be suspicious of and do witch hunts on. So, to the extent you were 'acting as as genius', you were high risk for being witch-hunt tortured.

The stimuli may have been different than today - while a person is in prison (or abroad for a conference, collaboration, research or whatever trip) the family remains under close supervision of the special services, and the person is being reminded about that.

I don't think it was about family. When you're in prison, you will want to have an opportunity to do useful and interesting work, instead of either doing nothing, or doing hard labor.

I know someone who has been in that situation and in their case it definitely was the not-so-subtle reminder that their family was vulnerable that caused them to cooperate with the regime.

The answer is that, bluntly, environment matters vastly less than we are led to believe by people invested (even for morally noble reasons!) in maintaining the prestige of education and redistributionist policies. It is not only impossible to make an average person a genius, but also very hard to destroy a genius through adverse conditions short of actual murder. Pretty much all of the variance is explained by natural talent. American rhetoric about expenditure per pupil, middle class advantages and SAT prep seems so petty and myopic in comparison to those stories because it objectively is.

Here's the thing: people adapt. We hear about various unthinkable horrors in Russia or the USSR, and think that people lived in fear 24/7. No, people still lived their lives, went to schools, got married, had children, worked, got paid, went shopping, went on vacations, etc. Various things were different, for example long shopping lines, or the constant fear of informers. But you learned to keep your tongue, stop thinking about frivolous things such as "inalienable rights", mutter the right incantations, and life was livable.

I know this because I was born in the Eastern Block.

Life offered lots of little moments of joy, such as going to math contests and getting awards (for me as a kid).

Just think of the times of Covid. In January 2020 we could not fathom the idea of being trapped at home for months, and then it happened just like that. Life went on.

The same with Communism. It's horrible, but (most) people adapt and keep living their lives.

There was one man, V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky. He got the profession of a surgeon, and he was also deeply religious and was soon ordained a priest. He remained a surgeon though and worked as such for the rest of his life. Thing is, it all happened in early Soviet years when the government was actively opposing and suppressing the church. He was in the middle of this struggle and it was rather hard for him. At one moment, for example, he though of burning himself in a church that was about to be closed. This didn’t happen and he was eventually sent to an exile somewhere far in Siberia. Yet when the war started he wrote a letter to the officials saying that he, as a surgeon with a lot of experience, wanted to be of help and asked to be sent into a hospital closer to the frontlines. And also added that “when the war ends I’m ready to return back to the exile”.

Russian history is rich and convoluted and may look controversial to an outsider. But it is not really that to an insider. The controversial parts are just tragic.

(Later that man got Stalin prize for his book about surgery, although they did not let him put “Archbishop Luke” as the author and published it under his civil name.)

Because with Soviet Communism you don't have to worry about anything other than doing your work and the gulag. If you're not in the gulag and are in an inherently rewarding field you can really get stuff done. Capitalism prevails but the overhead for everyone is orders of magnitude more than under communism for the chosen.

Bullshit. You had to worry about acquiring even food beyond bread and potatoes. A tiny minority employed in strategic area were afforded a middle class life at best.

Ok, and the people we are talking about were in that minority. Under capitalism the minority of people that don't have to worry about that overhead is even smaller and isn't typically based on merit but on inherited wealth.

Maybe it looked different from the perspective of people living then and there, but I feel like I couldn't feel any reward from working in an inherently rewarding feel, because I would constantly be worried about being randomly awarded a winning ticket for a one-way trip to Siberia.

I mean, some of the stuff I read about the famous Soviet names in aeronautics, space exploration or cybernetics, makes it feel like back then, NKVD was the HR department, PIPs involved a time in a gulag, and getting fired had a quite literal meaning to it. Look the wrong way at your manager or a co-worker, and the next day you have a 1:1... in a prison cell.

> Capitalism prevails but the overhead for everyone is orders of magnitude more than under communism for the chosen.

Curiously, I do have an impression that, on the capitalist side of the world, the highest productivity and the greatest achievements both are to be found in those little bubbles that isolate people and their work from the capitalist concerns. Smart people, survivable budget, a specific direction, and zero questions about how the work will contribute to the profits next quarter. Then there's that old adage that corporations tend to be capitalist on the outside and communist on the inside. Makes me think that we're naturally drifting to a mixed model here.

> communist on the inside

The difference between "Communist on the outside" and "communist on the inside" is that the former is backed by a compulsive government with a monopoly on the use of force, and the latter is a voluntary choice by all parties.

With communism you work to build socialism, a better society. Under capitalism you work so your CEO can get another 20 million dollars bonus.

"Under capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under socialism, the powerful become rich."

Insightful commentary you have there comrade. The entire works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin refuted by a sharp irony! The increase in the standards of living for millions of empoverished and exploited russians, chinese and cubans refuted by cylinder714 :-). I bet you also quote "Animal Farm" to refute the ‘The Single Greatest Educational Effort in Human History’ (https://www.languagemagazine.com/the-single-greatest-educati...) under communist China.

>increase in the standards of living for millions of empoverished and exploited russians, chinese and cubans

And to think, it only cost the lives of tens of millions of 'Russians'!

And that "educational effort" to steer children to denounce their own families and parents, commiting them to execution. That only cost tens of millions of Chinese lives too.

So despite your sarcasm, you seem to have provided exactly that information many already know: the achievements of communism are more important to communists than lives, but they are happy to use others lives both to justify their own actions and measure the success of communism!

Bewildering

Tens of millions of russians! Tens of millions of people die every year by capitalist exploitation. See, I can also give made up numbers.

In all seriousness, you can't make up numbers out of your ass. Do you know the lives of how many people costed to live under capitalism? How many died so we can have this computer, these clothes? The lives of how many exploited africans, asians and latinos it costed to make these things (computers, cellphones, clothes, but also grains, vegetables, food, oil, minerals)? How many millions die year by year because we live in a capitalist system, that values profit over lives?

The first world war was an imperialist war, where millions died because of a power struggle over African colonies. Thousands of workers were (and continue to be) killed protesting their working conditions. Millions of communists and suspected communists were killed in Indonesia and South America to defend capitalism.

The achievements of capitalism are more important to capitalists than lives, but they are happy to use others lives both to justify their own actions and measure the success of capitalism!

Bewildering.

> How many died so we can have this computer, these clothes? The lives of how many exploited africans, asians and latinos it costed to make these things (computers, cellphones, clothes, but also grains, vegetables, food, oil, minerals)?

Not very many. Regarding Africa in particular, it's not actually a major mineral producer, it barely contributes anything [1].

Marxists insist that the global economy somehow depends on African children ineffectively toiling in cobalt mines, because they need to maintain their zero-sum moralistic vision of economic relations where African poverty explains the riches of the First World and vice versa. In reality, had Africans been richer, they'd have been able to develop their resources in a proper industrial fashion and invest into covering their own needs, to the common benefit of them and everyone else. The current state of Africa is undesirable for everyone. It's just that not every tragedy is a product of a conspiracy and exploitation by capitalists.

1. https://kenopalo.substack.com/p/natural-resources-and-econom...

Only you are making things up and I'm not.

The Leninist policies are considered to have cost in the ballpark of 30 million lives. In the Tsarist rule ~1500 people were executed in a year at the extreme. In the communist days 1500 were killed in a day, but every day for 30 years.

The Moaists are considered to have killed 50 million.

"Capitalist Exploitation" - you mean businesses doing business?

Do you believe people will be exploited less under a different economic system? Why do you believe that?

> The Leninist policies are considered to have cost in the ballpark of 30 million lives.

[citation needed].

If you are considering transitory economic policies to be a condemnation of a whole economic and social system, then let me tell you about the Indian famines that regularly killed tens of millions of people on India, in a capitalist system, under the rule of a capitalist country (Great Britain). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_I...

So there you have it, definite proof of the consequences of capitalist policies.

> The Moaists are considered to have killed 50 million.

Again, you can't just make numbers out your ass. Do you actually think that communists ordered the killing of 50 million people? Do you think that communists are just evil maniacs who like to kill people because communism means wanting to kill people? Are you really that ignorant or indoctrinated?

Maybe is projection. More than 1 million people were killed in Indonesia for the "crime" of being communists or communist sympathizers. The United States (a capitalist country) supported, financed, and celebrated those killings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...

When anti-communists talk about "mass killings," it's all about projection: it was YOUR policies, not the communists', that killed millions of people. So they need to project onto others the crimes that capitalism is guilty of.

> Do you believe people will be exploited less under a different economic system? Why do you believe that?

Capitalism brought us to the point where we are now, on the brink of WW3, facing extinction from climate change, a demographic crisis in most countries of the world, pollution and contamination like never before, and the exploitation of millions of human beings so the top 0.1% can be more wealthy. Capitalism is not able to solve any of the existential and humanitarian crises that exist because it is the CAUSE of those problems. And the capitalist class profits from them. So yes, either we do a revolution and overthrow the capitalist class, or we face extinction, quite literally.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communis...

Wake up. Do you know what one revolution gets you? Back to where you started! But you cant see that, because its always someone else in the way of your success... the monarchs, the capitalist, the educated (said Pol Pot). Yes these pesky groups always keep you down and therefore they must be overthrown!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Communists doing communist things, always thinking they know best.

(Side-note: socialism is one of these overloaded terms. In the US for instance, socialism and communism seem to be synonyms.)

...but it also doesn't help to treat socialism and social-market-economy as synonyms. E.g. most Northern/Western European countries are not actually 'socialist', even though they are much more social than the "real socialist" countries of the Eastern Bloc.

(and yes, the term "Real Socialism" was actually a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_socialism

A better society exists in capitalism and is called "consumer surplus".

Let me guess... you never experienced socialism first hand?

(and I mean the "real socialism" as it existed in Eastern Bloc countries - not the rose-tinted hypothetical version that exists only in the heads of Western lefties).

You can go to North Korea and help them build any time mate!

That name and history made me think his son was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov but of course they're not related.

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