The Soviet Science System

All organizations are ideologized; if you can't see the ideology, that just means you agree with it.

Cybernetics was considered western science, and most scientists had west connection. Good example is Antonin Svoboda. He ran away from Czechoslovakia before nazis invaded, hiding antiaircraft missile computer plans in frame of bicycle. Then he returned, build Czech Cybernetic Institute, become director and emigrated when soviets invaded. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Svoboda

In 50s-60s Soviet computers were not that far behind, but late it was harder and harder to compete with West simply because of economy scale disadvantage. Unlike nukes and space exploration, computer technology was not receiving the funding to maintain parity.

Therefore it was decided that copying and cloning Western tech would be cheaper then trying to compete in yet another high-tech industry.

The pure science itself perhaps had the capability to catch up and recover but the centrally planned, often military-dominated industrial system was profoundly awful at actually managing industry and innovating. Much of Soviet industry remained woefully behind its Western counterparts - in capacity, precision, quality assurance, material science, you name it. One can reasonably argue that a great deal of Soviet engineering design ingenuity in a number of fields was driven by the constraints of what they could realistically produce.

There's a book about the whole optimization debacle, "The Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford.

The scene with the Gosplan planner trying to solve the problem of allocation of resources is a particularly damning indictment of central planning.

NACA (later NASA) brought Lockheed to the area, and worked hand-in-glove with Fairchild as its only supplier of the transistors needed in the Space Race for years, which firmly centered the semiconductor revolution in the area.

Of course, this is to say nothing of the Federal research dollars which still constitute a massive portion of university research funding, including at Stanford itself.

And of course, to add to the countless examples outside the Bay area, there's the National Laboratory system.

If you look closely, the American and Soviet science systems don't appear all that different. The chief difference is that the Soviets preferred to keep everything under direct governmental control, while the United States prefers to use government contracts and grants to drive scientific progress through the private sector and university system.

That, and there's significantly less chance of being thrown in prison for espousing political views in the modern US.

I think it's safe to say Bell Labs represented a large portion of the whole of US's technical and scientific output in the 20th century (reminder: they invented the transistor, information theory, lasers, radio astronomy, UNIX, ... ; it's mindblowing).

Maybe realizing he is also a dictator by redeeming one of the most brutal and evil dictators he is also legitimizing his own power.

On of the closing paragraphs more or less answers your question:

"To avert any misunderstanding: I am not defending the Soviet Science System; I am describing it. There was a great deal of shoddy work, rent-seeking and suffering within that system. But there was also extremely good work, and the latter was a product of the system that engendered the former. That’s the paradox that comes from looking at any science system: it wouldn’t be a system at all if it didn’t, in some sense, work."

Also, just because part a system is bad doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from it. The Soviets had some truly amazing technological achievements, especially in physics, and they often did their work on a shoestring budget.

Learning and debating alternative systems is a good thing. Even if those systems were evil as a whole, there might be valuable insights somewhere within them.

Without Stalin's political system we were not able to build our nuclear and fusion shield (not only the bomb itself, but rockets, plains and other delivery systems), antimissile systems and so on. The goal of that defence project demanded hyper concentration of human resources, and Stalin did this.

And if he didn't who can grant for shure that USA would not use their nukes against our country (or, may be some other country, which was in conflict with USA) as they did against Japan? The most people thanked Stalin for that safety he gave our nation, the minority had suffered.

Yes, there was oversacrifices and exaggerations, and that was cruel regime and highly militarized. But it was necessary to protect ourselves from the unfriendly West (the West openly hated communism since the beggining, even when it was only internal Russian affair). And in the end, it was Churchill, who declared Сold War, not Stalin.

And Putin has nothing in common with Stalin. You know, our elders say about our current political situation: if we would have Stalin nowadays the life would be far far better. Putin is not so strong, and smart, and firm and slefless, as Stalin was. For instance Putin have ended Russian Academy of Sciences So... You may not be afraid, we are not able to rebuild Union here in any sense.