The Soviet design bureaus certainly had their irrationalities. They behaved like big, vertically-integrated companies, and preferred 'their' stuff over the oth

The Soviet design bureaus certainly had their irrationalities. They behaved like big, vertically-integrated companies, and preferred 'their' stuff over the other design bureaus' stuff. Soviet gear was robust because robustness and repairability was priorities as a design criterion. It's not an automatic product of how they doled out work, or of their defense industry generally.