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 al

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.