5 ms·

I think most of the downvotes aren't because of your claims about the purges, but because of your wink-nudge implication that Soviet engineers and mathematician

by vkou 4y ago

I think most of the downvotes aren't because of your claims about the purges, but because of your wink-nudge implication that Soviet engineers and mathematicians could not achieve anything of note without espionage.

ch4s3 4y ago
Well to be clear what I'm saying is that they literally murdered a whole generation of engineers, scientists, and technicians. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Had they not captured train loads of Nazi scientists and literally stollen every significant piece of technology developed in the west for 20+ years it would have taken them FAR FAR longer to develop a lot of this stuff independently. They essentially cut themselves off from the global community and purged all of their talent. They had to bootstrap science and engineering somehow. No doubt, absent the stalinist purges and closing off of the USSR, then Soviet scientists could have equally participated in the science and engineering going on in the rest of the world.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Everybody and their mother went after Nazi scientists, scientist from the loosing side of the war. von Braun got NASA to the moon and his ex collegues got the satelite for the USSR into space. The USSR lost the technology race in the late 70s and early 80s, up to that point it was close enough to call it even. And that was long after Stalin.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    You’re missing my point. The Soviets sent basically all of their scientists and engineers to the front, the GULAG, or to a wall. They had NO way to jumpstart jumpstart science and engineering without espionage and captured scientists a it’s incredibly well documented that whole Soviet industries sprang out of NKVD activities.
    - avmich 4y ago
      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.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        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.
        avmich 4y ago
        > 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?
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  It was sufficient to say you've got no idea about the Soviet space program (which benefited the most from Nazi tech), no need for long posts. Soviet rocketry was demonstratively, intentionally, in-your-face domestic, those low ranked Peenemunde engineers were sent home as soon as they helped to build R-1 which was a verbatim copy of V-2 indeed (US got much more from Nazis, namely the best engineers and actual V-2s and equipment and tech). For example practicaly everything in R-7, maybe except for the vague idea of the hydrogen peroxide gas generator to drive the turbopump, was novel at the time. In particular the control system, telemetry, aerodynamic modeling, material science, and both types of the hot separation mechanism. That was entirely intentional. What they got from Nazis more or less verbatim, was namely radars (later improved on and perfected) and electronic measurement equipment tech. Not nuclear weapons (part of the tech was later stolen by Fuchs and other commie sympathizers from US, but was used to control the scientists results, not directly as a base, so it didn't speed anything up). And especially not nuclear power tech.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    You’re focusing too much on the nazi point. Industrial espionage was a key function of the NKVD, as documented in their archives. This continued through at least the 1970s. After WWII and the purges Soviet science and engineering were devastated, and the industrial espionage was key to rebuilding.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > What they got from Nazis more or less verbatim, was namely radars (later improved on and perfected) and electronic measurement equipment tech. And submarines, the Type XXI German design, by far the most advanced of it's time, served as the basis of multiple Soviet submarine classes (which they quickly outgrew).
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Have a generation of engineers who weren't held back by white haired out of touch fossils. There should be a maximum age for engineers, scientists, and technicians because in the west they are strangling all innovation in academia.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    > Have a generation of engineers who weren't held back by white haired out of touch fossils. What a bizarre defense of the purges and show trials... And well anyway, that's not what they did. They placed party officials and "friendly" workers in charge of scientists and engineers and shipped them off to camps if they expressed ideas unfriendly to the party. For a good decade everyone researching plant genetics stopped doing science or ended up in prison[1]. For years they didn't innovate really at all. In the early days they leaned on foreign specialists[2]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Soviet_Union#Use_of_foreign_specialists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Sovie...

by vkou 4y ago

ch4s3 4y ago

Well to be clear what I'm saying is that they literally murdered a whole generation of engineers, scientists, and technicians. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Had they not captured train loads of Nazi scientists and literally stollen every significant piece of technology developed in the west for 20+ years it would have taken them FAR FAR longer to develop a lot of this stuff independently. They essentially cut themselves off from the global community and purged all of their talent. They had to bootstrap science and engineering somehow. No doubt, absent the stalinist purges and closing off of the USSR, then Soviet scientists could have equally participated in the science and engineering going on in the rest of the world.

hef19898 4y ago
Everybody and their mother went after Nazi scientists, scientist from the loosing side of the war. von Braun got NASA to the moon and his ex collegues got the satelite for the USSR into space. The USSR lost the technology race in the late 70s and early 80s, up to that point it was close enough to call it even. And that was long after Stalin.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  You’re missing my point. The Soviets sent basically all of their scientists and engineers to the front, the GULAG, or to a wall. They had NO way to jumpstart jumpstart science and engineering without espionage and captured scientists a it’s incredibly well documented that whole Soviet industries sprang out of NKVD activities.
  - avmich 4y ago
    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.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      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.
      - avmich 4y ago
        > 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?
orbital-decay 4y ago
It was sufficient to say you've got no idea about the Soviet space program (which benefited the most from Nazi tech), no need for long posts. Soviet rocketry was demonstratively, intentionally, in-your-face domestic, those low ranked Peenemunde engineers were sent home as soon as they helped to build R-1 which was a verbatim copy of V-2 indeed (US got much more from Nazis, namely the best engineers and actual V-2s and equipment and tech). For example practicaly everything in R-7, maybe except for the vague idea of the hydrogen peroxide gas generator to drive the turbopump, was novel at the time. In particular the control system, telemetry, aerodynamic modeling, material science, and both types of the hot separation mechanism. That was entirely intentional. What they got from Nazis more or less verbatim, was namely radars (later improved on and perfected) and electronic measurement equipment tech. Not nuclear weapons (part of the tech was later stolen by Fuchs and other commie sympathizers from US, but was used to control the scientists results, not directly as a base, so it didn't speed anything up). And especially not nuclear power tech.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  You’re focusing too much on the nazi point. Industrial espionage was a key function of the NKVD, as documented in their archives. This continued through at least the 1970s. After WWII and the purges Soviet science and engineering were devastated, and the industrial espionage was key to rebuilding.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > What they got from Nazis more or less verbatim, was namely radars (later improved on and perfected) and electronic measurement equipment tech. And submarines, the Type XXI German design, by far the most advanced of it's time, served as the basis of multiple Soviet submarine classes (which they quickly outgrew).
thrown_22 4y ago
>. What are you supposed to do from that starting point? Have a generation of engineers who weren't held back by white haired out of touch fossils. There should be a maximum age for engineers, scientists, and technicians because in the west they are strangling all innovation in academia.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  > Have a generation of engineers who weren't held back by white haired out of touch fossils. What a bizarre defense of the purges and show trials... And well anyway, that's not what they did. They placed party officials and "friendly" workers in charge of scientists and engineers and shipped them off to camps if they expressed ideas unfriendly to the party. For a good decade everyone researching plant genetics stopped doing science or ended up in prison[1]. For years they didn't innovate really at all. In the early days they leaned on foreign specialists[2]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Soviet_Union#Use_of_foreign_specialists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Sovie...