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This is quite likely just a reflection of my biases in learning and taught history, but so much of what the Soviets worked on feels rooted in a sort of “that’ll

This is quite likely just a reflection of my biases in learning and taught history, but so much of what the Soviets worked on feels rooted in a sort of “that’ll show them!” inferiority complex. I see similar things in North Korea and Russia too today where it’s almost like a lot of their efforts are based on a hypothetical checklist labelled “What Modern Nations Look Like” I think whether or not there’s any truth to my perception, it’s why I find a lot of Soviet stuff to be so fascinating in a science fictiony kind of way.

ivankuz 2y ago
> so much of what the Soviets worked on feels rooted in a sort of “that’ll show them!” inferiority complex That's what the Cold War was about, innit? Same reason why the US went to the moon.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  Except the US actually made it to the moon with functional equipment and not Ekranoplanz.
  - dieortin 2y ago
    The soviets put the first satellite and man in space, so I bet they had functional equipment too
    - ein0p 2y ago
      First woman in space too, and a very long list of other firsts some of which remain untouched by anyone else (eg landing in the surface of Venus and sending digital pictures back). Valentina Tereshkova went to space in 1963, at a time when women in the US had to ask their husband’s permission to open a bank account.
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      They did not get to the moon though did they, which is what we were discussing.
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  My perception was that the Cold War was partly about exploiting this trait, forcing them into financial ruin by running races they couldn’t help but compete in.
  - pvg 2y ago
    A short and fun to read corrective is Kotkin's Armageddon Averted. The competition, inefficiency and the demands of its own power projections were a costly strain but nowhere close to leading to ruin or an irrecoverable state.
deleted 2y ago
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pvg 2y ago
I think whether or not there’s any truth It's not entirely untrue and some of the cases where it is are famous but much of the time there were entirely pragmatic considerations and/or consequences of other policy decisions. A few things that come to mind are the many constraints on manufacturing capability and industrial capacity, 'dual use' goals, the size of the country (vs. the quantity of developed infrastructure), etc.
VincentEvans 2y ago
What you are describing is an attribute of command-based economies. The typical market-based feedback mechanisms are often non-existent, or dulled - is it economical, is there demand, etc. In USSR everything was produced by state-owned factories, where political leadership would pass down edicts poorly rooted in economic realities and wouldn’t pose questions such as “do we need to make a monster helicopter if 3 smaller helicopter are cheaper to manufacture and operate”. In some ways today’s China is also guilty of the same kind of folly, hence high speed rail network that isn’t economical to operate so ideological justifications are needed. Or ghost cities. Etc. Market capitalism has other downsides, such as externalized costs skewing economic calculations, but it’s a different conversation altogether.

ivankuz 2y ago

> so much of what the Soviets worked on feels rooted in a sort of “that’ll show them!” inferiority complex That's what the Cold War was about, innit? Same reason why the US went to the moon.

bamboozled 2y ago
Except the US actually made it to the moon with functional equipment and not Ekranoplanz.
- dieortin 2y ago
  The soviets put the first satellite and man in space, so I bet they had functional equipment too
  - ein0p 2y ago
    First woman in space too, and a very long list of other firsts some of which remain untouched by anyone else (eg landing in the surface of Venus and sending digital pictures back). Valentina Tereshkova went to space in 1963, at a time when women in the US had to ask their husband’s permission to open a bank account.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    They did not get to the moon though did they, which is what we were discussing.
Waterluvian 2y ago
My perception was that the Cold War was partly about exploiting this trait, forcing them into financial ruin by running races they couldn’t help but compete in.
- pvg 2y ago
  A short and fun to read corrective is Kotkin's Armageddon Averted. The competition, inefficiency and the demands of its own power projections were a costly strain but nowhere close to leading to ruin or an irrecoverable state.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pvg 2y ago

I think whether or not there’s any truth It's not entirely untrue and some of the cases where it is are famous but much of the time there were entirely pragmatic considerations and/or consequences of other policy decisions. A few things that come to mind are the many constraints on manufacturing capability and industrial capacity, 'dual use' goals, the size of the country (vs. the quantity of developed infrastructure), etc.

VincentEvans 2y ago

What you are describing is an attribute of command-based economies. The typical market-based feedback mechanisms are often non-existent, or dulled - is it economical, is there demand, etc. In USSR everything was produced by state-owned factories, where political leadership would pass down edicts poorly rooted in economic realities and wouldn’t pose questions such as “do we need to make a monster helicopter if 3 smaller helicopter are cheaper to manufacture and operate”. In some ways today’s China is also guilty of the same kind of folly, hence high speed rail network that isn’t economical to operate so ideological justifications are needed. Or ghost cities. Etc. Market capitalism has other downsides, such as externalized costs skewing economic calculations, but it’s a different conversation altogether.