21 ms·

Jest aside, do we know how such failure was handled in the USSR?

kerkeslager 1y ago
This is a question I've tried to answer to myself, and I think it's actually pretty hard to tell, if all your sources are Western media. I'll give you my impressions but I'm by no means an expert. I tend to reject any narrative about the Soviets which makes them not sound like humans. They weren't all idiots or sociopaths: they understood, just like we do, that people make mistakes and that if you punish mistakes too harshly, people won't want to risk working with you. The Soviet government punished dissent harshly--but if you were working with them they weren't typically so foolish as to punish honest mistakes with a stay in the gulags. In fact, technical fields like their space program (and, for example, infrastructure programs) were safe havens for intelligentsia, where some criticism of government was tolerated because it was understood that criticism from people with technical knowhow was necessary to progress Soviet goals. There are exceptions I've found, but I tend to think those are the result of a few people with too much power making bad decisions, rather than a pervasive cultural norm. None of this should be perceived as a defense of Soviet totalitarianism. Stalin has the highest body count of any dictator by a wide margin, and that's totally reprehensible. All I'm saying is I think he killed political dissenters, mostly, not allies who made mistakes.
- Scramblejams 1y ago
  Since you brought him up: Stalin was also motivated by a truckload of paranoia, though, right? Hard to make rational decisions about who is dissenting if you think they’re all out to get you. The flimsiest accusations related by the least reliable people could be enough. He executed and imprisoned a bunch of his best aircraft designers. Look what he did to Andrei Tupolev and his design bureau; they designed a whole aircraft in the Gulag: https://vvsairwar.com/2016/10/20/aviation-design-in-the-gulag-and-the-development-of-the-tu-2/ https://vvsairwar.com/2016/10/20/aviation-design-in-the-gula...
  - anonymars 1y ago
    A classic feature of authoritarian governments: when their dumb plans fail, it's because of enemies of the state. Bonus points when the enemies of the state are the ones that warned of the negative effects that would happen (obviously they must have been saboteurs)
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka
- somenameforme 1y ago
  In general I think the issue is a lot of people equate Stalin with USSR. Things were substantially different both before and after him. And his reign was also from the 20s to the 50s in which there was the context of, amongst other major issues, WW2 where the Soviets lost tens of millions of people. As one can see in certain ongoing wars, exceptional loss of life seems to gradually push leaders towards having zero concern for life at all - let alone the liberties and values we hold to be desirable, even in authoritarian systems. When the "hard" decisions become quite easy, you're well on your way to dystopia.
  - codedokode 1y ago
    The peak of Stalin's repression is somewhere in 1937-1939 - right before WW2, so you can't write it off to losses in the war. The reason is probably Stalin's paranoia and him seeing traitors everywhere, including his former comrades.
    - LtWorf 1y ago
      They were at war with Japan at the time though.
  - dsq 1y ago
    The Holodomor and mass purges all occurred well before WW2 so there's no pass there for Soviet repression.
    - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
      The mass purges were deliberate, while the famine (polemically called the "Holodomor") was not. The famine was caused by Stalin's disastrous agricultural policy, but it wasn't a deliberate attempt to kill people.
      - medbrane 1y ago
        >Broadly speaking, Russian historians are generally of the opinion that the Holodomor did not constitute a genocide. Among Ukrainian historians the general opinion is that it did constitute a genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question
- anticodon 1y ago
  As a Russian I will explain my vision: one of the oldest Western traditions is to demonize Russia and Russian people. You can find plenty of examples in the Western literature from 100 years ago, from 400 years ago, and right now on CNN or Bloomberg or in any Hollywood movie. E.g. movie Tenet starts from depicting a scene from "Russian life": under a low sun, in freezing cold, dirty hungry Russians are crawling in the dirt gathering "pieces of Uranium" with their bare hands. Or you can open just about any publication/movie about Russia/Soviet Union from just about any period of time: there would be not a single good word. Western Media almost never publishes something like: "There's a new school/hospital/stadium/factory opened in Russia". Instead all you can see is "Russian corrupt government officials set a record of eating 100500 babies alive today.", "Weak Russian economy means that Russians will survive on a diet of two rotten potatoes a day in 2026", etc. etc. It's just that Soviet period is demonized the most.
  - medbrane 1y ago
    >one of the oldest Western traditions is to demonize Russia and Russian people Would you blame them? Who cares is something good happens now in Russia while they are brutally murdering their neighbors? Nobody cares whether Hitler was great at drawing or not.
    - MomsAVoxell 1y ago
      Extend this to the next logical step: who cares about Americans while they are supporting mass murder of children, also?
  - subscribed 1y ago
    Maybe if not for the majority of Russians actually supporting the brutal dictator ordering ongoing war crimes in Ukraine you could ask for some sympathy. https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-widespread-support-in-russia-189211 https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-wid... This isn't just oppressed society afraid to act. This is actual support for the actual killer of the babies. Despicable. Some of it is also caused by the pervasive hostility to the values important to most humans, pervasive disinformation efforts, and aim to destroy the peace and integrity of the countries it perceives as a competition. For now I'll just agree this is largely deserved, and I'll play the sad tune on the tiny violin.
- LtWorf 1y ago
  More than Hitler? Source on this very incorrect information?
- hilbert42 1y ago
  "I tend to reject any narrative about the Soviets which makes them not sound like humans." Right, it's time we stopped this stereotyping and looked at this objectively. The Russian Empire and later the USSR has had many, many truly brilliant people over recent centuries. The list of names seems endless, here are few immediately to mind: Chebyshev, Cantor, Markov, Borodin, Köppen, Landau, Cherenkov, Mendeleyev, Tolstoy, Shostakovich, Gagarin, Prokudin-Gorsky, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. And here's just the Wiki list of Russian scientists: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_scientists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_scientists. Now, there's much more, do the same again for physicists, mathematicians, chemists, composers, writers, novelist and so on. When one looks at the sheer numbers of people it's hard to believe that they all come from Russia. Morever, it's hard to imagine where the world would be today without these brilliant people. It's almost inconceivable the world would be anywhere near the same without them. I'd like to think most of us are smart enough to separate the majority of Russians from the small minority of ratbags, sociopaths and psychopathic, paranoid, sadistic monsters such as Stalin, Putin and Ivan the Terrible. There is no doubt that Russia has had a long and terrible history of tyrant rulers whose reign of tyranny has caused great harm to the Russian people. If anything we ought to feel some sympathy and compassion for the Russian population as a whole given the centuries-long turmoil Russia has endured. Nevertheless, in spite of its long history of adversity Russia has still been able to produce this brilliant body of people and it's done so essentially consistently over recent centuries. Give credit where credit is due.
codedokode 1y ago
Stalin died in 1953, and these probes were launched much later, so there were no chance to get into a Gulag. However for people who worked earlier the possibility to get there was always nearby. Sergei Korolev, a famous Russian rocket designer (who was later responsible for launching a first satellite and first human space flight), had to go through the prison and labour camp. In 1938 he was head of a laboratory for jet propulsion (mainly for development of weapon), and as jet engines were not well studied, experimental models often failed with explosions. After another failed test, several laboratory employees were arrested, and after they testified, Korolev. They were charged with sabotage - creating a secret anti-Soviet organization with the purpose of weakening Soviet defence. After series of interrogations, during which he had his jaw broken, he admitted the guilt and soon was sentenced to 10 years of work in labour camps [1]. The sentence was later reviewed and he was transferred to a prison where he was allowed to continue working on jet propulsion. Another example is Andrey Tupolev - Soviet aircraft designer ("Tu" series of planes is named after him). He was also charged with sabotage (conspiracy to slow down aircraft development in USSR) and espionage during Stalin times and had to design his planes in a prison [2]. After Stalin death, both Korolev and Tupolev cases were reviewed and they were admitted not guilty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tupolev#Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tupolev#Sharashka
- varjag 1y ago
  After series of interrogations, during which he had his jaw broken It was worse than that. He was beaten with rubber hose and wire harnesses, had needles pressed in the body, was urinated on. He then was sent to a gulag where he was left dying from hunger and scurvy. He was saved by a fellow imprisoned engineer who was fortunate to fight his way up though the inmate hierarchy. The broken jaw, out of the many broken bones in his body is mostly mentioned because it was ultimately the cause of his death in 1960s.
macbr 1y ago
At least with the Venus probes they were only publicly announced when they were well on their way to Venus with failures either not getting published or getting assigned alibi mission goals (e.g. if they failed to leave earth's orbit) so failure modes were limited to the destination.

This is a question I've tried to answer to myself, and I think it's actually pretty hard to tell, if all your sources are Western media. I'll give you my impressions but I'm by no means an expert. I tend to reject any narrative about the Soviets which makes them not sound like humans. They weren't all idiots or sociopaths: they understood, just like we do, that people make mistakes and that if you punish mistakes too harshly, people won't want to risk working with you. The Soviet government punished dissent harshly--but if you were working with them they weren't typically so foolish as to punish honest mistakes with a stay in the gulags. In fact, technical fields like their space program (and, for example, infrastructure programs) were safe havens for intelligentsia, where some criticism of government was tolerated because it was understood that criticism from people with technical knowhow was necessary to progress Soviet goals. There are exceptions I've found, but I tend to think those are the result of a few people with too much power making bad decisions, rather than a pervasive cultural norm. None of this should be perceived as a defense of Soviet totalitarianism. Stalin has the highest body count of any dictator by a wide margin, and that's totally reprehensible. All I'm saying is I think he killed political dissenters, mostly, not allies who made mistakes.

Scramblejams 1y ago
Since you brought him up: Stalin was also motivated by a truckload of paranoia, though, right? Hard to make rational decisions about who is dissenting if you think they’re all out to get you. The flimsiest accusations related by the least reliable people could be enough. He executed and imprisoned a bunch of his best aircraft designers. Look what he did to Andrei Tupolev and his design bureau; they designed a whole aircraft in the Gulag: https://vvsairwar.com/2016/10/20/aviation-design-in-the-gulag-and-the-development-of-the-tu-2/ https://vvsairwar.com/2016/10/20/aviation-design-in-the-gula...
- anonymars 1y ago
  A classic feature of authoritarian governments: when their dumb plans fail, it's because of enemies of the state. Bonus points when the enemies of the state are the ones that warned of the negative effects that would happen (obviously they must have been saboteurs)
TiredOfLife 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka
somenameforme 1y ago
In general I think the issue is a lot of people equate Stalin with USSR. Things were substantially different both before and after him. And his reign was also from the 20s to the 50s in which there was the context of, amongst other major issues, WW2 where the Soviets lost tens of millions of people. As one can see in certain ongoing wars, exceptional loss of life seems to gradually push leaders towards having zero concern for life at all - let alone the liberties and values we hold to be desirable, even in authoritarian systems. When the "hard" decisions become quite easy, you're well on your way to dystopia.
- codedokode 1y ago
  The peak of Stalin's repression is somewhere in 1937-1939 - right before WW2, so you can't write it off to losses in the war. The reason is probably Stalin's paranoia and him seeing traitors everywhere, including his former comrades.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    They were at war with Japan at the time though.
- dsq 1y ago
  The Holodomor and mass purges all occurred well before WW2 so there's no pass there for Soviet repression.
  - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
    The mass purges were deliberate, while the famine (polemically called the "Holodomor") was not. The famine was caused by Stalin's disastrous agricultural policy, but it wasn't a deliberate attempt to kill people.
    - medbrane 1y ago
      >Broadly speaking, Russian historians are generally of the opinion that the Holodomor did not constitute a genocide. Among Ukrainian historians the general opinion is that it did constitute a genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question
anticodon 1y ago
As a Russian I will explain my vision: one of the oldest Western traditions is to demonize Russia and Russian people. You can find plenty of examples in the Western literature from 100 years ago, from 400 years ago, and right now on CNN or Bloomberg or in any Hollywood movie. E.g. movie Tenet starts from depicting a scene from "Russian life": under a low sun, in freezing cold, dirty hungry Russians are crawling in the dirt gathering "pieces of Uranium" with their bare hands. Or you can open just about any publication/movie about Russia/Soviet Union from just about any period of time: there would be not a single good word. Western Media almost never publishes something like: "There's a new school/hospital/stadium/factory opened in Russia". Instead all you can see is "Russian corrupt government officials set a record of eating 100500 babies alive today.", "Weak Russian economy means that Russians will survive on a diet of two rotten potatoes a day in 2026", etc. etc. It's just that Soviet period is demonized the most.
- medbrane 1y ago
  >one of the oldest Western traditions is to demonize Russia and Russian people Would you blame them? Who cares is something good happens now in Russia while they are brutally murdering their neighbors? Nobody cares whether Hitler was great at drawing or not.
  - MomsAVoxell 1y ago
    Extend this to the next logical step: who cares about Americans while they are supporting mass murder of children, also?
- subscribed 1y ago
  Maybe if not for the majority of Russians actually supporting the brutal dictator ordering ongoing war crimes in Ukraine you could ask for some sympathy. https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-widespread-support-in-russia-189211 https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-wid... This isn't just oppressed society afraid to act. This is actual support for the actual killer of the babies. Despicable. Some of it is also caused by the pervasive hostility to the values important to most humans, pervasive disinformation efforts, and aim to destroy the peace and integrity of the countries it perceives as a competition. For now I'll just agree this is largely deserved, and I'll play the sad tune on the tiny violin.
LtWorf 1y ago
More than Hitler? Source on this very incorrect information?
hilbert42 1y ago
"I tend to reject any narrative about the Soviets which makes them not sound like humans." Right, it's time we stopped this stereotyping and looked at this objectively. The Russian Empire and later the USSR has had many, many truly brilliant people over recent centuries. The list of names seems endless, here are few immediately to mind: Chebyshev, Cantor, Markov, Borodin, Köppen, Landau, Cherenkov, Mendeleyev, Tolstoy, Shostakovich, Gagarin, Prokudin-Gorsky, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. And here's just the Wiki list of Russian scientists: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_scientists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_scientists. Now, there's much more, do the same again for physicists, mathematicians, chemists, composers, writers, novelist and so on. When one looks at the sheer numbers of people it's hard to believe that they all come from Russia. Morever, it's hard to imagine where the world would be today without these brilliant people. It's almost inconceivable the world would be anywhere near the same without them. I'd like to think most of us are smart enough to separate the majority of Russians from the small minority of ratbags, sociopaths and psychopathic, paranoid, sadistic monsters such as Stalin, Putin and Ivan the Terrible. There is no doubt that Russia has had a long and terrible history of tyrant rulers whose reign of tyranny has caused great harm to the Russian people. If anything we ought to feel some sympathy and compassion for the Russian population as a whole given the centuries-long turmoil Russia has endured. Nevertheless, in spite of its long history of adversity Russia has still been able to produce this brilliant body of people and it's done so essentially consistently over recent centuries. Give credit where credit is due.

codedokode 1y ago

Stalin died in 1953, and these probes were launched much later, so there were no chance to get into a Gulag. However for people who worked earlier the possibility to get there was always nearby. Sergei Korolev, a famous Russian rocket designer (who was later responsible for launching a first satellite and first human space flight), had to go through the prison and labour camp. In 1938 he was head of a laboratory for jet propulsion (mainly for development of weapon), and as jet engines were not well studied, experimental models often failed with explosions. After another failed test, several laboratory employees were arrested, and after they testified, Korolev. They were charged with sabotage - creating a secret anti-Soviet organization with the purpose of weakening Soviet defence. After series of interrogations, during which he had his jaw broken, he admitted the guilt and soon was sentenced to 10 years of work in labour camps [1]. The sentence was later reviewed and he was transferred to a prison where he was allowed to continue working on jet propulsion. Another example is Andrey Tupolev - Soviet aircraft designer ("Tu" series of planes is named after him). He was also charged with sabotage (conspiracy to slow down aircraft development in USSR) and espionage during Stalin times and had to design his planes in a prison [2]. After Stalin death, both Korolev and Tupolev cases were reviewed and they were admitted not guilty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tupolev#Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tupolev#Sharashka

varjag 1y ago
After series of interrogations, during which he had his jaw broken It was worse than that. He was beaten with rubber hose and wire harnesses, had needles pressed in the body, was urinated on. He then was sent to a gulag where he was left dying from hunger and scurvy. He was saved by a fellow imprisoned engineer who was fortunate to fight his way up though the inmate hierarchy. The broken jaw, out of the many broken bones in his body is mostly mentioned because it was ultimately the cause of his death in 1960s.

macbr 1y ago

At least with the Venus probes they were only publicly announced when they were well on their way to Venus with failures either not getting published or getting assigned alibi mission goals (e.g. if they failed to leave earth's orbit) so failure modes were limited to the destination.