Comment by ajcp
4 hours ago
The comment you are replying to is correct. The Soviet Union had massive amounts of resources and capital (both human and economic) to be able to develop and support technical innovations. The wider-Soviet bloc itself was of such a scale as to be able to completely support their own divergent technologies and innovations. The higher education systems themselves were sufficient to provide and foster the talent, even if they were overly-politicized.
Of issue, especially as time went on, was the overly-centralized nature of national resource and economic strategy and planning. Especially ESPECIALLY constraining was the dual-circuit monetary system of its economy, which literally prevented half of its "capital" to follow innovation or market forces outside of centralized allocation.
I highly recommend the book Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav Zubok
> overly-centralized nature of national resource and economic strategy and planning.
This is a common misconception. Supported by the Soviet Union government in the 80s.
The fact is, that the efforts to sabotage and disband central planning started as early as 1954.
In 1954 an executive order of 14 Oct 1954 reduced the amount of administrative personnel by 450 thousands.
The amount of metrics went down from 9 940 to 6 308 in 1954, to 3 081 in 1955, and to 1 780 in 1958.
Khrushchev moved most of the planning power from central planning institution to the regions and down to the factories and enterprises. What previously was strict targets from the center now became soft suggestions.
Imagine you are a CTO and your workforce is heavily reduces and the goals you set are considered to be a mere suggestions. Not a very efficient instrument indeed. But not because it is overly-centralized.