Memes

You're placing far too much importance on the potential excessive actions taken by a state under constant infiltration and siege against a scientist. As we showed, the soviet space program, without said scientist, took numerous firsts over the US. The soviets weren't incompetent and needed a super-scientist to save them, they had an extremely competent team that took them to space before the US while being a semi-feudal backwater 50 years prior. If anything, the fact that they took so many firsts despite their dramatic hinderances, including recovering from World War II, is an excellent showcase of the effectiveness of soviet science.