Something I tell libertarians that a few of us lefties could stand to hear...

[cthulu2016]

8. Buying/adopting something is not the same as inventing it, and the USSR

with a truly pathetic technological culture, given it's size and power.

Of course all nations would adopt fertilizers, pesticides, vaccines, etc. once they were available.

As for the native contributions of the USSR to feeding the world, they were negative. Lysenkoism is a perfect example of something that could never have happened in a capitalist system.

Russia had many, many brilliant people, and a ton of resources, but a government and economy that kept them backward.

The USSR stole the A-bomb, stole the H-bomb, imported grain from the US, had jet fighters with wooden dashboards, horrible consumer goods, chronic food shortages... a science culture rife with cultism. And horrible medicine.

I admire the heck out of Russian culture, and the USSR did occasionally produce a worthwhile piece of military hardware. But a seriously bad example of an economic system producing quality or innovation.

They could set to a brute force task and produce magnificently. Chess, gymnastics... genuinely awesome. Their production of fighter-bombers in 1944 would have impressed Henry Ford, and Sputnik was a nice variation on their military technology, but a lot of the reason they were focused on rocketry while we still depended on airplanes to deliver nukes (JFK's supposed missile gap) was that our planes and anti-plane measures were far superior so missles were they way to go.