I don't know what you've been smoking there, but USSR produced many firsts in the realm of science and technology. USSR went from a backwards agrarian society to being first in space despite being devastated in WW2. Just a few example of the technological and social achievements of the Soviet Union:

* 1926: First heart and lung machine

* 1930: First anthrax vaccine for humans

* 1937 First implantable total artificial heart

* 1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 Semyorka

* 1957: First orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1

* 1957: First living in orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2

* 1957: First nuclear powered icebreaker "Lenin" weighing in at 19,240 tons of steel

* 1958: First Tokamak thermonuclear experimental system

* 1959: First man-made object to leave the Earth's orbit, Luna 1

* 1959: First communication to and from Luna 1 with Earth

* 1959: First satellite hit the moon, Luna 2

* 1959: First images of the dark side of the moon, Luna 3

* 1959: 10 years before the first communication between computer servers was transmitted in the U.S., military cybernetic engineer Anatoly Kitov created a project to create a unified network of computer centers

* 1961: First satellite to Venus, Venera 1

* 1961: First person to enter orbit around the Earth, Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1

* 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6

* 1963 First "Altai", a phone the size of today smartphones, which allowed user to call other "Altai", phone booths or conventional telephone landlines

* 1964: Soviet scientists received the Nobel Prize for the invention of the laser

* 1965: First spacewalk, Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2

* 1965: First probe to another planet Venus, Venera 3

* 1966: First ground effect vehicle

* 1967: First meeting of unmanned Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188, this aws not achieved by US until 2006

* 1968: Soviet scientists succeeded in creating a semiconductor heterostructure laser that could operate continuously at room temperature

* 1970: First mobile robot, Lunokhod 1

* 1970: First data sent by a probe from another planet (Venus), Venera 7

* 1971: First space station, Salyut 1

* 1971: First satellite in orbit around Mars and landing on Mars 2

* 1973: Fyodorov glaucoma treatment, the method is used all over the world today

* 1986: First permanent space station in Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, MIR

I'm not sure stealing land and claiming the accomplishments of the residents is an argument.

For example?

Which accomplishments of the residents did USSR claimed for itself?

I too would like to know. Which "accomplishments of the residents" did the USSR steal? There should honestly be a way to ban idiots like you from HN.

>"Korolev was born in the city of Zhytomyr, the capital of Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). His father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was born in Mogilev [a city in Belarus] to a Russian soldier and a Belarusian mother.

. . .

His father moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of the Russian language."

_______

It says right there on his Wikipedia page that Korolev was an Ethnic Russian. His father was a Russian who moved to Ukraine to teach the Russian language. Guess you were in such a hurry to find something to post, that you didn't bother even reading the article you linked to.

Maybe you should read it again: he is 1/4th russian and born in Ukraine. His father was half russian half Belarusian, born in Belarus. His mom not russian at all, she was Ukrainian. That makes him max 1/4th russian. So no, he's not Russian.

It clearly states he was born and raised in Ukraine.

But hey, Russians like to claim everything is theirs, nothing new here. Good to see which side you are on.

Lol. You need to go back and read the article again. His mother had "Ukrainian, Greek and Polish heritage."

And no kid, I'm full-blown Irish-American. No ancestors from behind the Iron Curtain

The parents of his mom also lived in Ukraine, and he was raised by them.

Since reading comprehension seems a bit too difficult for an Irish American, I asked ChatGPT4 to summarise it for you:

Was Sergei Korolev Ukrainian? Please give a short and simple answer that even an idiot would understand.

Yes, Sergei Korolev was Ukrainian. He was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Russian Empire.

To be honest it looks like ChatGPT was smarter than you.

Let me explain it in simple terms (it seems the preceding comments intellectually overwhelmed you): An American born in Kenya is a Kenyan. It doesn't mean he's no longer an American. In the same vein, a Russian born in Ukraine is an 'Ukrainian', it doesn't mean he's no longer a Russian.

You need to spend more time outside your basement, your social isolation is having a very noticeable negative effect on your EQ, and possibly also on your IQ.

Looking forward to your next sputtering reply. :)

Like I said, 1/4th ethnic russian does not mean russian. Or do they have some kind of dominant gene?

1. You said I can't read while you are the one who seems to have trouble.

2. You're calling a 44 year old guy a "kid".

You're a dumb arrogant fuck. I wish you the best of luck in your life.

And the true colors finally come out. Turns out you were just an angry racist all along. Korolev was born in USSR, received Soviet education, and went on to make great achievements under the communist system. These are the facts. Knowing that you have no actual point to make you're now screeching obscenities. Pathetic.

And again you make the same mistake of claiming USSR == Russia.

Yes, he was born in USSR, not Russia. Yes he received Soviet education, not Russian education. He made achievements in the communist system, not Russian.

Also, look up in a dictionary what "racist" means.

Nowhere was I talking about Russia in this thread. I'm guessing you have reading comprehension problems, which explains a lot actually. I made a point that USSR developed a lot faster than western capitalist nations, and that it made a lot of inventions ahead of the west. You're the one who started bleating about Russia and making weird comments about what percentage of heredity makes a person Russian. Maybe try reading your comment history when you're sober?

USSR did impressive things that Russia can't take credit for. That was the actual point being made here not some anti-communist agenda

you should read the page you linked

Born in Ukraine, mom was Ukrainian, dad was born in Belarus.

Your point? It clearly states he was born and raised in Ukraine.

The same point that's been explained to you in detail in this very thread.

Ah, the famous Korolev who single handedly built all Soviet rockets along with Baikonur cosmodrome.

Come on, give something better.

Ukraine contributed a lot to USSR, are you going to deny that?

And no, Ukrainians are not Russians. Are you going to deny that?

Now have a think how different things would look if Russia would've been an more liberal europeanesque superpower instead of a communist kleptocracy.

USSR achieved around a century of advancement under capitalism in the west a few decades after USSR was formed. Despite US having vastly more resources than USSR, the Soviets were able to keep ahead of US in many technological advancements. Maybe you yourself should think of what the west could've achieved if it wasn't run by oligarch kleptocrats.

Indeed. That's the point here. Russia was high up on the axis of overall innovation. But by adopting the bolshevist/communistic terror system, the direction of progress was permanently set into a downward direction. It is a loss for all of humanity at 100% certainty.

Every single of the innovations the OP listed was attained under "the bolshevist/communistic terror system". Prior to the 1917 Revolution, Imperial Russia was an Agricultural backwater that was widely derided as the least industrialized part of Europe.

Honest question: Don't they teach history in school these days? The level of ignorance displayed in some of the comments in this thread is staggering.

Hilarious. Are you advocating the Soviet Union was a progressive nation?

I understand, you literally don't know what else to say, so you have to at least attempt to say something that you think might sound witty.

A pity. Not that I blame you in any way, it's the educational system I blame.

___________________

And yes, compared to Imperial Russia that was a Near-Absolute Monarchy with an Hereditary Emperor whose imperial style/form of address was "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias" the Soviet Union was a beacon of progressiveness.

Exactly. Half of those achievements are space related and the guy responsible for them (Korolev) spent 6 years in the Stalin's gulag that he barely survived, his life was cut short at 59 probably as the result of the traumas he received there and who knows how much more he could have achieved if not for that.

Yeah, half of those achievements are just rocket science. Seethe and cope harder.

I'm not downplaying the achievements, I'm saying they could've been a lot greater if the system didn't try to mutilate and murder it's author.

You're right it could've been a lot greater however you should apply the same analysis towards the USA as well.

If you're black you're all but barred from participating in the space program. This was only recently acknowledged in a Hollywood feel good movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures

The space program was bootstrapped by Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

I'm saying they achievements could've been a lot greater if the system didn't try to mutilate and murder it's subjects: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/40-years-human-exp...

That is a travesty and a loss for everyone, but you cannot compare those two things in good conscience.

>All the while they were actively preventing 399 men from receiving the same treatments.

And:

>The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million prisoners perished there or they died soon after they were released.[

I just picked one egregious example to compare to Korolev and other researchers that suffered. If you want to compare systemic examples like the Gulags then the Jim Crow system that effectively instituted slavery [1] and likely killed way more than 1.7 million people. Alabama alone imprisoned 200,000 blacks as effectively slaves[2].

Again I am not trying to dismiss the crimes of the Soviet Union but I almost never see the same analysis applied to the US.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/book-american-slavery-continued-unt...

Russia was not accepted to integrate with EU. The position of EU pretty much being "you stay here and sell us oil while we integrate all your new neighbours".

There's a famous long read about it (you can use machine translation) https://sputnikipogrom.com/politics/30301/story-of-faded-lov...

slave labor both menial and scientific!

Thought we were talking about USSR as opposed to US.