Kolmogorov graduated from university in 1925. The culture of post-revolutionary Soviet Russia in the early 1920s and of USSR during Brezhnev's "developed socialism" in the 1970s were so different as to be entirely incomparable.

The overall pattern over time: vastly less brutality and political violence, less insane unpredictability, more corruption and cronyism and cynicism, and much fewer paths for truly talented people to rise to the top.

I agree they're incomparable, but you compared them nonetheless.

Andrey Kolmogorov made his name in mathematics, which is a field where politics don't matter at all. That's a ridiculous example, and completely unlike 99.99% of the Soviet well-to-do.

Wrong again. Want to try for three?

https://www.nytimes.com/1948/09/27/archives/pure-mathematics...