The standard formula for all true Soviet achievements is “a genius delivered amazing result despite insurmountable obstacles created by the Soviet regime”
For the H-bomb, such genius was Andrei Sakharov
For early successes in the space program, such genius was Sergei Korolev.
Everyone knows about the Soviet being ahead in the space race. Not many people know how many shortcuts were taken in that race. Korolev sent a man to the orbit on 20 V-2 engines, in a steel ball that could not land a man – the cosmonaut had to eject to survive.
Did he live a few years longer, USSR would be the first to the moon, even if he had to stick an engine up the cosmonaut’s ass. I have no idea how, it is not for me to second-guess a genius. But Korolev’s health, destroyed in Gulag, could not support his grueling work schedule.
It is hard to explain how far behind USSR was at the time of the Moon Landing. Remember that picture?
At the time Margaret Hamilton was writing code for Apollo’s onboard computer, USSR didn’t have such computers – the result of Khruscshev calling computing “bitch of Capitalism”, and the lag it caused.
Added: somebody suggested that Korolev was not so good, and pointed at the unimpressive Voshod program. My answer:
The Voskhod capsule was the same as Vostok capsule, minus the catapult, minus emergency escape boosters, plus two more seats, landing booster and a slim chance of surviving. It had very little in term of advancing the tech. It was about using the same tech to satisfy the Commies’ demands for new achievements. The craft was extremely uncomfortable, and the missions were borderline suicidal.
Korolev’s main effort at the time was Soyuz, which became hugely successful, and the concept of modular spacecraft, to assemble the craft for the lunar mission on orbit. Which didn’t happen, yet resulted in the lead in orbital space stations.
And while doing all that, he delivered a first team flight and a first EVA by squeezing more out of existing design.