The Soviets produced a lot of outstanding mathematicians.
It's remarkable in absolute terms and it's even more remarkable considering that Soviet education was generally anti-science for much of its existence (e.g. see [0]).
IIRC Stalin eventually left a group of mathematicians and physicists alone because it was clear that if they were suppressed the Soviet Union couldn't win wars or plan the economy.
My initial hypothesis would be that creating this kind of playground in the otherwise dismal intellectual atmosphere, combined with the ability to select the best people from all over the empire, and the urgency and funding that came with the wars and cold war, played a major role in their ability to do important work.
It's remarkable in absolute terms and it's even more remarkable considering that Soviet education was generally anti-science for much of its existence (e.g. see [0]).
IIRC Stalin eventually left a group of mathematicians and physicists alone because it was clear that if they were suppressed the Soviet Union couldn't win wars or plan the economy.
My initial hypothesis would be that creating this kind of playground in the otherwise dismal intellectual atmosphere, combined with the ability to select the best people from all over the empire, and the urgency and funding that came with the wars and cold war, played a major role in their ability to do important work.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_science_in_the_S...