USSR produced many firsts in the realm of science and technology:

• 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 object to pass near the moon, and the first object in orbit around the Moon, Luna 1
• 1959: First satellite hit the moon, Luna 2
• 1959: First images of the dark side of the moon, Luna 3
• 1960: First satellite to be launched to Mars, the Marsnik 1
• 1961: First satellite to Venus, Venera 1
• 1961: First person to enter orbit around the Earth, Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1
• 1961: First person to spend a day in orbit, Gherman Titov – Vostok 2
• 1962: First flight of two astronauts, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
• 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
• 1964: First flight of several astronauts, Voskhod 1
• 1965: First spacewalk, Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2
• 1965: First probe to another planet Venus, Venera 3
• 1966: First probe to descend on the moon and send from there, Luna 9
• 1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
• 1967: First meeting of unmanned Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188, this aws not achieved by US until 2006
• 1969: First docking and crew exchange in orbit, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
• 1970: First signals sent to the moon by Luna 16
• 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
• 1975: First satellite in orbit around Venus and sending data to earth, Venera 9
• 1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaja on Salyut 7
• 1986: First team to visit two space stations Salyut and Mir
• 1986: First permanent space station in Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, MIR
• 1987: First team to spend more than a year aboard Mir, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov

These are just some of the biggest technological and social achievements of the Soviet Union.

What happens after the USSR collapsed, and what came with capitalist privatization:

• Life expectancy decreases by 10 years. 2. 7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. 2
• 40% of population drops into poverty.
• GDP instantly halves.
• One in ten children now live on the streets. Infant mortality increases. Was 29.3 in 2003 which is around (current) Syria and Micronesia, 7.9 in 2013. Infant mortality in USSR was 1.92, literally the lowest in the world.
• 1996 election rigged by the US, Yeltsin sends in tanks to disperse the supreme soviet.

For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.

Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtube

academic studies on USSR

Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possible:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=