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.

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 possilbe:

• https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time:

• https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1

A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life:

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf

This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development.

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/

This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.

• https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cje/beac072/7081084?guestAccessKey=01c8dd9f-af1c-48b3-b271-eb5d3a45017c&login=false

So, how do people who lived under communism feel now that they got a taste of capitalism?

• A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.

• The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.

• Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.

• A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -“during the time of socialism”. The survey focused on the respondents’ views on the transition “from socialism to capitalism”, and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito’s rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as “more or less the same”. 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions.

• 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.

• Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u

• Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx

The Free market paradise goes East chapters in Blackshirts and Reds details some more results of the transition to capitalism.