To summarize, one might argue that the Soviet space program followed a developmental trajectory that was typical for a number of other success stories in Russia and beyond: (1) top policy prioritization by political leaders who actively supported new projects and programs and offered full-scale patronage to policy entrepreneurs; (2) quick achievement of visible results because of the high concentration of resources, with a number of symbolic returns; (3) limited multiplicative effects; (4) change in policy priorities (sometimes because of changes of leaders and/or top managers of these projects and programs); and (5) subsequent loss of the status of success story.
In many ways, the success story of the Soviet space program remains outstanding against the background of other technological advancements that were not converted into major achievements due to the lack of high-level patronage and/or other policy priorities of political leadership. Benjamin Peters in his in-depth analysis of the failure of Soviet Internet presents impressive evidence of what may happen to promising ideas if they do not receive strong enough political support.29 He focuses on the sad fate of Soviet mathematician Viktor Glushkov, the major promoter of building a “unified information network,” the potential predecessor of, if not alternative to, the present-day Internet. Glushkov, a director of the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, proposed the development of an All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS) that could pave the way to making a nationwide computer network as the main tool of governing the Soviet Union. However, Glushkov’s patrons in the Soviet bureaucracy were second-order state officials at the level of ministries and the Central Statistical Agency, while the top leaders, Brezhnev and Kosygin, remained indifferent to his project at best. In addition, the powerful Soviet minister of finance, Vasily Garbuzov, openly opposed OGAS, and in the end Glushkov fell victim to interagency rivalry. The OGAS proposal was never implemented, so the Soviet Union, which in the 1960s was very much at the state-of-the-art global level in this field, gradually lagged behind the West over the subsequent decades, and this gap was never overcome. The Soviet model of governance, with its hierarchy of the power vertical, greatly contributed to such an outcome; unlike the space program, the Soviet Internet did not turn into a success story.
Yet this trajectory of success story is not limited to the context of the Soviet experience of the 1950s–1980s, as one may compare the Soviet space program with the more recent experience of the Skolkovo innovation center in the 2010s: Skolkovo went through the same stages but in a more rapid way and with much smaller effects. During the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev this project served as a major symbol of the widely advertised plan for Russia’s technological modernization, was at the center of the president’s attention and was given priority funding by the state and business actors despite the great skepticism of some key stakeholders.30 The project aimed to achieve a breakthrough for Russia in the field of high technology, and was intended to build a new success story of international technological collaboration based on active involvement of global corporate and science leaders, ranging from Intel to MIT. However, the implementation of this project was limited in space (only a single suburban area near Moscow) and in time (only during Medvedev’s presidency) and oriented toward short-term public effects in the manner of a showcase, rather than toward long-term commercial benefits and technological advancements.31 It is no wonder that after 2012, when Medvedev lost his presidential position, the Skolkovo project stalled and lost its priority status, its funding declined as the Russian authorities no longer required major donations to Skolkovo from big business, and its initially planned role as a major driver of high technology and economic growth was all but forgotten. Subsequent developments, such as the deterioration of Russia’s relations with the West, the stagnation of the Russian economy and the devaluation of national currency, further weakened the already limited effects of the Skolkovo project. In 2013, the Russian law enforcement agencies launched a criminal investigation against the Skolkovo Foundation, accusing its top management of misuse of funds,32 while the Kremlin’s preferences in the field of high tech shifted to yet another pet project, namely the “Innovation Valley” of Moscow State University, which was conducted in collaboration with the Innopraktika Foundation, led by Katerina Tikhonova, who was labeled in the media as allegedly being the daughter of Vladimir Putin. This foundation has received major contracts from other large state companies and state agencies, but its activities remain highly nontransparent, with little by way of results visible yet. Some critics have observed that the replication of Skolkovo-type innovation projects in Moscow and other regions may be driven not by the goals of technological development but rather by intentions of diverting state funds into private pockets.33 Although the decline of Skolkovo was much more rapid and dramatic than that of the Soviet space program, they represent typologically similar phenomena of former success stories.
While analyses of pockets of efficiency as mechanisms of development conducted in Asia, Africa, and Latin America34 have underlined the key role of their institutionalization and long-term impact, Russia’s success stories are largely short-term ventures, ones that face major difficulties in their institutionalization and especially impersonalization. Over time, these “success stories” tend to lose their initially high-profile positions and undergo what has been labeled “bastardization” in the chapter 2 of this book—a systematic worsening in performance in the process of implementation and subsequent decay.35 One should note, however, that this chapter deals with real success stories, which are broadly understood here as achievements of outstanding overperformance of state-directed development programs and projects, highly visible nationally and/or internationally for at least a certain period. It is not concerned with various substitutes for real successes, such as Potemkin village-like fake demonstrative projects, or numerous examples of fraud (such as the “cotton affair” in late Soviet Uzbekistan, doping scandals in sports, and the like). Real success stories are meant to promote Russia’s development in various fields, but they are often implemented partially and inconsistently. This is why we have to understand why Russia’s success stories have not always reached their goals and have resulted in short-term achievements and how the mechanisms of their implementation are related to the overall logic of the politico-economic order of bad governance in Russia.