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0 pointsilyich6y ago0 comments

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after.

Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_...

> On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were bitterly opposed to each other.

So as you can see he was not sent to gulag out of spite by Stalin but out of envy and professional competition by his fellow rocket engineer.

While in gulag he was not tortured or sent to gold mines. He and other scientists continued their work in relatively comfortable conditions in so called "sharashka": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka

I'm not saying that Stalin was a saint or a winged seraph. But definitely he was anyone but an idiot.

Also Korolev did not died because he was sent to the Gulags. He died from a chronic disease from which he started suffering long before he was imprisoned.

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BigBubbleButt6y ago

An engineer was imprisoned because another engineer was spiteful. You don't consider this a dumb political decision? I consider the default judgment of "everyone goes to the gulags" to be shitty governance, and also quite stupid.

My understanding is Korolev's health greatly declined because of his time while imprisoned, and had he never had to endure it he likely would have lived much longer.

thesmok6y ago

I must point out that username ilyich is a transliterated name likely referring to Lenin – real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. So ilyich seems to be a fan of USSR.

BigBubbleButt6y ago

That much is obvious. It doesn't mean I don't want to hear his perspective though.

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0 pointsilyich6y ago0 comments

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after.

Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_...

So as you can see he was not sent to gulag out of spite by Stalin but out of envy and professional competition by his fellow rocket engineer.

I'm not saying that Stalin was a saint or a winged seraph. But definitely he was anyone but an idiot.

Also Korolev did not died because he was sent to the Gulags. He died from a chronic disease from which he started suffering long before he was imprisoned.

0 comments

BigBubbleButt6y ago

My understanding is Korolev's health greatly declined because of his time while imprisoned, and had he never had to endure it he likely would have lived much longer.

thesmok6y ago

I must point out that username ilyich is a transliterated name likely referring to Lenin – real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. So ilyich seems to be a fan of USSR.

BigBubbleButt6y ago

That much is obvious. It doesn't mean I don't want to hear his perspective though.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse