There is something that I want to nip in the bud before anybody brings it up. A counterargument that some anticommunists like to repeat is that all of Soviet space exploration was based on the work of Axis scientists, ergo the ‘Mongol hordes’ never really invented anything. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll still repeat it:

When the Allies reclaimed Nordhausen it was the anticommunists, not the Soviets, who ended up with the larger share of the scientific materials.

The remaining Axis scientists that the Soviets did capture still had to live in unglamorous conditions: on some projects the Soviet authorities limited the rôle of the Axis specialists merely to consultation and practical training.

Finally, three anticommunist rocket experts confirmed that by 1952 the U.S.S.R. had sent most of these Axis scientists back home, and that the Soviets (obviously) made major strides on their own.