If Beria was a good manager, they wouldn't have to threaten to shoot people. Or, another approach is that managers who threaten their employees' lives are awful at their jobs.
In the free world, managers don't threaten that and they achieve far more. Even in the military, whatever the law, even in wartime it's never done afaik.
Chertok in his books - https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_deta... , but the episod is, I think, from volume IV - tells the following story. Soviet space designers are in the beginning of the work on the manned Moon expedition. Korolev and Glushko - two towering figures, the best rocket constructor and best engine constructor of the country - can't find common ground, at all, and have completely deteriorated relationships (mildly speaking). The disagreement is about rocket engines. Discussing this, one rocket scientist (Chertok or Bushuyev) says that if Father of Nation - Stalin - was alive, he'd invited everybody involved, set the deadline, asked how to help - and USSR had engines no worse than in USA. "Great people", wrote Chertok, "aren't saints, and like to show off. If the fear is added and also everything which is needed for design bureaus and manufacturers, they can produce miracles. This Stalin understood and used in full." Regarding Beria, a story said, that Beria invites two disagreeing managers to talk and says, "if two communists can't find an agreement, then one of them is enemy. I don't have time to find out who's who. I give you 24 hours, find the common ground", and it worked.
It's probably very hard to realize what it was to live in those times - especially at the visible positions.
An anecdote retold from a book is not meaningful, even if true. And if Beria couldn't accomplish that without threatening their lives, it's again a massive failure on Beria's part.
In addition, any bad manager can scream at and threaten people about some individual issue, but there is a lot of evidence that it's very counterproductive overall. What people learn to do is to avoid the danger, not to get anything done - including taking no initiative or responsibility, or even accomplishing something that might attract attention.
Nobody models themselves on Soviet management; it's almost the epitome of bad management, the picture in the dictionary. The Soviet space program performed poorly compared with the US.
> The Soviet space program performed poorly compared with the US.
Soviet Moon program was a competitive endeavor - Korolev used Kuznetsov's engines, Chelomey was cooperating with Glushko, Yangel used one of the most modern space factories in USSR and proposed his own plans. And they all were supported.
Contrary to this, in USA NASA was playing strict Gosplan. Parts were doled out to different manufacturers, and the state was controlling everything and writing checks.
No wonder USSR lost :) . Market approach couldn't compete with centralized planning.
> Parts were doled out to different manufacturers, and the state was controlling everything and writing checks.
> No wonder USSR lost :) . Market approach couldn't compete with centralized planning.
What a bizarre depiction on many levels. It's like Soviet revisionist history.
No matter what your analysis, the Soviet space program after very early days has not been competitive with the US, nor were the Soviets competitive in almost any other technology, economically, socially, politically, etc etc.
> Too many deadlocks in modern world which could be resolved a la Solomon.
Let's take a step back and think how bizarre the common reactionary appeal to cruelty is anywhere outside its political context. We want more cruelty! Is that a goal? Why are we posting fantasies about how great cruelty would be? On top of that, it's completely baseless.
In the free world, managers don't threaten that and they achieve far more. Even in the military, whatever the law, even in wartime it's never done afaik.