Was the Soviet aircraft industry marked by profit-motive capitalism?

One of the major differences [in Soviet aerospace industry] is that the research institutes, the design bureaus, and the manufacturing plants are all under one industrial ministry, the Ministry of Aircraft Production, but they are autonomous and separated from each other. They are not linked together in a vertical structure.

 

… The morale within the design bureaus is enhanced because rewards are often distributed among the design bureau personnel. All of the rewards are going to those individuals who have successfully had planes entering into production, and the negative part of this is that there have been design bureaus that have been dissolved when a series of design proposals have not gone into production.

That was from Arthur Alexander’s statement to Congress in 1971, “Weapon Systems Acquisition Process” Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services United States Senate, Ninety-Second Congress, First Session, December 3-9, 1971.

Design bureaus in the Soviet Union tended to be named after the chief designer, like Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Yakovlev. The organization’s leader had skin in the game, and he shared that with his employees.

Before WWII, the Soviets centralized the disparate and independent research, design, and production organizations under a Ministry of Aviation. But the initiative still came from the operational units rather than the Ministry, which acted as a filter for which designs would move into production.

Arthur Alexander concluded: “It is ironic we have this switch in roles, that Soviet aircraft production is similar to what I would call profit-motivated capitalism.”