[simonh]

That was a very different situation. The USSR was still catching up in industrialisation, and despite its huge losses still had vast reserves of labour in the countryside to tap. It was much more like the process of industrialisation in China that’s seen huge growth there over the last generation. Russia has already industrialised so it doesn’t have a catch-up growth opportunity in the same way. They are much more labour and resource constrained these days.

[braincat31415]

"still had vast reserves of labour in the countryside to tap"

There was a huge shortage of labor in the countryside after the war.

[KPGv2]

This labor was, pre-war, a bunch of poor, uneducated serfs (basically slaves). But leading up to WWII, they were transformed into educated, literate, laborers. Also the USSR had invested leading up to WW2 in agriculture outside Ukraine (since the Nazis controlled it).

So while there was less labor, they were far more productive labor thanks to post-revolution, post-WWI measures