Fundamentally, a lot of people believe deep down in their heart that a mustached patriarch yelling at you to work harder is the best and most efficient way to run any given enterprise. If you have this assumption, then the only method that the Soviets had available to them to outcompete the “free” west was by yelling louder and forcing everyone to work harder than we were at the same time period (which flies in the face of facts about Soviet vacation days, job security, and so on, but facts are subordinate to feelings for most people most of the time).