As far as I understand it they also in many cases virtually held scientists or their families hostage to the outcome. Fail and you or your family gets sent to the gulags. One example is Yuri Gagarin's cosmonaut partner and his getting burned on re-entry due to rushing things to get under a deadline to avoid “consequences”.
Or if not sent to the gulags, sent back to a much lower standard of living. People with the equivalent of masters degrees in electrical engineering, aerospace, structural engineering etc could expect to have a fairly decent apartment, chance to get in the waiting list to acquire a family car, and other "high standard of living" compared to persons working in a manual labor job. Fail at whatever scientific or engineering endeavor your project was working on, and expect to lose your nice apartment and benefits...
