You mean the period after suffering the biggest losses in the War, where they rebuilt the biggest Dam in the world, became a world superpower, sent the first satellite to space, the first dog to space, the first man to space, the first woman to space, the first rover on Venus, etc etc? You talking about that time period?
Yeah, exactly. The time when they were spending like crazy on propaganda stunts (all the space stuff) and an oversized military while being unable to provide basic goods and services for their own population.
The US was initially "behind" in the space race because they were not spending money on useless stunts. They were spending on missiles (the Titan and Atlas programs) which promised to reduce military spending because ICBMs are cheaper than planes and tanks for an equivalent deterrent effect. Titan and Atlas were deployed way before any comparable system was available in the Soviet Union. The only thing they had was the vastly oversized R-7 Semyorka which was useless as a missile (too big, too expensive, too slow to launch) but was indeed used for the various space stunts, i.e. mere propaganda.
As a result, throughout the 60s, the USSR was forced to spend vast amounts on conventional weaponry that was obsolete from the start (look at how they performed in the Israeli wars) and could not satisfy civilian needs properly. You have to read the fine print if you want to understand what is really going on.