I mean..........urgh. It's an unbelivably convoluted topic and I feel like just dismissing it as "stolen by KGB from the West" is simply unfair.
Yes, a lot of designs were simply copied from western equivalents. But also a lot of designs weren't, or were actually improvements over western designs in some crucial ways(washing machines being overbuilt because repairs were unlikely, so certain components were upgraded to last longer). Soviets(and the rest of the Eastern block) had plenty of brilliant, incredibly skilled and competent engineers and designers and thinkers, and they all did the best with what they had access to. It's a topic worthy of tomes of literature.
Yes, a lot of designs were simply copied from western equivalents. But also a lot of designs weren't, or were actually improvements over western designs in some crucial ways(washing machines being overbuilt because repairs were unlikely, so certain components were upgraded to last longer). Soviets(and the rest of the Eastern block) had plenty of brilliant, incredibly skilled and competent engineers and designers and thinkers, and they all did the best with what they had access to. It's a topic worthy of tomes of literature.