“Russian schools are tough. Look what we are graduating.
So it always made sense to me that Russia has young men who are far more educated and helpful.”
The ONE THING that the Soviet Communist system was good at was education...Russia kept that part of the Communist system.
Meanwhile, the US...
IIRC in the Soviet Union, they decided at a relatively young age, who would go onto a high school education, and who would basically be condemned to working as a factory worker for their whole life.