Criticism expressed too sharply can be seen as doubt, as vacillation in one’s historical task, and then as sabotage. It is easy to see how the capacity for genuine critical and scientific discussion, when put under such pressures, becomes muted, if not impossible. What does one expect when the political whims of the party-state can run roughshod over the protestations of actual experienced technical bureaucrats for fear of being tried as saboteurs?

Dont have time to find the quote this second, but James Harris’ The Great Urals has a great bit on this wrt copper coke production in the urals. If anyone is interested i’ll find the actual excerpt, but tldr: local (bourgeois specialist) geologists said local copper coke was too shit for use in industry; local party arrested them for wrecking and hired other scientists who said the copper coke was fine; the copper coke was not fine and millions billions of rubles of machines were damaged by using sub par copper coke and the whole investment ended up failing

Edit: coked coal, not copper, billions not millions