There's no way the USSR had one-third of US GDP in the 1960s; that's a wealth level close to Western Europe, and my Russian relatives report living standards in the 1960s were extremely spartan compared to the US (no cars, getting an apartment was a big deal, etc.). This wasn't the CP's fault -- Czarist Russia was desperately poor, and two ghastly, traumatizing world wars plus an arms race meant consumer choices were limited.
-Data from Lande´s "Wealthy and poverty of nations" (whose author is far -from being an USSR apologist) estimated that USSR per capita GNP by 1973 -was close to 40-45% of USA, while in "Rise and Fall of great powers" Paul -Kennedy makes the same estimate for 1980. I´m making a discount on those -statistics, since the Soviet GNP was revised for lower, so 1/3 is -reasonable. Of course living standards diferences were probably larger -than that for the reasons you mentioned. As the Soviet economy started -to falter in the second half of 60´s, probably the relations of per capita -GDP were the same in 1965 and 1973. You must also remember that despite -poor offer of consumer goods, the Soviets had free medical care and free -education in all levels, unlike the USA (healthcare, however, was mediocre -while education was quite good) and this must be added to calculate living -standards. Even today, PPP per capita GNP in Russia is 16% of that of the -USA despite 20 years of relative decline plus 10 years of dramatic decline, -so I still think 1/3 is a very reasonable estimate, despite the fact that -those calculations are difficult to make when we consider a planned economy -whose currency is fixed at quite arbitrary levels, this is further complicated -by the fact that widespread use of PPP values is relatively recent. On czarist -Russia, here are data from 1913 on per capita GNP (from Rise and Fall of Great -Powers) USA: 377; France: 153; UK: 244; Italy: 108; Russia: 41; Japan: 36; Austria-Hungary 57. -This data indicates that while Russia was desperately poor by 1913, it still -was better than Japan, while Italy was even better. When you transfer those -relations for nowadays, it seems Russia by 1913 was close to countries like -Brazil today (1/7-1/10 of USA per capita GNP), while Italy would be near to -South Korea. So it would be right to place both Russia and Japan as being -countries of intermediate development (but czarist Russia, unlike 60´s USSR -was a country with very poor human development index, while Japan was -probably better). Data on Russia is easy to find: life expectancy of -35-40 years, the worst mortality rate of Europe, literacy rate of 30% in 1913 -(45% if you consider Richard Pipes data, but I don´t consider him very -reliable to to his background). Data from Japan is much more difficult to find: http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/inspirational/basu.htm -I don´t know to what extent data on Japan and SK is reliable here. -Your estimates of Western Europe having 1/3 of US GNP by 1965 are probably -incorrect, since EU countries GNP was 80-90% of the US one by 1980 and it -was quite implausible an increasing from 1/3 tp 80% in 15 years (again data -from "Rise and Fall of Great Powers".
South Korea is the proverbial different kettle of fish. LG, Samsung and Hyundai are all top-notch exporters, Korean firms have moved up the value ladder from cheap electronics to intermediate goods, education levels and spending on R & D have all zoomed. They've also put up one hell of a fight against the IMF -- they nationalized their banking system in '98 instead of following neolib orthodoxy, and have some of the feistiest unions in East Asia.
-Except by the increased volume of exportations, all those characteristics, -including very high levels spending on research were already present in -the USSR by 60´s, but in the end it failed. We still don´t know what will -happen with South Korea, but it is very difficult she will be able to -keep high growth rates in the next years, and being behind of Greece is -not a good sign....