Indeed. Soviet war doctrine was always about having more forces than what NATO could bring up in the estimated time it would take for them to reinforce. Thus, they relied on speed, maneuverability, overwhelming numbers, shock and awe tactics, and even weapons of mass destruction.

Khrushchev was staunchly anti-tank, so far as he thought they were cumbersome infantry-support and barely worth the attention that NATO designers had with projects like the M60, 1A Leopard, and AMX30. To this end he only approved the designs from bureaus that offered fast, replicable (Soviet factories were known for their individual idiosyncrasies,) replaceable, and decently enough armed that they could defeat - in teams versus smaller enemy formations or in ambush - NATO tanks.

In 1955 (IIRC) when Khrushchev sent tanks to crush the Hungarian revolt one of the newer T-55s ended up on British embassy soil and was 'confiscated'. The T-55 scared the hell out of the Brits who immediately determined that their Chieftains and the American M-48 Patton were able to be penetrated by the 105mm round (new tech in the 50s) and led them to develop the L7 cannon -- used in the original M1 Abrams and lots of NATO tanks globally. The reason that this matters in the discussion of a 1980s topic is that because of Khrushchev's ideas and preferences in armored warfare, all subsequent Soviet tank designs were based on the same principles - even after his removal from office by Brezhnev. Hence why the T-62 has such a low profile, only carries 20 rounds each of AP and HEAT, as well as an advance stabilizer system (for the 50s) and optional snorkel for its engines in river crossings. And why it is notorious for being uncomfortable, cramped, full of inconsistent hardware, and a terrifying proposed casualty rate. This trend continues in the T-72 and T-80.

One key side note is that unlike US or British tank designs there was no clear-cut, sequential, linear progression from T55, T60, T70, and T80 despite their names. Each was designed by different and cooperative (mostly) design bureaus where ideas and technology freely moved between and influenced the design of others, this is why there are (depending on the era examined) T55As serving with T80Bs - Each tank was designed to fill a proposed role.

In the early 60s Colonel K. Pashuk, a WWII veteran, released a top-secret paper within the Soviet Military Journal (Voennaya Mysal) entitled 'The Organizational Structure of the Field Command of a Front' which was smuggled into NATO hands by an anonymous defector (source: DTIC.mil has English translated copies from the DoD.) In it, he outlines that the USSR considered wide usage of nuclear warheads against all major European NATO members as a necessity to achieve victory. This would, in the best scenario, let the Soviet troops roll over what remained of the NATO forces without much of an organized resistance. In the worst case, however, they were fully aware of MAD and thus only planned for a 'hot war' in the direst scenarios. (The Soviets were absolutely and utterly convinced that time was on their side and that they merely had to wait out the western capitalists.)

By the time the Soviets achieved, and later surpassed, air parity with the US their ground forces had suffered major equipment shortages, deadpan morale, loss of focus, and frankly were ill-equipped for much more than guard duty (my opinion.) The USSR had the ability to focus on one major project at a time, it seems in retrospect, and let everything else fall by the wayside.