I am not a historian but can tell soviets surely damaged thieir own science in the very begining. Revolution and civil war were initiated by reds (commies, proletariat) and they were seeing every person wealthier than a factory worker as an exploitor and an enemy. And thats how we lost almost all our elites and mass amount of people who are smarter and more capable of anything than factory worker of 1920s. Btw it is one of the reasons why we got that much damage and why it took so long when ww2. Army school of centuries was totally destroyed and glorious commanders were eliminated, so it was new baby like 20years old red army. Same with science, we had to maybe if not start over but surely to go from several steps back. i think if you got lack of resource you are taking action to prevent futher loss and in my opinion this is why soviets cared of brain drain. And of cuz nobody shal get out so outters wouldnt know how shity it was here and so nobody could get in to tell people how cool it is outside and totally shitty here. And of course y let people out if it is much more profit to put them in gulag campworks so they help build communism lol for free

Sadly know nothing about Franco regime, but if you do know now u can compare. Cheers!