I do know one thing they did do reasonably well was vacuum tubes, those current-controlled electronic devices known in England as "valves". The transistor came to dominate electronic design in the 1950's, and soon the soft warm glow of tubes in TV sets, phonographs and radios was replaced by solid state things. Manufacturers in the west stopped making tubes.
In the Soviet Union, however, tubes continued to be made and used out of concern for a possible nuclear war because , as current-controlled devices, tubes were less susceptible to the effects of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse, or EMP., than voltage-controlled transistors. In the 1980's, when audiophiles and electric guitarists were beginning to sing the praises of the old tube amplifiers, tubes were initially rather hard to get- or, at least, some kinds became very much in demand and commanded good prices. When trade with the west resumed, Soviet tubes began finding their way into that Western market ( and of course, some sales people tried hard to push the idea of audio amplifiers that would withstand nuclear war...that was NOT true-they just would withstand EMP better than transistor-devices that were not correctly shielded.) Russian-made tubes and tube amps continue to be made today.
I answered a related question about excellent Soviet research by pointing to therapeutic bacteriophage products manufactured across the Soviet Union. While largely ignored in the West as American and European commercial phage preparations for treating bacterial disease began to decline in the 40s until the last stopped in the 1980s, Soviet phage preparations were widely used in Second and Third World countries. The knowledge developed in former Soviet institutons in Georgia, Poland, and Russia is also key to the resurgence of phage therapy today.
Not the USSR, but DDR motorcycle manufacturer MZ was a major force in motorcycle racing, winning ISDTs in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1and 1987, and 13 GP roadracing victories and 105 rostrum places between 1955 and 1976. It would have been more, had rider Ernst Degner not defected to Sweden in 1961, taking with him the secrets of the rotary valve two stroke. Copying MZ technology put the Japanese manufacturers on equal footing after that. MZ's racing program was essentially a privateer effort, in that they did not receive state backing the way many Second World athletic endeavors did.