USSR space program

The USSR were to first to launch a satellite into orbit, launch a man into space, launch a woman into space, the first spacewalk, put the first man-made object on the moon, made the first soft landing on the moon, the first landing on another planet, had several probes transmitting from Venus, had the first space station and the first long-duration space station. For a country that supposedly lost the space race those are a lot of firsts.