From a historical point of view. There are no good guys or bad guys necessarily. Sides are relative, just like speed. Russians were only the "bad" guys to Americans like us. I'm sure the Russians didn't see themselves as the bad guys. Anyway, him having a communist country does not mean he's portraying Russia. Communism is a viable political strategy and if you can find a way to make it work, it is one of the best. The problem is that most political structures work in theory. It's when practice comes to play that things fall apart. Secondly, there never really was any competition in any kind of space race. Russia kicked our butts in every aspect of space flight (speed-wise at least, I feel we won in safety standards). The only thing we ever beat them at was landing a man on the moon, which if I remember correctly, was never even a target of the soviet's plans.