>Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up

I kinda think I should write an essay about the life of a software engineer in the Soviet Union. It is always interesting to get reactions of un-believe to simple truths, known to everybody with the same "living experience". What stops me - my English is bad and Russians know all this already. Still, let me do what I can.

So, software engineers and the food supply. I worked as a software engineer in a biological research center. I've participated in the practice described below from 1979 to 1991, 1991 being the last year of the planned economy. Each employee has a quota to be fulfilled in the collective farm fields, like 20 days a year. Each morning, weekends including, a big number of buses was coming to the city center. Our research institution was assigned one bus. We packed in it and were driven into the fields. There was a quota to be done by each until afternoon: planting, tending or harvesting depending on the season. In the afternoon like "before lunch" buses arrived to take us back to the city. You were free from work this day, but paid in full. You were also paid for the work done in the fields. Twice paid for a half of a day's work.

No one was exempt from the farm work quota, nor government workers, nor defense contractors from a county seat 20 miles away.

So the whole system was not especially cruel, but extremely ineffective, like the life in the late Soviet Union in general - do not forget these buses with their fuel, some of them bringing people from 20 miles away - for half a day's work.

( In 1990 yours truly organized and participated in an economic experiment, reducing some of the costs. Instead of giving a quota to each co-worker, we've organized a team of volunteers, spent whole days in the field and were done with the quota for the whole institution in a week or so. This was a back-breaking affair, but earned a good money. I've sent a letter to the county newspaper with a proud name Kommunist, describing the "experiment". They published it, but they also published "letters from workers" naming me "the enemy of the people". )

Some misconceptions to correct, if I may.

>in the 1940s, when people were packed into train cars to bring in the harvest

Incarceration rates in Stalin times were less than incarceration rates in present Texas or Luisiana. So not much could have been done using inmates labor only.

>dedicated class of kolhozniks that were paid next to nothing,

Kolhozniks in my time were paid 2-3 times more than a software engineer. Not that was much, but still.

>and couldn't really leave the countryside for better jobs in the cities.

This practice ended in 1965. Free movement of people was restricted in general though, meaning you have to jump through some stupid obstacles to move, but absolutely possible.

>I would pay good money to see the likes of Peter Thiel spend a few weeks a year picking strawberries

This is a strange wish. If Thiel is a good person, he will work along with you, yes. But if he is the bad guy like I guess you've implied - he will be a supervisor over you packing strawberries. Some things never change with a change of a political system.