And who implemented that technological progress in Russia, fairy spirits, or Stalin's government?
Thank you dear Ukrainian Democratic Governments for my PC and cellphone because during evil Soviet Rule Ukrainians had none!
Technological progress happens because creative and industrious people drive it forward.
Technological progress happens because governments/corporations/companies are interested in getting stronger and more influential, and technological progress is one of the ways to achieve that.
Creative and industrious people would be able to do virtually nothing by themselves, if not coupled with people who are interested in their work. Stalin was interested in technological progress, so he used those creative and industrious people to push it forward in USSR. Nikolai II was not very interested in technological progress, so in Russian Empire, there wasn't much technological progress.
It's supply and demand thing. Creative and industrious people provide supply for achieving technological progress, but it won't ultimately happen if there is no demand. This is why, despite inventing steam engine, Romans have never actually used it to do their work; why would they do that, if they had slaves? Same with Russian Empire - it had plenty of slaves - "krepostniy" - to do all the work, and thus technological progress stagnated. Only when the government started to actually care about all people in the country (and not for "nobles only") did the technological progress started to really get going.