Just like a software project, it will just not be perfect on first release. If they had waited to fix the comms module, to test the strap on the survival pack, and so on, they'd still be working on it today and other country (probably US) would have beat them into space.

Overal their program probably killed about the same number of cosmonauts as US killed astronauts, or maybe even less.

You can play some games with numbers maybe if you want to include unmanned rockets exploding on launchpads or not -- China killed maybe around 500 people with an a satelite launch in the 90's. Russians killed 50 launchpad personnel during a failed Vostok lunch in the 60's.