In the 1930s, there was a balloon race of a sort. Auguste Piccard managed to ride a hydrogen balloon to the stratosphere in 1931 and '32, reaching a record altitude of 53,153 feet on his second flight. In a precursor to the space race, both the US and the Soviet Union decided they could do that, too, and even higher. They formed three teams, one from the American military, one from the Soviet Air Force, and one from Osoaviakhim, a Soviet paramilitary training organization. In September of 1933, the Soviet Air Force reached an altitude of 60,698 feet in the USSR-1. In November, the Century of Progress balloon from the Americans ascended to an altitude of 61,237 feet. That left the Osoaviakhim team, whose flight was postponed to January 1934. That coincided with the 17th Congress of the Communist Party, so Stalin made a big deal out of the flight of the balloon called Osoaviakhim-1. They were counting on it exceeding the record of the American balloon.
However, Osoaviakhim-1 had a lot of design problems. But if you know anything about the Stalinist era, you know that didn't make a bit of difference in whether it flew or not. On the one hand, the Osoaviakhim-1 beat both the American and Soviet altitude records. On the other hand, none of the three men aboard survived. Read an account of what happened when the Osoaviakhim-1 reached the stratosphere, as best as it could be reconstructed, at Amusing Planet.
(Image credit: About KOMANDE STRATOSTATA)