alansmithee

Russia (and afterwards the USSR) was modernized by one group of people's desire to attempt to emulate the industrial advances of more traditionally western nations. The form of communism practiced by Lenin (and especially Stalin) had little to do with "true" communism and was pretty much a dictatorship with a socialist economic structure (where the upper levels of gov't also decided production). Russia most likely would have gotten more results had they not attempted communism, as market forces would have had more agricultural production (which would have stopped at least some of the mass starvation, and increased the workforce). But Lenin and Stalin's singlemindedness toward industrialization make that an impossibility-had they the same determination and better understanding of economics (or in Stalin's case, more care for human life) they would have been better off.

As for China, their growth can be directly attributed to their adoption of capitalist principles. When Mao took power, he focused more on agricultural development, which left much of China in crippling poverty and also held them back from developing. Their rapid rise is due to Mao's diminishing influence, and their willingness to use many capitalist principles in their development, while keeping gov't control of the majority of economic deciding factors and production capability. China's current power in reality could be seen as one of the greatest proofs of capitalism's power as an economic system. Adhering to communist tenets (that were somewhat misinterpreted) largely hindered China's emergence as a credible world power. I personally think that on a large scale, a truly communist nation would have to be both extremely isolationist and have the resources inherent in the countries borders to be self-sufficient, as I don't see really how a true communist nation could have any but political dealings with any outside nation without creating some heavy imbalance in their economy. If the US could better enforce the borders, I think they have both the clout to remain fairly isolationist and have the necessary internal resources to pull off communism. But that would never happen, simply because there would never be the consensus necessary for communism to function.

Now, if instead you change communism (which is something that deals primarily with economics) with totalitarianism/authoritarianism (which can both be used to describe the gov't structures of the USSR and China) you have an argument that I think is largely true-namely that in many situations totalitarianism/authoritarianism is better than more democratic forms of government.

edit-I read the OP's further remarks and redefining question, and I think that it would be very possible that a centralist/totalitarian gov't could function better than a more democratic one (as I said above). However, with that will inherently come the gulags/kgb/torture/etc. because they are the most effective ways of enforcing and maintaining the control needed for a gov't like that to function and not fall into anarchy or revert to democracy.