It is interesting how access to vast wealth is no guarantee that a nation can harness it. Without a transparent system of governance and a liquid economy capable of creative destruction, nations just cannot develop or grow sustainably.
Did the USSR fail due to it's inherent political failures as the "common understanding" has it, in which case how to explain China's success and the failure of the markets to rein in the US bankers? Will Chinese leaders retain the (largely) fact based policies, or will they go the way of spoiled western nations and revert to power-tripping, ignorance and dogma?
Now the US and much of Europe has started (a hopefully limited) implosion due to financial shell games and blatant political corruption (transfer of private bad debts to public sector!), it will be interesting to see how the world's powers play this out.
Clearly the "Commie vs Capitalist" debate will need to become a tad more sophisticated in the next few years as the communist nations start controlling more of the world economy and have to be treated with more respect by western powers.