clamhurt_legbeard

Flat out wrong.

Russia was a second tier European nation that could barely hold its own against the Ottoman Empire.

China was all but colonized by Europeans for a century.

China's economy was trash until well after (decades after) the communists took power, murdered millions upon millions, and let millions more starve to death through ill-planned forced industrialization.

Marx was German and Germany was a much, much stronger nation. The commies couldn't get a strong enough foothold their, however.