Note that South Korea, Japan and others also went through rapid industrialization and economic improvement during this time. I don't think China is a great mod

Note that South Korea, Japan and others also went through rapid industrialization and economic improvement during this time. I don't think China is a great model, their development was supercharged by demand from the USA for products made with low cost labor. What Cuba accomplished wrt education & lifespan (they live longer than us Americans!) is quite impressive. The USSR managed quite a feat too (being a world power for quite a few decades) for essentially being a landlocked country with minimal infrastructure and an uneducated population of serfs that was half as numerous as us Americans. Breaking up the existing communes and murdering the Soviets (then using their name) were terrible things though.