> So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.
The Communist China's Great Famine[0] is said to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, as much as 30-40M, depending on who is guesstimating.
I am not sure I would call that a triumph of economic prosperity for China.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164732497/a-grim-chronicle-of...
So blaming it on communism seems a little off to me. Matter of fact, one could easily argue that communist revolution is a consequence of capitalist failure, not a cause of failure on its own.
I meant to instead do what you seem to be doing - pointing out a bit of economic turmoil that lead to great loss of life. Mine just happened to be accounting for on the side of the ledger labeled "Communism".
Does it make the Great Famine any less an economic blow to Communist China that there are also historical examples of large famines in capitalist societies?
I'm not sure it does.
As for the two attempts to implement Marxism (assuming you're speaking of Russia and China here)... in Russia, you can't separate it from Leninism and Stalinism. Is Marxism the problem, or the authoritarian government?
China is more interesting. China is still ostensibly a Marxist nation, right? Per World Bank data I just looked up, China's per capita GDP (in constant US dollars) was lowest in 1962, at $71.91. That's per year. In 2017, it's $8826.99. Constant dollars, mind you. That's 123 times more.
I have a hard time calling that a failure of any sort.
There hasn't been large-scale political violence in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. That ten-year period killed 5-10 million on the high end. Which is, of course, quite bad, but in comparison to the 50-80M that died in ostensibly capitalist Europe during WWII, it doesn't seem that outsized.
So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.