Viewed from a distance, the history of the USSR looks like a series of pendulum swings from repression to liberalization and back again. Thus, War Communism led to the NEP, which led to Stalinism, which led to Khrushchev’s partial liberalization, which led to Brezhnev’s lukewarm Stalinism, which led to Gorbachev, who lost control of the situation during a liberalization campaign and presided over the implosion of the country. You can look it up.
That didn’t happen with China. Why not? First, the CCP had the advantage of learning from the Soviet experience, and was determined not to repeat it. Second, the CCP was much bolder and imaginative than the Soviet leadership. It essentially scrapped most of the economic elements of communism, while retaining the political elements of centralized control. It worked; the nation prospered, while the CCP maintained its monopoly on power.
Of course, orthodox Marxist thought holds that what the CCP accomplished was logically and historically impossible. More on that irony in my next China post.