Well, that opinion is definitely wrong. China isn't perfect (living in a world with less desirable material conditions does that), however, it's the Socialist nation that has managed to develop itself the most, so there's that. The reason why it survived the 80s and the 90s wave of color revolutions was because it learned from the mistakes of the USSR and the eastern bloc.

Also, yeah there was a lot of incompetence in the communist parties of both the USSR and the Eastern bloc in general, but there were also many principled communists as well. There was also a lot of friction between its countries, for example, Albania siding with China and denouncing the USSR and the events that led to the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.