While I see your point against those examples it's worth noting that Japan in the mid 19th century was a feudal society with hundreds of thousands of samurai, and by WWII they were fielding a massive navy with aircraft carriers capable of striking the USA. And the difference between the wealth of Americans at the beginning of the 20th century compared to the end is also larger in many ways. However, the difference between starving and a full belly is certainly something which people will pay more attention to rather than the difference between being well fed and then acquiring large houses, refrigeration, washing machines, one or two cars, mobile phones, radio, television, landing a couple of guys on the moon and getting them back, computers and the Internet. The scope of western capitalist development in the 20th century is simply staggering compared to any pissant planned economy, and it was done without the most horrific mass murders of the 20th century that we see under the communist regimes.

Also, Lenin's modification of Marxist theory is somewhat irrelevant, the Marxist foundation was entirely wrong on a number of massive points: one more wasn't going to make a difference.