Russian history probably would have gone better if they’d triumphed over Yeltsin.
Already reserving my ticket
One explanation I’ve heard is that the experiences of the immense changes of the Cultural Revolution, followed by its sudden end and Reform and Opening Up have given the CPC a unique flexibility. It can experiment with new policies, learn from the experiments, both from failures and successes, and freely admit failure. The CPSU arguably had a similar kind of flexibility early on- they emerged from the civil war to experiment with the NEP, something which seemed like heresy to a lot of socialists, and then radically changed policy again several years later with Stalin’s five year plans- but they lost this flexibility over the years. The CPSU also had a difficult time publicly admitting problems and doing self-criticism. You basically had to wait until the old leader died or was replaced to get a full accounting of his mistakes.
Hybrid rice, which has saved millions of people from starvation