Not true. The US never had anything close to the USSR growth rate even at its beginning when it was poor. Same with all other developing countries. Read “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Piketty.

Russia built much, much more than weapons which, indeed, was part of the reasons for its downfall though with a percent of its economy devoted to weapons much lower than the US. It built infrastructure at a massive scale (some of the hugest dams), one of the best educational systems where there was almost none before, universal healthcare, huge industrial production, huge agricultural development (USSR went from being an importer of wheat to the largest exporter and third largest producer), and much more though consumer goods were not given priority (food, health and shelter before luxuries and all that).

And China didn’t abandon communism. Even today, half the production is state owned. Furthermore, it’s the communist party at the helm with targets like eliminating billionaires with over a hundred eliminated so far in the last few years and eliminating deep poverty which the US hasn’t. For example, the whole extracurricular private education industry was shut down practically overnight with the billionaires in charge no longer so because the communists thought that would benefit the people. Private industry is heavily controlled by the communist party with strong decisions imposed by the party when the good of the people is involved. It is more like communism with Chinese flavor than capitalism.