Go travel to lower tier cities and rural places in China. The development those places have gotten in the past decade are huge. Go talk to regular people ask them to compare 10 years ago with now.
You really think the people who are left on the streets feel free to speak their minds if it would conflict with what the Politburo is enforcing?
Also, China has got nearly nothing in common with Russia. Don't lazily lump them together just because western popular thought likes to put the same label on them.