Indubitably.
The economic analog of this point could be put as follows: under capitalism the surplus is devoted to investment and the consumption of rentiers. Under the systems of PRC and USSR, the surplus was/is devoted to investment and consumption of elites. One could reason that capitalist consumption, if devoted to investment, would promote growth and a general increase in the standard of living, so in this sense the likely larger level of capitalist consumption relative to 'party' consumption in and of itself suggests some brakes to growth. Alternatively, it could be argued that centralized direction of investment in the later stages of Soviet development was also a brake on growth.
But if we abstract from the disposition of the surplus in this sense and assume, for the sake of argument, that under a capitalist and a Soviet/PRC-type regime the wage rates are comparable, just what is it that distinguishes (and commends) the latter over the former, from a socialist standpoint? I'd say it depends on democratic institutions. Lacking any, the Soviet system and the PRC are just capitalism with a bureaucratic face.
If you compare China to India, as others have done in the past, you can start a good argument over models of development. But in the case of the Asian tigers there is no economic argument, nor any in terms of democratic advantages to the PRC.
Hence, without awarding any blue ribbons to capitalism, the jingoism on behalf of USSR/PRC is largely a fetishism of state ownership of capital, not very good Marxism from my vantage point. Marginally more equal income distributions in the formerly socialist countries were offset by higher absolute incomes for many workers in capitalist countries.
The socialist cause rests mostly on what is to come, not on what has already transpired.
mbs