Rich wrote: Russia produced more steel than Austrohungry and Italy combined.
Big deal, neither was renowned for industrial prowess.
They were not far behind France.
What about Germany which really mattered?
Russia was at certain points of the war fighting virtually the whole of Ottoman power, the bulk of Austria's military and the bulk of Germany's offensive power.
Neither the "sick man of Europe" nor Austria were very impressive powers. And Germany squandered too much at Verdun.
Russia's folly was getting into a war with Germany, Austrohungry and the Ottomans.
No, it was failing to get adequately prepared.
The fact that they were brought down by this total war with multiple enemies,
They also had multiple allies, and better ones than Germany had, notably Britain and France.
does not prove their society was some sort of catastrophic failure.
The tsarist system was a catastrophic failure. It lost; the communist or stalinist system won--even though it fought a deadlier opponent
virtually by itself for two years.
Russia did not need a Communist dictatorship in order to develop.
It needed someone like Stalin to crash industrialize and survive. Compare Stalin with the czar. The latter was humiliated by Japan and Germany. The Germans beat czarist Russia even though they had powerful enemies in the west i.e. two fronts simultaneously. In sharp contrast, Stalin crushed Japan at Khalkin Gol in '39 and withstood and beat the reich--even though the nazis
had no other major front in 1941-42. Not only did Stalin do a much better job preparing Russia for war in terms of weapon output, his regime was far better able to withstand war. The czar crumbled under the impact of relatively modest setbacks whereas Stalin's regime persisted even as the nazis neared Moscow. Had it not been for Stalin--probably the most successful dictator thus far in modern times--Russia would've been eaten alive.