I think you have some typos in your last paragraph that may reverse some of the meaning. So I can't tell if I agree with you. In particular, I'm concerned with the conjunction of totalitarian issues with standard of living.

It's certainly true that China and the USSR give examples of peaceful rollback of totalitarian regimes (partial in the USSR and complete in China). The USSR looks to me to have had continually increasing standard of living, including under Stalin, with the lone exception of the war. So totalitarian aspects of a regime may be rather independent of wealth.