It is clear to me that the revolutions in medicine and surgery in the past century are entirely the by-product of commerce. Demonstrating this is a different matter.
Therefore I ask the question: in a century of communism, has any communist country ever developed a significant medical or surgical innovation?
The Russian communist revolution was nearly 100 years ago. Over a billion people have lived in communist countries in that 100 years. Yet no significant medical or surgical innovation has been developed.
The first life saving innovation was the X-ray. X-ray equipment was developed in Britain, Germany and the United States. X-ray machines created General Electric.
From that point, until the end of WWII those three countries were the source of all medical, dental and surgical innovation. After WWII the locus of such innovation moved almost entirely to the U.S.
The communist countries were always parasites, using innovation that originated in the commercial countries. Cuba and North Vietnam are still 50 years behind the rest of the medical world.
With the advent of socialized medicine in post WWII Europe, innovation stagnated and nearly all medical and surgical innovation moved to the United States. The most radical innovation began with the Salk polio vaccine. Radical emergency medicine was developed on the American battlefield in the Vietnam War. Tamoxifen, the first successful pill treatment for breast cancer came from Britain. One of the great surgical innovations is the catheter lab; developed slowly mostly in the U.S. in the post WWII era.
Commerce and positive mortality and morbidity correlate perfectly. Commerce is the source of modern health.