1. I believe we already have authoritarian government in the west, if you look at the US for example they aren't a real democracy they are a plutocracy which basically means that it's ruled by the rich, for the rich. Also the increased corporatism in the US is a good example to pick out.
2. Mass starvation we can agree on, we definitely have higher average living standards in the west than the Soviet Union.
3. If you by imperial ventures mean their governments strategies, I cannot see why the west doesn't match that criteria:
- Failed Korean war, that they got nothing out of, except more money for the military industrial complex
- Failed Vietnam war which started worldwide anti US campaign, even from own citizens
- Failed Iraq war, cost the country billions and only helped the private companies who were stationed there and made huge profits
- Failed Afghanistan war with the same reason as suggested above
4. I know lots of US political prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted in some cases or are simply chased by this machine that we call the "system". Edward Snowden is a great example, but theres many other Edward Snowdens out there that average people haven't heard about
5. the average western citizen might not be peasants, but with current immigration the minimum wage gap is being pushed further and further down by time.
6. Totally agree, our infrastructure is much greater
7. If current policies made the last 20-30 years aren't convincing you on who rules our nations, I dont think I can either, but imo I think theres plenty of evidence that suggests that we don't go to war or make policy because of the average american or to try and keep "peace and order", but because of certain corporations that has controlled politics through lobbying the last 100 years or so.
I can certainly agree with a lot of what you've said here, but it's important not to jump around too much in history when comparing periods of change or upheaval. For example, the events of the Korean and Vietnam war are now 70 and 50 years in the past respectively. While their causes and outcomes do somewhat have reverberations on some US policy today, most of their architects are dead and most of the political and economic context that made them relevant is no longer tied to our modern circumstances. The money that was pouring into US militarization began in earnest in WW2, prior to Korea, and continued for very particular reasons having to do with the expansion of US influence around the globe in the context of rebuilding a new postwar order. This rebuilding, and specifically who would emerge on top of it, became a contest of sorts with the Soviet Union we later called the Cold War.
The idea that Vietnam started a worldwide anti-US campaign is premised on a sort of Hollywood vision of how the US was perceived around the world, not necessarily tethered to reality. That expansion of influence came with casualties. It would be difficult to find someone in the 1960s and 70s in central or south America who had much positive to say about the US for how its companies plundered resources and exploited workers while its government financially supported authoritarian regimes in places like El Salvador, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere. Similar circumstances in Africa where the US supported the apartheid regime in South Africa and played many sides against each other to exploit resources in north and central Africa. So when the US stuck its nose into southeast Asia and it didn't quite go as smoothly planned, it mostly became a wake up call to Western media that the US was not only attempting to be the defenders of democracy and capitalism it had presented as in the postwar era, but maybe a neo-imperial power much like the Soviets were.
I can certainly agree with you about the outsized influence of corporations. In fact, if we could trace a through line from the post-war era to now it would be the growth of corporatization, the increased influence of commodification on politics, culture and communication and the deregulation of how money can be used to manipulate various aspects of our lives. This has led to new definitions of concepts like safety, equality, privacy, freedom, success and growth. The modern meanings of these words in American life mostly pit all of us in a race to the bottom with one another.
Yet still, this is radically different from what precipitated the transitions that took place in Russia in 1917. For one, we do have some democratic processes, including separated powers and locally administered electoralism. This means that even insofar as money is corrosive, it has to be spread around pretty far and wide to fully steer every aspect of life. There are many areas of policy where determined groups, working in concert, can outhustle corporations and get their preferred policies. In Tsarist Russia this was mostly impossible until right up near the end when a series of reforms were agreed to. Further, the Russian military had split into factions of its own fighting against one another alongside many protesters fighting one another in the streets. We've had occasional protest flare-ups here in the US, mostly over encounters with state violence, that rarely lead to widespread factional battles and usually end in a few days, nothing like the sustained conflicts of months that characterized the Russian Revolution.
Lastly to your point about exiles and political prisoners. Yes, the US has run people out and maintains places like Guantanamo for its foreign enemies and has detained more of its own people than any other country for reasons that are entirely political. The management of this system is somewhat distinct from the Russian case. Where Russian police could make you disappear in the middle of the night, take everything from you and then release you only on a whim, we at least have the rule of law and a criminal justice system, albeit deeply flawed.
When you think of the specific historical circumstances that led to Russia transitioning to communism, it was largely serious deprivation for the overwhelming majority of the population, a small oligarchy controlling policy, war abroad, and little respect for the rule of law you can see how when the Bolsheviks took over they were just continuing the politics that had been dominant in Russia rather than bringing in something especially new. Communism had its popular appeal because of its utopian promises, but Lenin and his cronies basically reproduced the same set of social relations that already existed in Russia just under a new brand of Soviet socialism. Other socialists (referred to as Mensheviks) decried what Lenin was doing as undemocratic and likely to make things worse, but they were promptly marginalized from the political process and under Stalin imprisoned or executed.
Where I will agree that there is a similarity is that the US is facing an inflection point where some of its internal contradictions have become too much to bear and some major structural changes will likely be necessary to appease its population. The post 9/11 and Iraq changes to the geopolitical order more or less ended the idea of the US having carte blanche for its neo-imperial projects. So since 2008, domestic tinkering has largely been the policy agenda. This inward turn, which Obama, Trump and now Biden have prioritized means there is a sense in which many things are up for grabs, but the horizon of revolution is very far in the distance, unlike in Russia. No factions are sufficiently organized among the lower or middle classes. Among the elites, competition has them at cross purposes as often as they act in unison. Until one or both of those things change, it's likely we'll see continued incremental movement in this direction or that as the contradictions continue to build in our society.