Genius, the USSR was a preindustrial society before the 40s, there were quite literally no tractors on the fields, and the former Russian Empire that they had just barely left behind had 10 famines a century. Before the advent of industrialization of agriculture, pesticides, fertilizers and tractors, humans would go through easily 3 famines throughout their lives, more so in hard to farm areas like the fucking cold Russia. You quite literally can't eliminate famine until you industrialize, but once they did, they eliminated hunger everywhere they had influence... while imperial England kept murdering Indians of hunger by the millions by not industrializing their country (like Soviets did in Central Asia)

When communism fell, they were significantly behind

How do you think they compared before communism? By the time of the Russian revolution, England, Germany and to a lesser extent France were the colonial and industrial powers of earth, with England having more than 100 years of industrialization and Germany more than 50. That's orders of magnitude more rich and developed than Estonia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia or Poland at the time.

All the growth from 1920 to 1990 (or 1940 to 1990 for countries that joined communism in the WW2 or after), was carried out in an economy without exploiting third countries. What modern Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Uzbekistan, Czech Republic, and Yugoslavia gained until 1990, was completely free of colonialism, it was through the sheer effort of the workers in those countries. If you compare that to the growth of England, France, Spain, or Germany in that century, their growth is so by engaging in either colonialism, of unequal exchange afterwards, i.e. exploiting the resources and labour or third countries (big chunk of Asia, most of Africa, and most of Latin America). Importing cheap agricultural produce and raw materials at bargain prices at the expense of the workers of the exploited countries, and reselling manufactured and otherwise high value added products at a premium capable of subsidising the rising working rights gained through unionization and labor movements (so, despite capitalism, and not because of it).

If you look at what happened since the 2000s, these formerly world-hegemon countries like France, England or Germany, simply have fallen behind. The GDP per capita of these countries barely has changed since 2008, which is about a decade and a half of stagnation. Capitalism working wonderfully, I see.

So basically you're forgetting about the advantage that western and central Europe already had at the beginning and at the mid of the 20th century when comparing those countries' levels of wealth and development becsuse of colonialism and industrialization. You're forgetting that they kept doing the exact same exploitative behaviours in their process of growth. You're forgetting that the improvements of the quality of life were done by workers fighting capitalism in unions. And you're forgetting that these same countries have been stagnant for the most part of the two last decades.