A counterpoint to that is just, well, the Soviet Union: while founded by a charismatic leader, it continued grinding on for decades after Lenin's death because it had reached a stage where it could replace the leader without too much damage.
The Soviet Union survived for so long by selling its natural resources while keeping the general rate of improvement in its living standards much lower than the west's. Today it's as much a petrol state as Saudi Arabia.
The weakness of these systems is that they rely on deceit. The leaders must lie about what they're really doing; the people must lie about what they're accomplishing "in the name of the revolution." Radicals must heighten that contrast until it hurts enough to make the system collapse.
