I call shenanigans on that comment. Russian history is a series of cycles alternating between authoritarianism and anarchy stretching all the way back to the Golden Horde and the Time of Troubles up to Putin and Medvedev. In fact, the USSR was nothing more than a continuation of the Tsarist state in all but name (state owns everything, centralized government, secret police, single commanding figure). Democracy taking root would be the tougher pill to swallow. Think Weimar times 100.
That definitely has some merit. Russian culture favors much more authoritarian measures in government, but it also holds tradition of distrust, subversion of the government going back hundreds of years. However, its not as if there wasn't any progress throughout history. The emancipation of the serfs, the creation of an underground labor movement... all new developments that show that Russia was a place where historical progress was moving ahead, though not at the pace of Western Europe, but, then again, Russia had yet to industrialize extensively and the country belonged to a different, pre-industrial set of economic and social conditions.
Now, the Tsarist government most definitely did not own everything, that is an idea that has been refuted by recent evidence. The Soviet government increased state ownership, while during the Witte reforms there was a serious initiative made to drastically increase private ownership of land amongst the peasantry and the development of capitalism there. The Imperial government held it back, eventually, but the point is that the people didn't. When the NEP was instituted, capitalism was rampant, more so than probably even the Tsarist period, showing that in a short time that the Russian people could adapt and thrive in a capitalist economy. As for democracy, there was a tradition of democratic councils in the village commune, the
mir, that was very old, many decades in fact... people were not strangers to democracy by any means.
So, the Russian people, and that's what matters, were not destined by any means to a fate that involved a continuation of the old. If anything, the Soviets enforced that by taking totalitarianism and the command economy to an extreme unlike anything found in the Romanov period. Might a strong man become popular and take power for a long time? Sure, look at what's happening with Putin, and his popularity. That's a very Russian thing, and it won't go away until some kind of Vietnam or Watergate experience. But he'll be elected, and he'd depend on popular representatives to pass through his measures. There'd be a legislative check of some kind against him, unlike the Stalinist period. Maybe, if the said strong man is crazy enough, he'll fight to cement a dictatorship, like Hitler in Germany, but, look at Faeelin's
Stresemann timeline... not every strongman needs to lead a country into disaster.