AAAAnd China. The progressive communist revolution was pioneered by young and ambitious urban intellectuals to fight against warlords, Foreign imperialism, and old China; later also the attempted dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. Unfortunately, their hard work was eventually hijacked by conservatives and dictators.

A bit of fun fact: after the communist revolution and cultural revolution, China was slowly stepping towards democracy, through internal CCP reform:

called for the end of bureaucracy, centralisation of power as well as patriarchy, proposing term limits to the leading positions in China and advocating the "democratic centralism" as well as the "collective leadership".

Deng emphasized that the Constitution must be able to protect the civil rights of Chinese citizens and must reflect the principle of separation of powers; he also described the idea of "collective leadership" and championed the principle of "one man, one vote" among leaders to avoid the dictatorship of the General Secretary of CCP.

Unfortunately, the pro-democracy crowd lost, because they sided with Tiananmen square student protest. Their defeat eventually leads to the Tiananmen Square massacre. And the political power fallen into the hand of the conservatives.

after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, many leading reformists including Zhao and Bao were removed from their posts, and the majority of the planned political reforms (after 1986) ended drastically. Left-wing conservatives led by Chen Yun, President Li Xiannian and Premier Li Peng took control

The pro-democracy leaders were all weakened or arrested after Tiananmen Square massacre:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang

lost power for his support of the 1989 Tian'anmen Square protests.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Qili

he was purged for his sympathy toward the student protesters and his support for General Secretary Zhao Ziyang's opposition to the use of armed force.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Tong

During the 1989 Tian’anmen square protests, he was one of the very few Chinese senior officials to express understandings with the demonstrating students, which led to his arrest shortly before the June Fourth incident.

So there might be a bizarre alternative world, where Tiananmen Square protest did not happen and China is now a democracy...