The 20th century may have been the world’s bloodiest, but in the end democracy was triumphant. A political system that was an aberration among monarchies in 1900 cut a swath through empires, fascism, and communism to emerge as the dominant political system by the end of the century.
But while the world celebrated the fall of authoritarianism in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1989, China was carefully studying how to avoid the same fate. The Chinese Communist Party concluded that its Soviet counterpart had collapsed not only because it failed to adapt to the changing world but also, more importantly, because it had turned its back on its own historical and ideological experiences. Even as China firmly went down the path of economic reform and the spectacular growth that came with it, it doubled down on its core ideology: socialism with Chinese characteristics under the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
