There was a revolution led by the working class. The material conditions of the working class have been improving since, while in similarly developed capitalist countries the reverse is true. Banks and land are all collectively nationally owned. Capital controls are strong enough that not even the richest can move too much of their wealth outside the country. Capitalists are subject to the law frequently, even billionaires are imprisoned.
I’m not a chinaphobe at all but that’s a rich interpretation
Communism relies on 2 phases, the first phase requires all power and resources consolidation in a standing committee, the second phase then allows for the collective communist nirvana. The second has never happened anywhere.
The standing committee realized that and switched away from attempting that, veering to state capitalism to bring a controlled set of benefits from capitalist drive. They still teach that they are doing marxism but there is nothing working class about the party.
One way to corroborate this is to look at what the Tianemen Square protesters wanted. They wanted democracy: to democratically vote in more communism. The standing committee is not interested in that.
People that fall for “true communism” - phase 2 - always get disillusioned when they notice the wool pulled over their eyes by a select few taking all resources for themselves, instead of for “collective” ownership by the workers.
Or alternatively, the events in 89 were part of a wider trend in socialist countries of NATO-backed violent uprisings with merely rhetoric of democracy.
For example, I have spoken to many Romanians that lived through the 89 events who see it as a coup against socialist democracy. It succeeded in România, it failed in China.