Mao Zedong was widely liked, and the Communists were seen as much better than the corrupt Guomindang [0]. They also defeated the Guomindang militarily. I think

Mao Zedong was widely liked, and the Communists were seen as much better than the corrupt Guomindang [0]. They also defeated the Guomindang militarily. I think the CCP are actually the legitimate rulers of mainland China, both by peoples' choice and military conquest. You may think the Chinese people chose poorly, but I think it is clear that they definitely chose. And to put this in some context, China has had an authoritarian government for the past 2000 years, so it's not like choosing an authoritarian regime is that much of a change. You might as well pick the authoritarians who are less corrupt. And post-Mao the CCP has been pretty effective in building the country. [0] traditionally spelled "Kuomintang" but Wade-Giles is a horrible romanization. You think you know how to pronounce it after looking at it, but you're wrong; it's actually worse than just having a bunch of characters, because at least you know you don't know how to pronounce them.