MAO TSE-TUNG: As communist revolutionary 
leader, Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) helped 
form the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. 
Later, he served in SUN YAT-SEN's Kuomintang 
government until CHIANG KAI-SHEK took over 
and purged the government of communists in 
1928. Mao, with his fellow communist Chuh 
Teh, formed the Fourth Chinese Red Army 
and led them on a six-thousand-mile Long 
March to SHENSI province in northern CHINA. 
After a truce between Mao's communists and 
Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists during World 
War II, civil war broke out, with Mao 
successfully driving out the Nationalists and 
taking over as head of the People's Republic 
of CHINA in 1949. He then collectivized land 
and purged CHINA of all dissidents and non-
communists during the Great Proletarian 
Cultural Revolution in 1966. He ruled CHINA 
until his death in 1976. (See also China article).