Mao supported the 1911 Revolution and became one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. During the mid-1930s Chiang Kai-shek carried out a series of military campaigns against Mao and the Communists that forced Mao on the Long March to Yenan in north China. Mao's rule over China from the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to his death in 1976 defined the Chinese nation in his lifetime.