Kai Yin Chang
Section 5, Lot 2263
Pine Hills Cemetery
Kai Yin Chang / Chang Kuo Tao (Zhang Guotao), born in Pingxiang County, Jiangxi, Chang was involved in revolutionary activities during his youth. He studied Marxist thought under Li Dazhao while attending Peking University in 1916, where Mao Tse Tung was library clerk. During the 1920s he studied in the Soviet Union. He was a founding father of the Chinese Communist Party, and a bitter rival of Mao Tse Tung. By 1930s Chang had built a powerful army. He believed he would lead communists to power through civil war. Mao saw him as threat, as Chang had an army of 80,000 and Mao only 10,000. They agreed to join forces during the Long March in 1930s. But Chang lost a contentious struggle for party leadership to Mao. Chang’s armies then took a different route from Mao’s and were badly beaten by local forces in Gansu. When his depleted forces finally arrived to join Mao in Yan’an, Chang continued his losing challenge to Mao, and left the party in 1938. From exile in Hong Kong, Chang eventually retired to Toronto in 1968, and became a Christian shortly before his death in 1979 at the age of 82. His wife, Young Tse Li died in 1994.