After joining the Communists (1927) he became a commander of Mao Zedong’s Red Army in the fight against the Kuomintang. He was appointed Minister of Defence (1959) and then Vice‐Chairman under Mao (1966), later being nominated to become Mao’s successor (1969). Having staged an unsuccessful coup in 1971, Lin Biao was reported to have been killed in an aeroplane crash while fleeing to the Soviet Union.