The influential leader of the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War was Mao Zedong. He emerged as a prominent figure advocating for peasant-led revolution and was instrumental in the strategies that led to the success of the Communist forces against the Nationalists. Mao's tactics during the civil war, which lasted from 1927 to 1949, emphasized guerrilla warfare and mobilizing the rural population. He later became the founding father of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, coming to symbolize communist revolution in China and impacting global communist movements.