Soong Ching-ling

Soong Ching-ling (1892–1981), deputy head of state of the Chinese Communist government (1949–75). She also headed the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association, and was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1951. Soong Ching-ling was the wife of the left-wing revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen. When he died in 1925, she continued his work in the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). In 1927 when Chiang Kai-Shek, then president of the Chinese Nationalist government, broke with the Chinese Communists, she went into self-exile, living in Moscow until 1937. During the Sino-Japanese War, having returned to China, Soong was the organizer of the China Defense League.