China's Communist Party has been in power for 75 years: Will it reach 100?

More than three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of China retains a firm grip on power.

The powerful and feared organization has ruled the nation home to close to one-fifth of the world's population for 75 years, surpassing the 74-year Soviet era in Russia.

The party survived years of self-inflicted tumult after it took control in 1949. A major course correction in 1978 transformed the country into an industrial giant with an economy second in size only to the United States.

Party leaders now want to build an even stronger China to achieve what they call the rejuvenation of the nation by 2049, which would mark the centennial of communist rule.

Staying in power that long will depend on how they manage in an era of slower growth and intensifying competition with the United States, one that has raised the specter of a new cold war.

The first quarter-century of communist rule in China wasn't pretty

Mao Zedong, after declaring the founding of the .