XINJIANG PRIOR TO MAO’S EMERGENCE

Dr. Mohammad Anwar Khan*

A Persian proverb says “a trapped into salt mine rolls into salt.” So is China – a society sheltered by lofty mountains of Asia, bothered and bothering less the world outside and those who broke its isolation melted into its amalgam. The Mongols and Manchus, despite ruling houses for generations made less dent in its composition. The Muslim Turks failed to penetrate deep into China. Only a bordering area in the northwest of China, falling outside the Chinese Wall, they succeeded to habitat. Temur cruising army fell short of subjugating China when he died at Otrar in 1405.
This age long splendid isolation of China administered by over a dozen dynasties (Xia to Manchu) mostly locals spread over a sequential period of more or less four thousand years brought an inner intuition and affirmation in its ownship. It led the human civilization by inventing paper, printing methodology, gunpowder and held prominence in world society by upholding rich philosophical thought, painting, porcelain and architectural advancement with an overall enduring material prosperity and grandeur. They called their country Zhongua, the centre of the earth, wherefrom rays of light and learning extended to all. They word China, is commonly believed to have come from the area of Chin wherefrom the Hans (246 BC – 221 AD) ushered their rule. The Hans were the first to assume the title of emperors subduing feudatory lords and hence a Chinese takes pride in calling himself a HANMAN.
Incidentally foreign invaders once traversing stubborn natural barriers, found easy access to the mainland. The Mongols, Manchus and the Japanese in the north found less resistance in subjugating China. The Europeans in the nineteenth century aimed at partitioning China into their spheres of influences. Russia, the foremost amongst them, would have gained permanent hold over areas of its interest. Britain’s Russophobia convinced European contenders to desist, thus forestalling Russian objectives in the eastern land, particularly its access to British possessions in India. Russian presence in Xinjiang necessarily amounted to an easy approach to northern India via Kashmir etc. could disturb outer flanks of British India. China, as for itself had not exhibited any bellicosity in history towards its neighbours, self contentment, isolation and inner looking probably came to them from Confucius, Tao and lastly from Buddhist preachings. Most Chinese expansion took place during foreign occupations of it. The seizures of Mongolia (inner Mongolia), Manchuria, Tibet and Sinkiang took place under the Mongol and Manchu (Qing also called Ching) dynasties. So was the story with Nepal, Burma, Laos, Siam, Annam, Korea and the Liu-chiu islands which acknowledged the over-lordship of China, and paid annual tributes to it. The earlier group of countries therefore, according to Chinese assessment form historic part of China and any political reassertion by any of them was taken a felony by the ruling house in China.
Tibet and Xinjiang had been over the ages dreaming of independence. The previous story of Xinjiang as integrated part of Central Asia has appeared in earlier portions of this journal, yet its fate during rainy days of China under later portion of the Manchu rule needs explanation. The European nations in their run for riches of Asia, vied with each other in apportioning out the Asiatic region. Britain took over India and Burma, France overran Indo-China and the Dutch swarmed Indonesia. Russia, as mentioned earlier had moved to its eastern portion in Siberia along the Pacific and broke the Ural barrier in the south towards Turkistan. This push towards the East, urged USA to try its luck too and it opted for China and Japan. America was in search for new markets and both China and Japan, were meeting its Pacific trade. This made others also attentive to Chinese markets, though Europeans since over a century were present in the Chinese seas, with regular naval presence; the Portugese at Macao, the Dutch in Formosa, the British with a halting station at Canton, later the Germans at Kiaochow and Russia in Port Arthur. The Chinese government (Manchu) looked down upon their presence and frightened their investments through punitive taxation and restrictive laws. China tempted the world first for its vast consumer market, and secondly for its classic export in silk much in demand in the West besides jade, lacquer, rhubarb, tea, chinaware, pottery and in return to purchase foreign items to balance their trade. American fur and British India grown opium were two major items the traders urged China to purchase. Chinese obstinacy united the foreign powers including Japan now westernized in technology to force China open itself up to the outside world. China reluctantly agreed to allow its Canton port under stiff terms to the West with emphatic denial to opium import. This brought war with Britain, resulting in humiliating negotiations of 1842 under which Britain took over Hong Kong and China, under a treaty (Nanking 1842), was forced to open its ports to foreign goods for sale in the Chinese markets. American and French forced similar terms on China. American Hay doctrine, named after one of its secretaries of state John Hay, opened Chinese trade to all Western nations and its stake holders thus bypassed the Chinese sovereign authority in its own land.
Treaty of Nanking was a rude shock to the Chinese public, exposing the Manchu improbity to the nation. Traders, farmers and laymen soon felt the brunt of it, which coupled with the famines of fifties, brought a public rising called Tai Ping rebellion in 1852 by a mystic leader Hung Hsiu Chuan at Hunan, taking over Nanking, serving as his headquarter till 1864, but failed to move over Peking for lack of organizational skill, yet the rising was a landmark in national awakening. The Manchus confronted with dilemmas all around first by foreign powers’ unequal trade treaties, second infrastructural build up at exorbitant foreign loans and finally the country drifting into zones of European influences. The public dismayed over waning authority of the state was getting panicky. Externally it lost Burma to England, Indo-China to France and Ili to Russia and by the close of the nineteenth century it looked as if China was divided amongst foreign powers including Japan. Coupled with political and economic entanglements, the Christian missionaries of various orders descended upon China and opened conversion campaigns.
This all led to another political turmoil, this time pro-government and foreign malediction. The movement called I-ho chuon (righteous and harmonious fists) nicknamed “Boxer” targeted the “foreign devils” and received support from the royalty. Its outburst in 1900 first fell on the missionaries, followed by every Western around. The foreign powers organized an international force to curb the movement, imposing heavy indemnity of war on the government and stationing foreign garrisons in northern China. Both America and the British followed by Germans reevaluated the political integrity of China, which again of Russia dread avoided its territorial division.
The later part of the nineteenth century brought for China many more concerns. On the death of Emperor Hsien Heng in 1861, one of his concubines Tzu Tsi, took over the administration as heir apparent to the minor king Kwang Hsu and ruled through selected eunuchs for around half a century till 1908. Under Western and Japanese direction a modernization plan for China was initiated. Education received first priority and lower and high level institutions were brewed up. Political reforms introduced parliamentary form of government and a constitution (1908) was drafted reposing most powers in the emperor. It required introduction of legal reforms, establishment of police system, state organized census, budget and a council of ministers, assemblies for provinces, and a parliament at the Centre. The citizens were promised freedom of speech, association and ownership rights on the properties owned by them.
The provincial assemblies were elected in 1909. The central legislature through a pause was required to be formalized by 1917. This brought general resentment forcing the new emperor to call it by 1913 and liberalizing the constitution by vesting power in the elected members. The resistance on the part of the emperor brought third revolution in 1911, bringing an end to the monarchy (Emperor Xuantong Pui) and proclamation of the republican form of government.
Early part of the twentieth century found China terminating its centuries’ old institution of monarchy. People’s sovereignty, a foreign component, was an idea absolutely a strange phenomenon to its public. Its operation and practicability was far above an ordinary Chinese vision, though a large number of Chinese students by now had been educated abroad and had seen its operation. The process of modernization was catching up with the youth concurrent with resentment for Western hegemony in their land. Japanese inroads bore severest cut of all. The loss of Shantung to Japan (Versailles Treaty 1919) and later Manchuria in 1931, had gruesomely injured the national pride of China.
Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen (L 1866-1925) an American educated (Honolulo) Christian convert medical graduate, made a bold political venture in 1911 by establishing a presidential form of republican government himself becoming the head of the state. His urges and support pushed him into Russian camp versus the Western capitalistic output, both then active in China. The party Kuomintang (Kwo-min-tang or Gwo-min-dang) the Chinese nationalist peoples party received tacit training and orientation from the communist party of Russia under a versatile Russian diplomat Michael Bordin. Dr. Sun envisioned a three stage growth of the post-Manchu state (i) a military base (ii) with party training followed by (iii) constitutional evolution.
It was an uphill task. Early part of the twentieth century brought many catastrophic events in human history. The World War-I, followed by the communist revolution in Russia, changed the world political scenario. China felt maximum brunt of them as politically it was in shambles.
The military part of the state organization, as envisaged by Sun-Yat-Sen fell to the lot of Chiang Kai-shek with establishment of a military academy at Whampoa (Huangpu) near Canton, and that of the party (Kuomintang) training, which under the Russian influence turned communist went to Mao-Tse-Tung. Both men emerged since dawn poles asunder.
Chiang, educated abroad in the West, was pro-west while Mao formed part of the peasantry – the backbone of the Chinese society, remained bucolic. Sun-Yat-Sen death in 1925, brought final divide between Mao and Chiang, both groomed in foreign ideologies, faced by lurking Japanese and Soviet invasions, plunged into a long drawn civil war. Mao somehow through his organizational skill and roots in peasantry ousted his rival ultimately in 1949 from the mainland. The latter retreated to Taiwan under the American cover.
The story of new China starts in September, 1949. Mao-Tse-Tung (L 1893-1976), a political realist, with no formal education, learned about mankind from the toils and trials of the man he lived with. He was not a visionary philosopher looking to solutions in postulations. His application of communism in China, essentially remained indigenous though he applied Stalinistic scare therapy for approaching his gains. How far was Mao, Sunite, is a subject for speculation, yet he proceeded in his planning much on the lines he noted in mentor Dr. Sun. What Confucius held for ancient China, Sun talked of it for new China. Mao picked on peasants as his tools of work and fixed the whole of China with them; he similarly used the same tool for the party programme. Unlike Russia he opened the party portals to all, workers, peasants, bourgeois, landlords and landless public. China rather distributed land amongst landless tillers of soil, instead depriving an individual for the group (collective farming) as in Soviet land, Mao pushed the party towards agrarian reform. The army, peasant based, was used to provide civic amenities like irrigational facilities, flood control, river taming and land reclamation. The Kuomintang party under Chiang Ki-shek derived its authority from landed gentry and bureaucracy, both scrambling for narrow gains.
The Communist Party founded in 1921 rather looked for cooperation from all economic stakeholders in the country growth and no way emphasized the stratification of the society or that of a single party rule leaving space for others also. Mao, along with Marx’s gospels was well-read on European pragmatism, like Napoleon, Rousseau, Gladstone and George Washington besides John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spenser, Adam Smith, Darwin etc. The Western intelligentsia carried dogmatic bourgeoisie thought a dismal lack of understanding for the peasant and common man’s problems. He therefore zealously picked up on Marx’s slogan for the toiling labour. His labour was the peasant. Industrial labour was missing both in Russia and China. Peasantry was less visible in Marx eras in Europe therefore less talked about. At the commencement of his “New Democracy” in 1940 Mao had seen the Soviet workability across the border and the capitalist drive in and outside China. In his philosophy of administration he allowed both systems to operate and to see a synthesis emerging among them. He did not advocate confiscation of the capitalist property, assets and production, rather distributed available land amongst the actual tillers and opened banks, trade and industrial outlets to them. Along with that he emphasized the role of culture in the human society and Chinese cultural awakening forms an essential part of his push, against borrowed extraneous outfit.
The reshaping process, as would appear in China, like every other country in the world was enclosed to the heartland, less mailing it to the borderlands and Sinkiang for that purpose least fitting was one of the most restive regions of China always hatching plans of independence. The process of “unequal treaties” particularly those of Russia, in terms of Ili Treaty of 1851, the Treaty of Peking 1860 in its Taching protocol and the Treaty of Tarbagati in 1864, had extended the Russian hold both on the northern (Siberia) and the northwestern area of China towards the Sinkiang region. A large portion of land (350,000 sq. miles) besides extracting unfair commercial and diplomatic privileges had weakened China’s hold in the Sinkiang surroundings. The Muslim population of China, besides Sinkiang, shared three other pockets of Muslim concentration wherefrom it had been airing its dissenting voices. Two amongst them Gansu (Kansu) and Qinghai (Shansi) were (are) located adjacent to Sinkiang in the east. Gansu is located in the northwest of China sandwitched between Sinkiang and inner Mongolia, while Qinghai forms western hemisphere of China interposed between Sinkiang, Gansu and Sichuan. The third heavily populated Muslim area of China was Yunnan in southern China bordering Burma, Laos and Vietnam. The Chinese rule somehow failed to evince confidence amongst its Muslim public who with the passage of time renegaded into “captured minorities.” The minorities on their part demonstrated their resentments termed as defiance under Chinese law. Records about earlier attempts are dismally missing but those relating from eighteenth century and onward were heard and reported around in the neighbouring Islamic societies with a pinch of salt. Often quoted Muslim risings of Kansu come from 1761, 1781, 1785 and 1873 years wherein the lead figure of the eighteenth century surround the name of Ma Ming-Hsin. Ma Hua-Lang was reported leading the 1862 and 1895 struggles in Shansi and Yunnan noted Ma Te-Hsin during 1855-1873 protests. Kashghar remained a breeding ground of major troubles for China all along. While mass Han migration to Shansi, Kansi and Yunnan had swept insurgency, Sinkiang treated same way under China’s savoury slogan Xibu da Kaifa (develop the west) remains stubborn. The history of local defiance runs into centuries and over thousands of major and minor episodes when put together. The Chinese response always remained coercive.
China’s hold over its north-western region generally termed Sinkiang or Xinjiang (new area or new border) since 1638 AD, officially proclaimed in 1884, remained always a loose knot in China’s administration. Tumultuous events prior to 1911, of mainland China mostly remained un-noticed in the remote area. Xinjiang though raised to provincial status in 1884, was lined up under the Manchu-Qing ideology, Han officialdom and Zongtang army order. Over and above it turned another Siberia like that of the Soviets for China’s long sentenced prisoners and homesteaders.
Captured community has no story. Their account comes either from onlookers, casual visitors or extreme recorders. Sacred account is state oriented mainly projecting their wish story. Native narration runs into profane matter. Most working material is based on pieced together data from outsiders’ connotation of the events. Many such works have been demonstrated in bibliographic attempts of the area writers. Native accounts mostly diaspora appeared first in neighbouring lands and later in asylumic Turkey.
Sharq-e-Turkistan Tarikhi (History of Eastern Turkistan) by Amin Bughra appeared first in 1940 at Kabul and later in Ankara 1998. Two important works on the Uighur activists come from Alma Ata during the later half of the nineteenth century shedding light on their radicalism one called Uighur Khalqining Munawar Farzandi (An eminent Uighur son) by Rozibaigov printed in 1987 and the other that of Kabirov in Russian on the Uighurs in Kazakistan (Istoria Uighurov Sovestskovo Kazakstana) published in 1968. Abdurrahim Otkar’s work in 2 volumes called the Awakend Land (Oyghanghan Zamin) appeared within the area in 1994. Dogu Turkistanin Sesi (The Voice of Eastern Turkistan) a journal published by the émigrés from Istanbul with protracted issues had been partly reported in No. 55 of this journal. An excellent chapter-wise source material survey till date may be seen in Frederick Starr’s edited work on Xinjiang, detailed in the References and Notes of this article.
Coincidently when political turmoil ruled China prior to 1911 revolution, Xinjiang remained in hands of competent bureaucrats. The Soviet ingredients were brewing in their own gravy across the western border. The Bolshevik ideologues dissecting the issue inside Russia and the Pan-Turkic striders were busy with their missions in Soviet Turkistan. Thus trouble remained away from Xinjiang during the revolution period. The Chinese form (Confucian) of schools were getting currency with the locals attracting attention of the begs and wealthy individuals. The Sinocization process however was making its impact despite local resistance along with Han migration to Ili area on its vacation by the Soviets in 1881 and to the northern parts of Xinjiang. This forced Uighur retreat to the Tarim and the Lop Nor areas. To Tao Ma, the early twentieth century provincial governor it was a flawy trend with retaliatory consequences for the administration and recommended reconsideration of it in his official memorandum to the royal authority (Qing). It was too distant a cry from Xinjiang. The succeeding governor was equally considerate who came during the revolution period. He was Yang Zengxin (r 1912-28) a Yunnani of Chinese civil service since 1899, placed in Xinjiang in 1908 and serving in the law department as commissioner at Urumchi. Yang took advantage of simmering troubles amongst revolutionary elements, this time mostly Han Chinese who constituted defence and other law enforcing agencies, then monopolizing local poppy cultivation and its lucrative opium production. Annoyed with central restrictive regulations, they instituted a local mutiny against the royal court of (Peking) Beijing. They were spontaneously joined by the natives. King loyalists including the state governor fled the province. Yang Zengxin jumped to fill in this administrative vacuum and he received endorsement from the new shaky set up (Yuan Shikai) at the capital in 1912. The period coincides incidentally with the end of monarchy in China. It took about two years for Yang to consolidate his authority in Xinjiang, using every foul and fetid method in advancing his personal sorcery in the area. His friendly gestures rallied gradually around him rival groups even early settlers in Xinjiang, the Dungans, the secret service men (Gelao hui), Uighur reactionaries and Han, Yunnani and the Hunani population of the area. He offered them tempting positions in his administration gradually posted them at outlandish posts, thus breaking their base links and finally weeded them out his way.
Yang Zengxin both reigned and ruled in Xinjiang. He turned over turbulent northwestern region of China into a peace land skillfully fishing in its ethnic division using his iron fist against opposition, dewy lip service to the central Chinese authorities and peaceful gestures towards the British and Soviet neighbours. The latter he supplied with needed raw cotton and animal products much required across the border during Bolshevik troubles. Much of the cash earned this way he turned to his own account. Modern knowledge and its advocacy in the area also surged under him. Medical studies plus science and humanities, initiated earlier with Russian assistance also found place in the new curriculum and new schools in Urumchi and around.
British interest lay in containing Bolshevik propaganda within the Soviet land without trickling down to Xinjiang or southeastward in India and both P.T Etherton and C.P Skrine, the British consul generals in Kashghar 1918-24 worked zealously towards this goal. This card Yang played cautiously by ensuring the British to help them ward off the Soviet ideological publications in his land. Pan –Turkish, Islamic literature and their movement posed another problem for him, which he remained abetting by one or other means, mostly bribing their leaders. The Sino-Soviet agreement of 1924, brought a new turn in the area. Under this agreement China allowed Soviet consulates on reciprocal basis on both sides of the border. Prominent were the Soviet consulate at Urumchi and that of China at Tashkand. Tashkand’s remained inactive but the Urumchi mission was purpose-oriented: it enlarged trade links with Xinjiang and also operated its ideological programme much to the chagrin of British and China. Yang found in it a booming trade with the Soviet land to fill also his personal coffers. This further got momentum after Turksib (Soviet) rail road made transaction easier with its link to Frunze, closest to Ili and Aksu areas later in 1930.
Newness and modernity concepts operating across border under Soviet influence through radical intellectuals of western Turkistan brought their impact on the eastern portion of Turkistan as well in the early part of the twentieth century. Kulja (Yining) in modern Ili Kazak Autonomous prefecture and Kashghar (Kaxgar) now prefecture of Kashi took the initiative in this direction. Two brothers Hussain and Bahauddin Musa Beg founded in 1855 a modern school in the outskirt of Kashghar at Artush. The Tatar intellectual Gaspirali (Ismail Bey) model from the Soviet land and of the Turkish schooling in Istanbul became models of the new system. Teachers were hired from the Uighur youngsters educated abroad and new recruits were sent out to Turkey, St. Petersburg and Kazan. A teachers’ training school in Kashghar followed by a polytechnic institute, printing house and a tannery were opened in Kulja. Masud Sabiri returned with a medicine degree at about this time (1915) from Turkey and established more or less a dozen schools both ordinary and pharmaceutical nature in Kulja.
Turfan (Turpan) now a prefecture, know for its historicity and also unique for its geographic location as lowest, driest and hottest area of the region, also received attention of a reformist Mahsud Muhiti (L 1885-1933) who opened in 1913 a Turkish language school on modern lines at Astana known for its ancient tombs and monasteries.
The new learning helped the Uighur society many ways: it provided professional skill and brought administrative know how amongst the youth, with political awakening sparked by similar institutions across western border in Soviet land. Inqilabi Uighur Itifaqi (Uighur Revolutionary Union) in 1921 was a formation of a movement aiming at communising Xinjiang and establishing rapprochement with Moscow. The Chinese authorities at Nanjing, the seat of the Kuomintang revolutionary government, Xinjiang administration, the Uighur landed gentry and Turkish émigrés from Soviet Russia eyed this development.
Yang Zengxin long stay and paramountcy did not carry any legitimacy or trust of the turmoiled Chinese government, under its three presidents Sun Yat Sun, Yuan Shih Kai and Li Yuang Hong, the last deputing Fan Yaonan to take over the governorship of Xinjiang from Yang. Fan’s was a difficult job, and he managed it by arranging the murder of governor and proclaiming himself as his successor on the ground of the authority he carried with him in July 1928. This did not go well with Yang’s assistant Jin Shuren, who in a counter coup executed Fan, becoming a self styled governor, a zero option position approved by Chiang Kai-shek, the rival nationalist leader (Kuomintang) who had resurged into political prominence by taking over Peking in 1928, followed by that of Nanking.
Jin lacked both tact and audacity of Yang. His repressive handling of the local public, mistreatment of their Khans (Wangs), particularly that of Hami (Kumul) brought a general resentment against him. His total reliance on Han officials without taking cognition of men and events around him, ignited a general rising in the area, which alarmed the Soviets also in the neighbourhood. Nanking moved Soviets to allow Japan driven Chinese troops then locked in Soviet Siberia to enter Zungaria for onward service in Urumchi. A combination of the non-Muslim forces, the Han group, the Russian émigrés to Xinjiang and the new army of the Kuomintang forced Jin in April 1933 to abandon authority and escape towards the Soviet border.
The new man to look after Xinjiang affairs was Sheng Shicai, a trainee of the Chinese military academy at Guangdong in southernmost province of China and later in Japan. Sheng belonged to the loyal group of Chiang and had commanded his northern expedition. As tupan (border defence commissioner) and governor of Xinjiang, he knew the area and had served as Jin’s lieutenant in 1933 and fought both Dungan and Uighur rebels in Urumchi. It was during this campaign that Mahsud Muhiti and Abdul Khaliq, an Uighur poet, fell to his hands, both were executed and Muhiti’s head was displayed at Astana, the locality of his prided modern school. This heralded his awe stories around.
Sheng ruled over Xinjiang more or less a decade (1933-1944) in a period of worst political turmoil in the world. Xinjiang was a generational hot-bed for the Chinese administration. Sheng entered the arena in fire. The trouble was brewing in the eastern part of the province in Hami when its hereditary chief or Khan (Wan) Shah Maqsud died in 1930. The Khanate was abolished by Jin. The land was merged to the provincial land and distributed amongst Han émigrés. It was followed by another attempt of snatchery. This time by a Chinese army officer in Hami coercing an Uighur family to marry their young girl with him. The bride-groom was killed and the public joined the bride house in honour defence. Frantic mob then pillaged new Chinese landowners in Hami area, retaliatory governmental action provoked general rising, joined by Turfani, Hami and Tarim basin population. Muslims of all ethnic groups Dungan, Kazak and Kirghiz joined this Uighur inspired rebellion. Khoja Niaz Hami chieftain under late Shah Maqsud, Ma Zhongyang, the Dungan leader from Kansu, Mahmud Muhiti, brother of Mahsud Mahiti etc. spearheaded the movement. The Soviets, Japanese and the English fished also in the troubled water. Sheng however with support from the Soviets, who were equally annoyed with similar local challenges across the border, won over the Uighur leadership under Niaz and Muhiti, yet Dungans he failed to prevail upon and Zungaria went to defy him. The Dungans, under another leader (Ma Zhancang) were also in arm in the Tarim region and joined with Temur Beg, the Uighur leader of Kucha, took over Kashghar. Another rebellion under Mohammad Amin Bughra, a religious man, set an Islamic Ameerate at Khotan in 1932 extending its hold over Yarkand and next year to Kashghar in concert with Sabit Damolla (Damullah) an internationally known figure. Kashghar turned into a major metropolis of the freedom fighters, in unity against China, yet diversity on a united leader.
Sabit Damullah, rich in knowledge and human understanding, emerged as head of the state in Kashghar called Eastern Turkistan Republic (Sharqe Turkistan Jamhuriati). Damullah, most accounts agree avoided giving the religious colour to the new establishment, but in no way derogatory to the Islamic canons. This was most expedient approach as it could disturb rapprochement in overt friendly British and Soviet neighbouring administrations compared to malevolent Kuomintang.
Sabit Damullah, went for co-opting Khoja Niaz as president of the new republic. The constitution envisaged for the republic also talked of liberal ideas of human advancement and shunning approaches parochial or inimical to other ethnic or national groups. The earlier coin however minted in copper under his administration termed the republic as Uighuristan, though later both the revised coin and the state sponsored passports substituted it with Sharq-e-Turkistan.
Life is a process of incessant struggle and the success an unplumbed story in it. Fate must have laughed at Damullah’s venture. Poor resources, crippled armoury, precocious man power, hostility around, caused dismally short duration to his establishment. Sheng looked to the Soviet support against this upsurge and the Soviets under Stalin would miss no opportunity to see fundamentalist nipped in the bud anywhere in or around Central Asia. In early 1934, the Soviets both land and air action destroyed the “revisionist” outposts on the immediate eastern border of Turkistan. Both Kuomintang (Zhang Peiyuan) at Ili and the Dungan (Ma Zhongying) at Urumchi were driven out of their locations. Ma retreated towards Kashghar and fell upon newly established Eastern Turkistan Republic forcing them to run for shelter to Yangihissar. A large number of the republic supporters, mostly Uighur were killed at Dungan’s hand. By April 1934 Ma was supreme in Kashghar. This was a short-lived episode as Sheng in June moved in action against the Dungans. Ma ran for help to the Soviet land, or was less heard afterwards. Khwaja Niaz and Mahmud Mahiti left Sabit Damullah and joined Sheng who offered them coveted administrative positions under him in Xinjiang.
Russia made maximum gain under the circumstances in face of an all round chaos in China. Its strategic interest lay in installing British threat from the south (Kashmir, Chitral, Afghanistan) and that of Japan from the north and northeast where the latter had occupied inner Mongolia and Manchuria. The Soviets took over outer Mongolia and firmed up their hold in Xinjiang in alliance with Sheng. The latter devoid of central support, looked both to Britain and Russia for protection against native insurgency. The Soviets were forthcoming as they consummately needed food, oil and cotton from eastern Turkistan to meet their public and industrial needs in western part of Turkistan. Sheng volunteered its Dushanzi oil fields in Zungaria, with vegetable and corn offers from Kashghar. The Soviets in return offered military aid both in men and equipment, along with civil, technical and ideological assistance to beef up their hold in the area. Under Soviet nationalist policy, all ethnic groups, fourteen in number, found recognition, Uighurs prominently, compared to traditional five races policy of China. All ethnic groups inhabiting Xinjiang in the Chinese count were bracketed under the Turkic group. Besides Uighur, termed Chanhui (turbaned Muslims) by the Chinese, the other groups now got their official ethnic identification: they were Kazak, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Tatars, Tajik, Manchu, Sibe, Solon, Han, Hui, Dungans, Mongols and Russians who had migrated from Soviet Turkistan to escape their oppression. Sheng also encouraged communist teaching along with native languages programming in schools and cultural shows, and taking clue from Stalin purges fell heavily upon his opponents executing a large number of locals, one report placing them around 100,000. The list included some very prominent individuals like Khoja Niaz etc.
World War II was a crucial event in human history which remained governing the later half of the twentieth century. Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, same year earlier in April, Russia entered into a peace treaty with Japan, threat from the British presence in India also dimmed. The war front at Leningrad forced Russia to withdraw men and arms from Xinjiang, leaving Shen high and dry at Urumchi. Coincidently the Americans joined the war in December 1941 and picked upon Chiang Ki-shek as ally in southeast Asia. This alerted Sheng and he instantly changed side for Kuomintang government massacring every remnant of the communist ilk in his land including Mao Zemin, brother to Mao Tse Tung who had been deputed by the Yunnan administration to assist Sheng in communising endeavours. The Americans opened a consulate in Urumchi in 1942 and the Kuomintang authorities were encouraged to assert their authority in Xinjiang. Sheng once again resorted to Soviet favour: it failed and Sheng was recalled from Xinjiang in September 1944, replaced by Wu Zhongxin.
With Kuomintang in power, the old colonial Chinese policy went operative. It urged Han populating the west, displacing locals from their settlements and substituting them by Chinese migrants over every open, grassy and cultivable land. The Kuomintang also planned provision of a 100,000 standing army for the area and imposed restrictions on its trade and transit relations across the Chinese border. Non-Han public was declared as original Chinese. Nationalistic colour and status earlier introduced was withdrawn. Further to this, the economic strangulation, failure of the local currency, inflation, trade and market loss to locals in the Soviet land brought a political furore. China nor its western allies heeded much to local worries in the face of the world war compulsions.
This time trouble started in the northern area, called the “Three Districts Revolution” or Kazak-Mongol land of Tarbagati, Altai and Ili districts. The first two were in the extreme north of Urumchi while the last was placed on the west of it. Urumchi itself too formed southeastern part of the Zungarian Basin. The trouble started in Yining, also called Ili or Kulja, predominantly inhabited by Kazaks. The movement “Sinkiang Turkic Peoples’ Liberation Committee” was led by a learned Uzbek Ali Khan Tora assisted by an Uighur Ahmad Jan Qasmi calling his administration Eastern Turkistan Republic. Another Kazak adventurer Osman Batur from Altai opened the crusade in the north against the Chinese through formation of his men under denomination of Ili National Army. The whole north (Kazak, Uzbek, Kirghiz and Uighur) was up against Kuomintang men locked in Urumchi and below in the south. The Soviet overt and latent help to hedge its bet, all accounts agree was noticeable. Saifuddin Azizov, an Uighur communist protégé across the border was noticeable in their deliberations. This was a crucial regional issue for the then world powers. The Allies wanted the Soviets to assert itself fully in the war front in the west. The Soviets saw immediate territorial gain in Europe noticing German collapse in war. They also read Japanese threat in the region and denounced its five years Non-Aggression Pact with Japan: entered the Yalta Agreement (February 1945) followed by friendship and alliance treaty with China (Chiang Ki-shek) in August 1945. This all brought a salutary effect on the Xinjiang affairs. The freedom fighters feeling change of wind preferred table talks with Kuomintang authorities who swiftly replaced their inactive area governor Wu Zhongxin by a mastermind executive Zhang Zhidong, negotiating working relations with the defiant group in Xinjaing. Zhang had in his negotiation group, three prominent local leaders, Amin Bugra, Masud Sabri and Isa Yussuf Alaptagin.
Xinjiang, even under Sheng and particularly at his dismissal was practically lost to China. Yet it failed to come one voice in its mission. Local warlords had their own agendas and it made matter easy for Zhang Zhidong who noticing individualism in local interest and disunity in approach form, recommended the formation of a loose theocratic political entity under the Eastern Turkistan Republic.
The new republic initially on proclamation in January 1945 had announced its objectives, sometimes called “Kulja Declaration” in denouncing the Nanking hegemony, a democratic base for promoting all nationalities welfare, a multinational army, republic controlled bank, currency and taxation, communication infrastructure, industry, educational and health services with freedom of thought and expression and friendly overtures towards all its neighboures to gear up regional trade and commercial contacts.
The religious colour which initially propel such movements, gradually dropped after Zhidong volunteered to work with. A coalition colour was added to the new set up by July 1946, representing Kuomintang, Ili, Altai, Kashghar and Khotan groups. Most military work was looked after by the Nanking men along with the Ili group which had its own national army as well the currency. The Ili national army had earlier established its mark by flexing its muscles with Kuomintang forces threatening Urumchi in 1945 and occupying strategic towns of Aksu and Tashkurgan in the southern region. Zhidong arrival and tact averted the worst leading to the peace treaty of 1946. The armistice treaty provided for a coalition government wherein Xinjiang received a provincial status. Zhidong became chairman of the council of ministers with Ahmad Jan Qasmi vice-chairman. Other local members of the council were Burhan Shahidi, Amin Bughra, Isa Yussuf Alaptagin and Masud Sabiri. A provincial assembly was also instituted to provide a democratic look to the system. Osman Batur however did not join the coalition and remained wavering in between Kuomintang and Soviet sides. Zhidong efforts in economic field and nationality policy received little support with the Kuomintang planners. The Uighur too felt dissatisfied with loss to their justified share in the new government, resulting in rebellion in Urumchi in 1947, which urged the Kuomintang authorities to recall Zhidong and replace him with Masud Sabiri. The change could not satisfy the public, as Sabiri appeared a show boy looking to Kuomintang guidance every step and Han forces managing affairs. Worst came when Osman Batur challenged Urumchi authority. Alaptagin and Bughra also disassociated with Urumchi administration. Sabiri dissolved the assembly called for district councils, to be followed by new provincial elected assembly. The new set up further empowered the Han influence in the area, as under district management actual power rested with the assistant chief who, under policy urge, was a Han, the chief accordingly an Uighur. Commercial entrepreneur of the province declined as its trade with Russia and China dwindled fastly resulting in anarchic inflation. Masud Sabiri in Kuomintang assessment could not cope with the required expectation; hence dice was cast in favour of a Soviet grown and educated Aksu Tatar Burhan Shahidi in early 1949. Shahidi carried charisma of a leader in him and set the ball rolling for economic growth and the area trade. Law and order situation also moved to normalcy, yet a new and more formidable character appeared on the scene. Mao Tse Tung speeded towards Xinjiang and its history ought to go his way from September 1949 onwards.

References and Notes

 1.     Benson, Linda. The Illi Rebellion: The Muslim Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944-1949. Armonk, 1990.
2.     Cannon, T: and Jenkins, A: (Editors). The Geography of Contemporary China. The Impact of Deng Xiaoping’s Decade. Rutledge, 1990.
3.     Chaurasia, R. S. History of China. Atlantic: New Delhi, 2004.
4.     Chen, Jack. The Sinkiang Story. Macmillan, 1977.
5.     Dudoignan, S. A: Hisao, K: Yasushi, K. (Editors): Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World. Transmission, Transformation, Communication. Routledge, 2006.
6.     Forbes, D.W. Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Xinjiang 1911-1949. Cambridge, 1986.
7.     Gladney, C. Druc. Dislocating China. Reflections on Muslims, Minorities and other Subaltern Subjects. Hurst: London, 2004.
8.     Gillette, Maris Boyd. Between Mecca and Beijing. Stanford, 2000.
9.     Information China. 3 Volumes. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Pergmon Press, 1989.
10.   Iredale, R. Bilik: N. Guo, F (Editors). China’s Minorities on the Move: Selected Case Studies. Sharp: Armonk, 2003.
11.   Kaplan, F. M: Sobin, J. M: Andors, S. Encyclopedia of China Today. Macmillan, 1979.
12.   Macinnis, D. E. Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China. Macmillan, 1972.
13.   Mackerras, Colin. The New Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China. Cambridge, 2001.
14.   Shi, Qin. China. Beijing, 1993.
15.   Starr, S. Frederick (Editor). Xinjang. China’s Muslim Borderland. Sharpe: Armonk, 2004.             
16.   Website Consultations:             

• http:/en.wikipedia.org/first East-Turkistan Republic
• http:/www.oxus-com/sovinxj.html
• http:/www.rulers-org/chinprov-html
• http:/print.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0862026/html
• http:/hrw.org/campaigns/china-98/sj-xnjz.html
• http:/www.geocities.com/capitalHill/6807/UIGHUR.html?200517
• http:/www.uglychinese.org/uygur.html.
• http:/www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/041.html