Ili Rebellion
Ili Rebellion East Turkestan National Revolution Three Districts Revolution | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Republic of China |
East Turkestan Republic Supported by: Soviet Union | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Units involved | |||||||
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
Total casualties unknown, many Chinese civilians killed in Ili alongside a number of Chinese soldiers | Total casualties unknown, heavy losses among Russian settlers fighting for the Second East Turkestan Republic, many civilian and military losses taken |
The Ili Rebellion (simplified Chinese: 伊宁事变; traditional Chinese: 伊寧事變; pinyin: Yīníng Shìbiàn[3]) was a separatist uprising by the Turkic peoples of northern Xinjiang (East Turkestan) against the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China, from 1944 to 1946. The Ili Rebellion began with the East Turkestan National Revolution, known in Chinese historiography as the Three Districts Revolution (simplified Chinese: 三区革命; traditional Chinese: 三區革命; pinyin: Sān-qū Gémìng; Uyghur: ئۈچ ۋىلايەت ئىنقىلابى), which saw the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic. The leadership was dominated by Uyghurs but the population consisted mostly of Kazakhs.[4]
Background
The Soviet Union installed
In 1942, Sheng Shicai switched his allegiance to the Kuomintang after major Soviet defeats at the hands of the Germans in the war, and all Soviet Red Army military forces and technicians residing in the province were expelled.
Fighting
Kulja revolt
Many of the Turkic peoples of the Ili region of Xinjiang had close cultural, political and economic ties with Russia and later the Soviet Union. Many of them were educated in the Soviet Union, and a community of Russian settlers lived in the region. As a result, many of the Turkic rebels fled to the Soviet Union and obtained Soviet assistance in creating the Sinkiang Turkic People's Liberation Committee (STPNLC) in 1943 to revolt against the Kuomintang rule in Ili.[8] The pro-Soviet Uyghur who later became leader of the revolt, Ehmetjan Qasim, was Soviet-educated and described as "Stalin's man" and as a "Communist-minded progressive".[9]
The rebels assaulted
The Soviet Army assisted the Ili Uyghur army in capturing several towns and airbases. Non-communist Russians like the White Russians and Russian settlers who had lived in Xinjiang since the 19th century also helped the Soviet Red Army and the Ili Army rebels and suffered heavy losses.[11] Many leaders of the East Turkestan Republic were Soviet agents or affiliated with the Soviet Union, like Abdulkerim Abbas, Ishaq Beg, Saifuddin Azizi and the White Russians F. Leskin, A. Polinov and Glimkin.[12] When the rebels ran into trouble taking the vital Airambek airfield from the Chinese, Soviet military forces directly intervened and helped to mortar Airambek and to reduce the Chinese stronghold.[13]
Massacres
The rebels engaged in massacres of Han Chinese civilians, especially targeting people affiliated with the Kuomintang and Sheng Shicai.[14] In the "Kulja Declaration" issued on 5 January 1945, the East Turkestan Republic proclaimed that it would "sweep away the Han Chinese" and threatened to extract a "blood debt" from the Han. The ETR also declared that it would seek to establish especially-cordial ties with the Soviets.[15] The ETR later de-emphasized the anti-Han tone in its official proclamations after it had finished massacring most of the Han civilians in its area.[16] The massacres against the Han occurred mostly in 1944–1945, with the KMT responding in kind by torturing, killing, and mutilating ETR prisoners.[13] In territory controlled by the ETR like Kulja, various repressive measures were carried out, such as establishing a Soviet-style secret police organization, barring Han from owning weapons, and making Russian and Turkic languages official to replace Chinese.[17]
While the non-Muslim Tungusic peoples like the Xibe played a large role in helping the rebels by supplying them with crops, the local Muslim Tungan (Hui) in Ili gave an insignificant and negligible contribution to the rebels or did not assist them at all.[16]
Formation of Ili National Army
The Ili National Army (INA), which was established on 8 April 1945 as the military arm of the ETR, was led by the Kirghiz Ishaq Beg and the White Russians Polinov and Leskin. All three were pro-Soviet and had a history of military service with Soviet-associated forces.[18] The Soviets supplied the INA with ammunition and Russian-style uniforms, and Soviet troops directly helped INA troops fight against the Chinese forces.[19] The INA uniforms and flags all had insignia with the Russian acronym for "East Turkestan Republic", ВТР in Cyrillic (Восточная Туркестанская Республика). The Soviets admitted their support of the rebels decades later by transmitting a radio broadcast in Uyghur from Radio Tashkent into Xinjiang on 14 May 1967 that boasted that the Soviets had trained and armed the ETR forces against China.[20] Thousands of Soviet troops assisted Turkic rebels in fighting the Chinese army.[21] In October 1945, suspected Soviet planes attacked Chinese positions.[22]
As the Soviet Red Army and Turkic Uyghur Ili Army advanced with Soviet air support against poorly-prepared Chinese forces, they almost succeeded in reaching Ürümqi, but the Chinese military threw up rings of defences around the area and sent Chinese Muslim cavalry to halt the advance of the Turkic Muslim rebels. Thousands of Chinese Muslim troops under General Ma Bufang and his nephew General Ma Chengxiang poured into Xinjiang from Qinghai to combat the Soviet and Turkic Uyghur forces.
Much of the Ili army and equipment originated from the Soviet Union. The Ili army pushed Chinese forces across the plains and reached Kashgar, Kaghlik and Yarkand. However, the Uyghurs in the oases gave no support to the Soviet-backed rebels and, as a result, the Chinese Army expelled them. The Ili rebels then butchered livestock belonging to Kirghiz and Tajiks of Xinjiang.[23] The Soviet-backed insurgents destroyed Tajik and Kirghiz crops and moved aggressively against the Tajiks and Kirghiz of China.[24] The Chinese beat back the Soviet-supported rebellion in Sarikol from August 1945 to 46 by defeating the siege of the "tribesman" around Yarkand when they had risen up in rebellion in Nanchiang around Sarikol and by killing Red Army officers.[25]
The Chinese Muslim
1947 unrest
The unpopular Governor
Achmad (Ehmetjan Qasim) was strongly against Masud Sabri becoming governor.[37] Ehmetjan Qasim (Achmad-Jan), the Uyghur Ili leader, demanded that Sabri be sacked as governor as one of the conditions for his agreeing to visit Nanjing.[38] All races in the Ili region were forcibly conscripted into the Uyghur Ili army, except the Han. The Uyghurs and Soviets massacred ethnic Han living in Ili and drove them from the region.
Salar Muslim General Han Youwen, who served under Ma Bufang, commanded the Pau-an-dui (保安隊; pacification soldiers), composed of three 340-man battalions. They were composed of men of many groups, including Kazakhs, Mongols and White Russians serving the Chinese regime. He served with Osman Batur and his Kazakh forces in fighting the ETR Ili Uyghur and Soviet forces.[39] The acting Soviet consul at Chenghua, Dipshatoff, directed the Red Army in aiding ETR Ili forces against Osman's Kazakhs.[40] The ETR forces in the Ashan zone were attacked, defeated and killed by Osman's Kazakh forces during a Chinese-supported offensive in September 1947.[41] Osman's Kazakhs seized most of the towns in the Ashan zone from the ETR.[42]
Ma Chengxiang was the commander of the 5th Cavalry Unit, which was stationed in Xinjiang. Over 60,000 soldiers were in the Ili army according to Gen. Sung.[43] Ma Chengxiang, a Kuomintang Chinese Muslim general and the nephew of Ma Bufang, allegedly commanded his Chinese Muslim cavalry to massacre Uyghurs during an uprising in 1948 in Turfan.[44]
The Kuomintang
The
American telegrams reported that the Soviet secret police threatened to assassinate Muslim leaders from Ining and put pressure on them to flee to "inner China" via Tihwa (Ürümqi). White Russians grew fearful of Muslim mobs as they chanted, "We freed ourselves from the yellow men, now we must destroy the white."[51]
Battle of Baitag Bogd
After the Mongolian People's Republic became involved in a border dispute with the Republic of China, a Chinese Muslim Hui cavalry regiment was sent in response by the Chinese government to attack Mongol and Soviet positions. As commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Major General Han Youwen was sent by the Kuomintang military command to Beitashan with a company of troops to reinforce Ma Xizhen. They arrived approximately three months before the fighting broke out.[52] At Pei-ta-shan, General Han was in command of all the Muslim cavalry defending against Soviet and Mongol forces.[53] Han said to A. Doak Barnett, an American reporter, that he "believed the border should be about 40 miles to the north of the mountains".[2]
Chinese Muslim and Turkic Kazakh forces working for the Kuomintang fought Soviet Russian and Mongol troops. In June 1947 the Mongols and the Soviets launched an attack against the Kazakhs and drove them back to the Chinese side. However, fighting continued for another year, with 13 clashes taking place between 5 June 1947 and July 1948.[2] Elite Qinghai Chinese Muslim cavalry were sent by the Kuomintang to destroy the Mongols and the Russians in 1947.[54]
Salar Muslim General Han Youwen's 1st Division received at Beitashan Osman's forces after he retreated in battle. Qitai County had the headquarters of the Han Youwen's 1st Division of the 5th Army in 1946. The following year, during the Beitashan Incident, Ma Xizhen fought the Mongols.[55]
During the war against the Ili separatists, Han Youwen performed a prayer on the snow-covered ground after he had parked his car on the road after a defeat inflicted upon the Ili National Army.[56]
Political accession of Xinjiang to Chinese communist rule
The conflict ended with the arrival of the Chinese Communists in the region in 1949. On 19 August 1949,
On 3 September three other former ETR leaders, including Saifuddin Azizi, arrived in Beijing by train and agreed to join the People’s Republic of China, which was founded on 1 October. The deaths of the other former ETR leaders were not announced until December, after the Chinese Communists' People's Liberation Army (PLA) had control of northern Xinjiang and had reorganized the military forces of the Three Districts into the PLA.[61] Several former ETR commanders joined the PLA.
On 25 September, the Nationalist leaders in Dihua,
The only organized resistance the PLA encountered was from Osman Batur's Kazakh militia and from
American telegrams
Multiple telegrams were exchanged among the Chinese government, the Mongolians, the American government, the Uyghur Ili regime, and the Soviet Union and were preserved by American agents and sent to Washington, DC.[51]
Related events and people
The Soviet Union set up a similar puppet state in Pahlavi dynasty Iran in the form of the Azerbaijan People's Government and Republic of Mahabad[63] The Soviet Union used comparable methods and tactics in both Xinjiang and Iran when it established the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad and Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan.[64] The American Ambassador to the Soviet Union sent a telegram back to Washington, DC, in which he said that the situations in Iranian Azerbaijan and in Xinjiang were similar.[65]
According to her autobiography, Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China, Rebiya Kadeer's father served with pro-Soviet Uyghur rebels under the Second East Turkestan Republic in the Ili Rebellion (Three Province Rebellion) in 1944 to 1946, using Soviet assistance and aid to fight the Republic of China government under Chiang Kai-shek.[66] Kadeer and her family were close friends with White Russian exiles living in Xinjiang and Kadeer recalled that many Uyghurs thought Russian culture was "more advanced" than that of the Uyghurs and they "respected" the Russians a lot.[67]
There was a split in the East Turkestan Independence Movement between two branches, one of them pro-Soviet and supported by the Soviet Union and the other being anti-Soviet pan-Turkic and having members based in Turkey and western countries. The Pan-Turkist ones were the three Effendis, (ئۈچ ئەپەندى; Üch Äpändi) Aisa Alptekin, Memtimin Bughra, and Masud Sabri.[68][69] The Second East Turkestan Republic attacked them as Kuomintang "puppets".[70][71] Anti-Soviet sentiment was espoused by Isa, and pro-Soviet sentiment was espoused by Burhan. The Soviets were angered by Isa. Violence broke out between supporters of the Soviets and supporters of Turkey because of a film on the Russo Turkish wars in 1949 at Xinjiang College according to Abdurahim Amin in Dihua (Ürümqi).[47]
The Ili Rebellion is mentioned and praised in an Arabic Islamist pamphlet about China and the Soviet Union's Muslims, which was picked up and translated in 1960 into English in Tehran by American government agents. It was originally written by Mohammed Aziz Ismail and Mohammed Sa'id Ismail.[72]
See also
- Amur Military Flotilla
- Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
- Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang
- Soviet Central Asia
Further reading
- Ammentorp, Steen (2000–2009). "The Generals of WWII Generals from China Ma Chengxiang". Retrieved 31 October 2010.
- Brown, Jeremy; Pickowicz, Paul (2007). Dilemmas of victory the early years of the People's Republic of China. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02616-2. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
- Chen, Jack (1977). The Sinkiang story. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-524640-2. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
- Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (1982). Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, Volumes 4-5. King Abdulaziz University. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
- Jarman, Robert L., ed. (2001). China political reports 1911–1960, Volume 8. Archive Editions. ISBN 1852079304. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
- doi:10.3138/cjh.37.3.485. Archived from the original on 9 May 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2014. Alt URL Archived 1 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- Lin, Hsiao-ting (2007). "Nationalists, Muslim Warlords, and the "Great Northwestern Development" in Pre-Communist China" (PDF). China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly. 5 (1). Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program: 115–135. ISSN 1653-4212. Archived from the original(PDF) on 23 September 2010. Retrieved 3 May 2014.
- Preston, Paul; Partridge, Michael; Best, Antony (2000). British Documents on Foreign Affairs—reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print Far Eastern affairs, July–December 1946. Vol. 2 of British Documents on Foreign Affairs—reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print: From 1946 Through 1950. Asia 1946. University Publications of America. ISBN 1-55655-768-X. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
- Preston, Paul; Partridge, Michael; Best, Antony (2003). British Documents on Foreign Affairs--reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print French Indo-China, China, Japan, Korea and Siam, January 1949 – December 1949. Vol. 8 of British Documents on Foreign Affairs—reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print: From 1946 Through 1950. Asia 1946, British Documents on Foreign Affairs—reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print: From 1946 Through 1950. Asia 1946. University Publications of America. ISBN 155655768X. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
- Shipton, Eric; Perrin, Jim (1997). Eric Shipton The Six Mountain-Travel Books. The Mountaineers Books. ISBN 0-89886-539-5. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
- Potter, Philip (22 October 1945). "Red Troops Reported Aiding Sinkiang Rebels Fight China". The Sun (1837-1988) - Baltimore, Md. p. 2. Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- Wang, David D. (1999). Under the Soviet shadow the Yining Incident ethnic conflicts and international rivalry in Xinjiang, 1944–1949. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. ISBN 962-201-831-9. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
- Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES (22 October 1945). "Sinkiang Truce Follows Bombings Of Chinese in 'Far West' Revolt; Chungking General Negotiates With Moslem Kazakhs--Red-Star Planes Are Traced to Earlier Soviet Supply in Area". THE NEW YORK TIMES. p. 2.
- "New Republic". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 October 1949. p. 4.
References
Citations
- ^ Forbes (1986)
- ^ a b c Forbes (1986), p. 215
- ISBN 978-0-7546-7041-4.
- ^ Wang 2020, p. 265.
- ^ Lin 2007, p. 130.
- ISBN 978-0774859882.
- ^ "Between rhetoric and reality: nationalist China's Tibetan agenda during the second World War". www.thefreelibrary.com.
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 173
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 174
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 176
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 178
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 180
- ^ a b Forbes (1986), p. 181
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 179
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 183
- ^ a b Forbes (1986), p. 184
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 217
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 185
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 187
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 188
- ^ "Potter 1945, "Red Troops Reported Aiding Sinkiang Rebels Fight China" p. 2". Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- ^ a b Times, Wireless To the New York (22 October 1945). "Sinkiang Truce Follows Bombings Of Chinese in 'Far West' Revolt; Chungking General Negotiates With Moslem Kazakhs—Red-Star Planes Are Traced to Earlier Soviet Supply in Area" – via NYTimes.com.
- ISBN 978-0-89886-539-4.
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 204
- ^ a b Perkins (1947), p. 576
- ISBN 978-1-55655-768-2.
- ISBN 978-1-85207-930-7.
- ISBN 978-1-55655-768-2.
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 168
- ^ "The Sydney Morning Herald". news.google.com.
- ISBN 978-962-201-831-0.
- ^ "Biography of Lieutenant-General Ma Chengxiang - (马呈祥) (1913–1991), China". generals.dk.
- ISBN 978-0-674-02616-2.
- ^ Wang 2020, p. 251.
- ^ Perkins (1947), pp. 548–549
- ^ Perkins (1947), pp. 554, 556–567
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 557
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 580
- ^ Morrison (1949), p. 71
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 579
- ^ Perkins (1947), pp. 572–573
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 578
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 571
- ISBN 978-0-02-524640-9.
- ^ Forbes (1986), pp. 191, 217
- ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-674-02616-2.
- S2CID 145009760. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
- ^ Benson (1990), pp. 164–
- ^ Benson (1990), p. 74
- ^ a b Perkins (1947), p. 549
- ISBN 978-962-201-831-0.
- ^ Morrison (1949), p. 67
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 214
- ISBN 9787500411802.
- ^ Sinwen tienti. 1998.
- ^ (Chinese) "历史资料:新疆和平解放" Archived 7 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 November 2010.
- ^ 毛泽东主席致艾斯海提伊斯哈科夫电
- ISBN 978-1-62040-347-1.
- ^ Donald H. McMillen, Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949–1977 (Boulder, Colorado:Westview Press, 1979), p. 30
- ^ Opposition politique, nationalisme et Islam chez les Ouïghours du Xinjiang Rémi Castets
- ^ Forbes (1986), p. 225
- ^ Forbes (1986), pp. 177–
- ^ Forbes (1986), pp. 261–263
- ^ Perkins (1947), p. 550
- ^ Kadeer (2009), p. 9
- ^ Kadeer (2009), p. 13
- ^ Kamalov, Ablet (2010). Millward, James A.; Shinmen, Yasushi; Sugawara, Jun (eds.). Uyghur Memoir literature in Central Asia on Eastern Turkistan Republic (1944–49). Studies on Xinjiang Historical Sources in 17–20th Centuries. Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko. p. 260.
- ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
- ISBN 978-90-04-28809-6.
- ISBN 978-87-87062-62-6.
- ^ Ismail, Mohammed Sa'id, and Mohammed Aziz Ismail. Moslems in the Soviet Union and China. Translated by U.S. Government, Joint Publications Service. Tehran, Iran: Privately printed pamphlet, published as vol. 1, 1960 (Hejira 1380); translation printed in Washington: JPRS 3936, 19 September 1960.
Sources
- Benson, Linda (1990). The Ili Rebellion: the Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949. M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-87332-509-7.
- Forbes, Andrew D. W. (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-25514-7.
- Kadeer, Rebiya (2009). Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China. Kales Press. ISBN 978-0-9798456-1-1.
- Morrison, Ian (1949). "Some notes on the Kazaks of Sinkiang". .
- Perkins, E. Ralph, ed. (1947). "Unsuccessful attempts to resolve political problems in Sinkiang; extent of Soviet aid and encouragement to rebel groups in Sinkiang; border incident at Peitashan" (PDF). The Far East: China. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947. Vol. VII. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 546–587. Documents 450–495.
- Wang, Ke (15 March 2020). The East Turkestan Independence Movement, 1930s to 1940s. Translated by Fletcher, Carissa. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN 978-962-996-769-7.