Was it an Accident? Part 3

Re: Readings in Wang Lixiong, 《我的西域，你的东土》 (My West Land, Your East Country).

Ahmetjan Kasimi, 1914-1949

This past summer, I had two separate posts on the fates of Ahmetjan Kasimi (阿合买提江• 哈斯木), Ishaq Beg (伊斯哈克伯 • 穆努诺夫), Abdulkerim Abbas (阿不都克里木•  阿巴素夫), Delilhan Sugurbayev (达列尔夫 • 苏克尔巴也夫), and Luo Zhi (罗志). These men were the East Turkestan Republic’s top leaders. When they were on their way to Beijing in August 1949 to meet Mao Zedong and talk over the future of Xinjiang, their plane allegedly crashed and everyone on board the flight died– or so the Chinese government says (as well as the former Soviet Union). Conspiracy theories abound– many people predict Stalin and Mao had them wiped out– and most scholars even tend to list both sides to the story, even though there is no real evidence either way. You can read my previous two blog posts on these men and how their deaths are portrayed in official Chinese sources, “Was it an Accident?” and “Was it an Accident? [2]“.

Wang Lixiong’s informant/interviewee 穆合塔尔 [Mu-he-ta-er] doesn’t buy the Chinese government’s story at all. We flip to the section called “三区领导人是怎么死的” (How the Leaders of the East Turkestan Republic Died) to get an idea of what he thinks happened, and why. The following translation is rough, and if there are any gaping errors I’d appreciate it if someone would point them out (the following comes from pages 288-289 in the printed version; or 178-179 of the PDF file I linked to in my last post):

Albdulkerim Abbas (??? - 1949)

[Page 288] Ma-he-ta-er: Since the so-called “liberation” [of Xinjiang] in 1949, at that time the Chinese government invited leaders from the Three Districts Revolution [i.e. the East Turkestan Republic] to the Central Committee to discuss the founding of the PRC, however they maneuvered through the Soviet Union. At that time the leaders of the Three Districts Revolution should have traveled directly from Xinjiang to Beijing by plane, they certainly could have done that. Song Meiling [Madame Chiang Kai-shek] travelled to Xinjiang in 1942 from Chongqing to Lanzhou, and from Lanzhou to Urumqi. But why did the Three Districts Revolution’s leaders need to first go to Almaty [in Kazakhstan], and then go through the Soviet Union to Inner Mongolia to get to Beijing? This doesn’t make any sense. The Three Districts Revolution’s leaders didn’t approve of [Xinjiang/the ETR] entering China, so before they went to Beijing, they first had to consult with the Soviet Union, consult with Stalin. If they had agreed to unify the country with China when they went to discuss the founding of the PRC [in Beijing], then they wouldn’t have had to travel through the Soviet Union to get to Beijing.

Isa Yusuf Alptekin, Abdulkerim Abbas, and Ahmetjan Kasimi

After they left, on August 22, 1949, their plane crashed and everyone on board died. Ninety-five percent of people [in Xinjiang] doubt that this was the case. One of Ahmetjan’s former secretaries wrote an essay in Kazakhstan in 1992, in a Uyghur language paper called “New Life” after Kazakhstan’s independence, and said that when the Three Districts Revolution’s leaders went to Moscow, Stalin told them that they must accept the Chinese Communists [rule] and give up the position of the Three Districts Revolution. At that time they said they would not do this. When the Three Districts Revolution broke out, when the peasants revolted, the first to fire a gun was a Uyghur man named Ai-ni [艾尼], he was a regimental commander, not very cultured, he only knew how to fight. Some people suggested he go to Beijing for the talks, because he started the Three Districts Revolution, the gun that [started the Revolution] was his. He said that if he went to Beijing, he wouldn’t travel by plane, he’d rather ride a donkey, he wouldn’t travel to the Soviet Union, and he wouldn’t fly on their plane.

Wang Lixiong: He doubted the Soviet Union’s plane?

Ma-he-ta-er: Yes

Wang Lixiong: A peasant’s wisdom

Ma-he-ta-er: Because he thought: hmm, why do we need to go to the Soviet Union first? All of those five people [who left for Beijing], they all died.

Wang Lixiong: And all five of those people were the most important leaders, right?

Ishaq Beg (??? - 1949)

Ma-he-ta-er: The most important for the discussions [in Beijing] was Ahmetjan. Ahmetjan was pro-Soviet. Another was Abbas, he was a relative of Saypidin, he was pro-CCP. He married two Han Chinese [Page 289] wives who were also Communist Party members. Another was Ishaq Beg, he was the highest ranking military leader; the other two people, I forget who they were.

Wang Lixiong: Their rankings were all higher than Saypidin’s?

Delilhan Sugurbayev (??? - 1949)

Ma-he-ta-er: Yes, all of them. Saypidin was only an office cadre then. The Three Districts did not use ministers then, the [system] was just like Japan’s. In 1992 Ahmetjan’s secretary said that, after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, he found some confidential materials that he purchased, the materials said that the people from the  Tree Districts travelling to Moscow didn’t accept Stalin’s opinion [for Xinjiang to join the PRC], so [Stalin] had them put into burlap sacks and killed. They were already dead in Moscow, the plane crash didn’t happen, it was just made up. Afterwards in 1998 or 2000, someone killed Ahmetjan’s secretary. After Ahmetjan died, the CCP invited Saypidin to Beijing because Saypidin and Abbas were both pro-CCP. The Three Districts  Revolution had three different groups, one was pro-Soviet, the other was pro-CCP, but the pro-Soviets were the biggest, the pro-CCP group was just Abbas and he wasn’t very high up [in the leadership].

Ma-he-ta-er’s opinion diverges drastically from what the Chinese government says. Unfortunately, it is mostly hearsay. Many people have claimed to have seen the “Soviet documents,” but they’ve never been reproduced or distributed– and no western scholar (have any Uyghur scholars?) has been able to cite them. Ma’s claim still makes for an interesting story, but another section highlights that Ma should not always be taken for a reliable source. Two pages later, the discussion on the “Peaceful Liberation” of Xinjiang continues, but Ma makes several errors in his retelling of the events of 1949:

Xinjiang’s “Peaceful Liberation”

Mu-he-ta-er:  At that time Ahmetjan had hopes for the future of the revolution, [his] thoughts changed, [and] he began to not get along well with Stalin, so he was assassinated. In 1949 when he went to the Soviet Union to consult with Stalin, his stance was that [the ETR/Xinjiang] should be independent, and he spoke of Stalin once promising to help Xinjiang’s independence, but later, all of the guns and ammunition  the Soviet Union had given to [the ETR], they wanted paid back for: one rifle equals three sheep, one automatic machine gun equals two cows. Ahmetjan asked them [the Soviet Union, or Stalin] if that’s what they had said [when the Soviet Union gave them the guns]. [Ahmetjan said] we lost so many people’s lives, and for what? To play a game with you [the Soviet Union]? So he was killed.

Saypidin Azizi

When Saypidin went to Beijing [as a replacement for Ahmetjan once it was announced their plane had crashed], we still don’t know what secret agreements he and the Soviet government had between the CCP, even now these things haven’t been revealed. Saypidin might have written these things down. At the time [of the PLA’s invasion], the GMD’s Commander in Xinjiang Tao Zhiyue said he did not want to surrender [to the CCP] because he had 10,000 soldiers in his command. Tao said he wanted to keep Xinjiang apart from China. But Burhan Shahidi wrote a telegram [advocating] peaceful unification, and welcomed the CCP’s rule. When Tao Zhiyue saw the telegram, [he thought] that the Provincial Chairman had made his position known earlier than he, if he [Tao] didn’t make his position known then what? The history [of this period] is not very clear, but the day after Burhan wrote the telegram on the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, Tao Zhiyue also wrote [his letter surrendering]. If Burhan hadn’t wrote that letter, then Tao Zhiyue wouldn’t have wrote his either. He [Tao] was so loyal to the GMD government, because he really worshipped Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek], but he had no way [to not surrender].[1]Burhan wasn’t Uyghur, he was Tartar, and he wasn’t born in Xinjiang. In Russia, there is a Tartarstan. Kazan [the capital of  Tartarstan] has a Little Aksu, it’s a small village. Burhan was born there. When he was little, Burhan’s father told him that his hometown was in a far away Aksu. In 1948 he wrote an essay called “My Hometown,” about Aksu Village, and even said he was Uyghur. Burhan had close relations with the Soviet Union. It was like this, the leaders of the Three Districts Revolution had mostly died, and Saypidin accepted the CCP’s position [on Xinjiang], so Burhan also accepted it, as did Tao Zhiyue, and thus the Xinjiang problem was “peacefully resolved.”

Burhan Shahidi with Mao Zedong in June 1950

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[1] In the footnote, the author admits Ma-he-ta-er has his dates backwards here. Tao Zhiyue surrendered before Burhan Shahidi did.