Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province, shared more than 3,000kilometres of border with the former Soviet Union, but is far from China’s political and economic center. Its special geographical position, coupled with ethnical kun, religious and cultural relations, put Xinjiang under Soviet influence and control for many years. The underpinning of the everlasting Soviet influence lay in the extensive and profound social base built up by Soviet nationals living there.
Unlike those living scattered among Han Chinese in Northeast China and Shanghai, Xinjiang-resident Soviet nationals were huge in number and lived in compact communities. State Council documents refer to some 14,000-16,000 China-resident Soviet nationals in 1954, with 80,000 in Xinjiang and the rest I other areas.1We have not found accurate figures for Soviet nationals in Xinjiang in following years, but based on estimates, there about 120,000 by the end of the 1950s.2 These Soviet nationals were ethnically Uighurs or Kazaks and were supported by a powerful association, far stronger than in other parts of China.
In order to relieve an acute labour shortage after the Second World War, the USSR unilaterally decided in April 1954 to recall its nationals from China. The Chinese government agreed and gave its cooperation. Between 1954 and the end of 1958, over 99,000 Soviet nationals were repatriated to the Soviet Union from Xinjiang. In Ili prefecture, where they were concentrated and more numerous, 97,870 Soviet nationals were repatriated from 1954 to 1963, together with 86,977 Chinese nationals who were their relatives. Thus the total number was over 180,000.3 In the wake of the Ili-Tacheng Incident of 1962,4 the Chinese side, seeking to eradicate Soviet influence, began a thorough check-up of Soviet nationals. By 1966 only 201 Soviet nationals remained in Xinjiang. The remainder were not only small in number but also were monitored.5 The social foundation of the Soviet Union in Xinjiang was outwardly destroyed.
Cadres of Soviet nationality and associations of Soviet nationals in Xinjina, together with those who returned to the USSR, were important in enhancing and maintaining Soviet influence in Xinjiang between 1949 and the mid-1960s. This paper will investigate their history.
I. Soviet Nationality Cadres in Xinjiang
Soviet nationals holding leading Party and government positions in various areas of Xinjiang enjoyed dual Chinese and the Soviet national group there. In the early days of the People’s Republic of China(PRC), the USSR hoped its nationals in China would be able to take up posts in the new Xinjiang government. AS early as the end of 1949, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs cabled its consul in Dihua (now Urumqi) ,saying that the Soviet consulates should not oppose any recommendations of any Soviet citizens as candidates of office in the new Xinjiang government. However, in order to veil their sinister intentions, A.A. Gromyko hinted to the Soviet Consulates that it would be better for local Chinese authorities in Xinjiang to raise the question of appointing Soviet citizens to posts in their central government. By that time the number of Soviet citizens serving as leading cadres in the provincial government and the provincial organs of Xingjiang had already reached 25or 26.6
The new power establishment in Xinjiang was strained by an acute shortage of cadres. Ethnic minority cadres trained by the Party committees at various levels and those transferred from the army and the hinterland generally had a lower ideological and cultural level and a poor understanding of the Party’s policies, while those with Soviet citizenship, while those with S ovate citizenship had specialized knowledge and held posts in the Party, government and army establishments.7The Chinese government hoped Soviet nationality cadres in Xinjiang, especially the leaders, would continue to work in china, and meanwhile, given China’s image of independence, suggested they abandon their Soviet nationality. Given its relations with its new ally, the Soviet side took a cooperative attitude. They agreed the cadres with Soviet citizenship in Xinjiang could choose their nationality for themselves, and gave a list of these people to the Chinese government. Further, t he Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union doted a decision in February 1950 to call off the Soviet nationality for 15 Soviet nationals taking up leading posts in the provincial government of Xinjing.8 But the Soviets never altered their original intention basically; the Soviet Consulates hence did not cooperate when Dihua and other places tried, taking advantage of population census, to thoroughly investigate Soviet nationals serving as cadres in provincial and municipal organizations. Lack of close cooperation between the two sides led to the failure of the investigation.9
In the early 1950s, some of leading cadres with Soviet citizenship and holders of Soviet nationality papers in Xinjiang Autonomous Region gave up Soviet nationality. But most of them still thought the Soviet Union was better than China, and that being a Soviet citizen was more progressive and honorable than being a Chinese one, reluctant to abandon their Soviet nationality. The case was particularly true in Ili prefecture. According to a 1959-survey, in the nine counties and cities under direct jurisdiction of Ill prefecture there were a total Of 4,056 ethnic minority cadres, of whom 825 were Soviet nationals, 928 had kin among the Soviet nationals in Xinjiang and 287 had kin in the Soviet Union. Added up, these three categories of cadres numbered 2,140,accounting for 52% of the total. In the organizations of the autonomous prefecture there were a total of 710 ethnic min forty cadres, of whom 105 declared their status of Soviets nationals, 89 had kinship with the Soviet nationals in Xinjiang and 35 had kin-ship with people in the Soviet Union. Added up, these three categories of cadres were Soviet nationals of cadres num-ship with people in the Soviet Union. Added up, these three categories of cadres num-bered239, making up 33% of the total. In addition, 44 of the 49 Tatar cadres were Soviet nationals or had kinship with the Soviet nationals’ the figures were 75 and 89 respectively for the Uzbek cadres, and 93 and 210 respectively for Hue cadres. Although Ili government repatriated the cad rest who had declared their.10
In 1960 focused offers were made throughout Xinjiang to persuade Party and government cadres with Soviet citizenship to give it up. Generally speaking, more ordinary people, and fewer cadres, turned over their Soviet passports and identity certificates; those forced to do so were more than those who did so voluntarily. Of the certificates; those forced to do so were more than those who did so voluntarily. Of the certificates turned over, more were illegal and less genuine. Many ethnic cades chose to remain silent rather than rurning over soviet passports or illegal documents, of asking to go to the Soviet Union.11
Checks on the political history of those working in the three key governmental agencies-public security, procurator ate and people’s courts-had always been strict. However, according to a 1962-survey, of the 8 ethnic minority cadres in the People’s Procuratorate of Ili prefecture, 3 were Soviet nationals.80% of the ethnic minority cadres in the Public Security Bureau of Yining city were relatives of Soviets and some of them held Soviet national credentials. In Yining, relatives of Soviet nationals or holding illegal Soviet credentials were concentrated in cultural and educational circles and schools. For example, 80% of the more than 300 ethnic minority primary school teachers had Soviet national credentials in one form of another; 49of 156 teachers in the four ethnic minority middle schools held illegal papers or were related to Soviet nationals. The situation was roughly the same in other counties and cities.12
Data on 180,000 Soviet nationals repatriated to the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1963 and their Chinese4 relatives, show that some 7,512 held posts in the Party, government and army organs, inter alia, 36 held posts at or higher than the rank of director general of a provincial government department, 316 held posts in the army, including the Deputy Chief of Staff of Xinjiang Military Area with the rank of major general and the chief of Staff of Ili Military Subarea.13A large contingent of ordinary and leading cadres with Soviet citizenship held Positions in Xinjiang, a province of the sovereign state of China. Some were even entrenched in important political, military, Publicity or educational posts; further, most of them revered the USSR and were unclear about which country, China or the Soviet Union, was their motherland an important destabilizing factor in this area. More significantly, since these cadres were mostly ethnic minority people, the problem of Soviet nationals became caught up with the China’s troublesome ethnic issues. When a handful of them became national secessionists and received sympathy and support from the Soviet Consulates,14 the negative impact was exacerbated. Indeed it was the who proved the hard core of illegal Soviet activities in Xinjiang.
After 1960, the Soviet Consulates ceased assisting these cadres to change Soviet assisting these cadres to change Soviet citizenship and tried their utmost to prevent these people from giving up their posts in the Chinese Party and governmental organizations.15 The switch reflected a change in Soviet policy: they hoped “Soviet” cadres would stay in the Party, government and army organs in China, for these links would help perpetuate the Soviet influence in China. When such a large number of “Soviet” cadres with Soviet citizenship in Xinjiang aspired for the Soviet Union, enormous influence could be exerted on the masses of various ethnic origins. For example, on 29 May 1962 more than 50 “Soviet” teachers in Yining city led over 500ethnic minority students in a riot against the People’s Commission and the Party Committee of Ili prefecture. They were the most violent and aggressive mobs in the incident.
On 15 August, the People’s Committee of the XUAR, having putting down the incident, ordered all Xinjiang people to distinguish between Chinese and foreigners, tell right from wrong and strengthen their sense of motherland. With an eye to sowing discord, some cadres read the order and said, “The Constitution provides for free movement out of China for people with dependents abroad. All provinces except Xinjiang have carried out this provision.” The also said that the Chinese government “does not allow foreigners living in China to leave the country.80% of the Uighurs in Xinjiang are Soviet citizens, but they cannot get permission to go to the Soviet Union.” Some even stated that “Many cadres spread rumours that China was at war with the Soviet Union to create tension. Core members of “East Turkestan” and, with Soviet protection and support, engaged in national separatist activities echoing the potential national splitting forces within Xinjiang.16 Obviously, delays in solving the problem of Soviet cadres seriously compromised the integrity of the contingent of ethnic minority cadres in Xinjiang; the presence of so many Soviet cadres for so ling threatened the unity of nationalities and led to social instability.
Following the Ili-Tacheng Incident, this negative influence of Soviet cadres impelled the government to step up efforts to perused them to abandon Soviet nationality, hoping to gain stricter control and supervision over them by so doing.17 However, their separatist tendencies and yearning for the Soviet Union could not be eradicated at a stroke in this way .The renewed resentment was especially deep for those whose Soviet nationality was not recognized by the Chinese. As Sino-Soviet relations steadily worsened, these people turned out not only to be mouthpieces and reserve forces of the USSR, but also, in Ili prefecture in particular, the main hindrance to the national defence in Xinjiang.
II．Role of the Association of Soviet Nationals in Xinjiang
The Soviets attached great importance to associations of Soviet nationals in Xinjiang, tightly controlling them through the Soviet Consulates.18Enterprises of these associations were economically powerful, not only greatly influencing the local people’s economic lives, but also playing a vital role in Soviet economic infiltration of the Xinjiang. The years following the founding of the PRC saw the numbers of such firms increase. According to incomplete statistical data, the assets of such firms in Ili, Tacheng and Ashan amounted to 2.7 million yuan by 1958. These associations also had also quite large commerce and trade organizations. In the early days of the PRC their trading organizations had more than 100 employees in Ili alone; they also set up commercial offices in major cities like Urumqi, Lanzhou and Shanghai. These enterprises enjoud privileges of directly ordering goods from and trade volumes, almost monopolizing the market in Yining city. In addition, the associations set up the joint industrial and commercial cooperatives, which had the right to operate in other parts of China.19
The Association of Soviet Nationals in Ili with the largest membership and its branch associations went far beyond their terms of reference, accepting judicial cases that would have been dandled only by organs of state power. According to statistics, in the three years 1953-55,the Association of soviet Nationals in Ili accepted 724 cases of all sorts and tried 63 of them.20 Moreover, in the 1950s the Soviet associations in Xinjian made use of all means to give wide publicity to the superiority of the socialist system in the USSR and try to convince the Chinese in the border areas of the favorable conditions there,21 playing a vital role in reinforcing soviet ideological and cultural control over the ethnic minority people in Xinjiang.
Between the late 1950s and early 1960s. Xinjiang’s Soviet national associations expanded their influence further. Supported by the soviet consulates, they stepped up their unofficial activities, acting on the consulates, behalf, accepting applications for Soviet nationality, and helping process and repatriate returning Soviet nationals. On the orders of the Soviet consulates the General Association in Ili and Soviet national associations of in Altay, Huocheng, Zhao su and Yining city busied themselves with flagrant and planned propaganda among Chinese citizens. Officers of these associations took advantage of their work to distribute forged cerficates of overseas Soviet nationals to Chinese citizens, some of the heads of the associations concentrated on illegal distribution of the forged certificates. Some of their leaders were secessionists and went in for factional activities; some of their leaders were secessionists and went in for factional activities. A few local national secessionists working in the public security organs indiscriminately provided references for those who claimed to have lost the photos on their soviet national certificates, enabling them to go to the USSR on new passports issued by the Soviet consulates. Especially after the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in their illegal recruitment of Soviet nationals. The secretary of the Association of Soviet Nationals in Yining city went so far as to say, “these passports should be distributed to Chinese citizens who want to become Soviet…” “with the rations so small here, there must be many people wishing to go to the Soviet Union,” “we should send Muslims to the Soviet Union.”22
The Soviet national associations also served as ears and eyes of Soviet consulates in Xinjiang, passing intelligence and data that kept the Soviet authorities up to date with China’s actual conditions and policies. The associations often took advantage of work to go down to the grass-roots units to do social surveys and collect intelligence. The last chairman of Ili’s General Association, using his social connections and bribery, stole secret Chinese documents. From October 1961 to May 1962 the associations in Ili prefecture stole a total of 46 copies of classified papers, including 22 top secret papers. After the Ili-Tacheng Incident, the Ili government seized a box of confidential papers stolen by the Chairman of the Association of Soviet Nationals in Yinying city.23
Soviet national associations in Xinjiang ceased to be purely social mass organizations. Together with the Soviet consulates they became political wedges driven into Xinjiang. In May and June 1962the Chinese closed the General Association in Ili and its seven branches in Tacheng, Zhaosu, Usu, Tekes, Nilka, Bortala and Altay,24 removing the wedges. But their influences in Xinjiang would remain for a ling time to come.
III. The Role of Returned Soviet Nationals
The official act on the part of Soviet government to repatriats Soviet nationals from Xinjiang actually created a channel of social contacts between these people and their kin and relatives remaining in Xinjiang. AsSino-Soviet relations worsened, the countless ties and increasing contacts between the returned Soviet nationals and Xinjiang ethnic groups became a new potential factor contributing to the social and psychological unrest and the heating of secessionist sentiments. The returned Soviet nationals,especially those who returned in the period from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, played a vital role in the foment of the 1962 exodus of people in the border areas of Xinjiang and the inciting by the Soviet side of ethnic minority people in Xinjiang to turn their back against their motherland in the wake of the Ili-tacheng Incident. Of course, many of these people baseb their status on illegal certificates and they were not Soviet nationals in the true sense. The returned Soviet nationals, it could be said, degenerated into a very useful tool of the Soviet Union in its efforts to counter China’s anti-Soviet policy as the split widened.
Firstly, returned Soviet nationals and people fleeing Xinjiang’s border became cat’s paws, used by the Soviet government to persuade, through mail and rumour, CHINESE CITIZENS TO LEAVE FOR THE soviet Union. Winked at by the Soviet local governments, from 1961 the stepped up contacts and communication with their relatives and friends in China, spreading such misleading and provocative rumours as , “The Soviet government has set up a Commission of Overseas Soviet Citizens exclusively responsible for accepting Soviet nationals with Soviet passports or unsealed certificates, and dependents of Soviet Union residents. The scheduled time is the summer of 1963, so you must get prepared at once”; “Mao and Khrushchev have reached an agreement that the Kazaks still remaining in China will all move to the Soviet Union next April”; “The two governments have made arrangements that China will send 70,000 people to the Soviet Union. The Soviet side will receive all the relatives, even the most remote, of Soviet nationals now in China and issue citizenship papers to them. The reason they aren’t accepted for the time being is that not all with Soviet national papers have returned. The relatives will be accepted as soon as the latter are all back”; and “The Soviet government instructs that we should flee there in groups and in a planned and organized way and not go there individually, the Soviet side does not like that.” Meanwhile, they sent in postal parcels of food and daily necessities rationed in China such as rice, flour, soap and cloth to show the Soviet Union’s better living conditions, and incite continued flight of the Chinese people in the border areas. Some even wrote to their relatives who were then cadres responsible for checking the exodus through persuasion and enticed them to go over, thus undermining the Chinese efforts in this regard.25
Statistics show a steep rise in letters and postal parcels sent from the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1962. For example, in Tacheng prefecture, letters from the Soviet side rose from some 5,000 during the first season in 1961 to over 6,600during the first season in 1962, an increase of 31%. In Urumqi, there were 40,324 setters from the Soviet Union in the whole year of 1961with a monthly average of 3,360, but the number of letters from January to May 1962 reached 51,978 with 10,395 per month, an average monthly increase of 209%. In the case of postal parcels, in Tacheng prefecture, the number rose from 340 during the first season in 1961 rose from 340 during the first season in 1962with an increase of 85.2%; in Urumqi, the number was 675 in the whole year of 1961with 139per month while there were 851 from January to May 1962 with 170per month, an average monthly growth rate of 22.3%. With respect to printed matter, in Tacheng prefecture the number rose sharply from 462 pieces during the first season in 1961 to 923 during the first season in 1962with an increase of 99.8%; in Urumpi, the figures for the same period were respectively 550,704 and 28%.26
Letters and postal parcels kept growing in number from the end of 1962 to 1963:70, 311 letters received from the Soviet Union in the counties (and the county-level city) directly under Ili Autonomous Prefecture, Tacheng prefecture and Bortala Autonomous Prefecture in the period November 1962 to March 1963. In Ili prefecture, the greatest monthly growth rate was 50.87% and the average monthly increase was about 20%; sometimes the number exceeded 1,000 a day. All these letters were designed to galvanize the border people into fleeing China for the Soviet Union or to advertise the Soviet nationals, producing great pernicious influence over the masses . Postal parcels from the Soviet side were also copious at the time, containing foods and articles of daily use.27
Parcels mailed by returned Soviet nationals and Chinese deserters were very tempting and had great social repercussions in Xinjiang. Tatar, Xibe, Kirgiz and Han-received parcels. Besides the ordinary peoply, many government functionaries received these parcels. All of the 28 units under the organs of Ili prefecture and the major organs of Yining city such as the Party Committee, the People’s committee and the Ili MilitarySubarea had workers and staff members receiving parcels from the Soviet side. Anumber of ethnic minority leaders were notably frequent recipients of such parcels. In grass-roots factories and mines postal packets from the Soviet side were also commonplace. A pernicious influence prevailed in these places. Since the recipients frequently publicized Soviet material civilization among their kith and kin and the local population, the broad ethnic minority masses, including Chinese citizens who had nothing to do with the Soviet Union, and did their best to establish links with the Soviet nationals and get parcels, or prepared to flee the country. Instigated and tempted by returned Soviet nationals and Chinese deserters flights to the Soviet Union occurred in Xinjiang now and then in the wake of the Ili-Tacheng Incident, including group flights:80 groups consisting of 772people in 1963,11 groups consisting of 121 people in 1964 and 10 groups consisting of 54 people in 1965 , and flights on an individual basis:130 people in 1963,61 in 1964and 60in 1965. Only after China tightened security measures along the border areas did successful attempts to flee the counter decrease.28
The Soviet broadcasting station in Kazakstan voluntarily stopped Uighur language programs beamed to Xinjiang in 1950, but resumed them in the first half of 1961. It constantly broadcast recorded talks and interviews with returmed Soviet nationals and Chinese deserters praising the Soviet Union, with the timing and frequencies close to Chinese deserters praising the Soviet Union, with the timing and frequencies close to Chinese Uighur stations and hence easy for Xinjiang listeners to receive.29 More seriously, in 1963 and 1964, some local nationalists who had fled to the Soviet side tried in the broadcast to sow dissension among nationalities and stir up separatist feelings. For example, some people advertised in the broadcast the so-called“revolutionary spirit of the three zones,” saying, “Before the Revolution the people in the three zones[of ili, Tacheng and Ashan],unable to bear the oppression of the Guomindang, rose up in rebellion and overthrew their regime. But after Liberation revolutionary heroes were investigated in various movements and were forced to state how many Han people they had killed. These heroes were thus condemned to death under the pratext of blood debts owed by them.” “The ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, especially the Uighurs and Kazaks, are ruthlessly oppressed and have no freedom whatsoever. A Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) was set up, it is true, but those in power are all Han, who trample the Uighurs underfoot. Unable to stand the rule of the Hans many Uighur and Kazak nationalities have fled to the Soviet Union.” Whit these words they tried to fan up the hatred of all the ethnic minorities against the Hans. They even said undisguisedly, “All Muslims are of Turkish descent.” The impact of such separatist propaganda was more lasting and harmful than material temptation. For instance, hearing these speeches some border people ground their teeth and shouted hysterically, “I’ll wipe out the Hans!”Rumours were spread that “hundreds of thousands of people coming to the USSR from Xinjiang had submitted a joint appeal to Khrushchev to found East Turkestan in Xinjiang”; “they asked Khrushchev to mastermind and establish a republic for them. All Xinjiang’s Uighurs and the Kazaks are willing to take up arms.” Some of the religious elite claimed “The independence of Xinjiang and Tibet has been agreed to by the Soviet Union and passed by the United Nations. The Soviet government announced that an Uighur exclusive zone would be established to the east of Tashkent. Important people from China will not be asleep, they will make sacrifice for the independence of Xinjiang.” Some simply expressed the view that the Sino-Soviet split “is very good and of great benefit to us. China indulges in empty talk while the soviet Union does practical things. Give Xinjiang a push and the people of Xinjiang will rise up in rebellion!”An intense national secessionist atmosphere was created.30
Secondly, the soviet demand to send back Chinese deserters and returned Soviet Nationals, and their sneaking back, added a new destabilizing dimension in Xinjiang. In 1963, the USSR proposed sending back 500 Chinese deserters from Xinjiang, but this was turned down. In the view of the Chinese government, at a time when the Soviet side was deploying five divisions along the Sino-Soviet border, placing great pressure on China, the proposal was nothing short of a scheme to organize armed home-going battalions to subvert local governments in Xinjiang with powerful military backing. In fact, the Soviet proposal aimed to eliminate a burden and shirk responsibility for the exodus from Xinjiang because some people could not adapt themselves to local life after reaching the Soviet Union and simply could not settle down. As for reinforcing the border, it should be seen as a precaution to head off any exodus of border Chinese into Soviet territory. However, as the split widened, the signs strengthened that the Soviets sought to instigate these people to slip back across the border illegally; local governments in Xinjiang correspondingly raised their vigilance against the Soviet plan to send back “home-going legions” to incite further exodus of border inhabitants.31
On 19 June 1964 the soviet embassy in China verbally in formed the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that due to explanations by the Soviet side the people now voluntarily asking for repatriation had doubled and the Soviet government was prepared to send them back to China by China. Then inJuly and August the same year, the Soviet side tentatively and successively sent back ten Chinese deserters and returned Soviet nationals along the border areas of Altay, Tacheng, Bortala and the counties directly under the jurisdiction of Ili prefecture. After investigation, it was clear that most of these people had orders to gather intelligence and incite defection. The Soviets, evidence shows, did a lot to appease, bribe and train deserters form Xinjiang,32 obviously a preparation to counterweigh China’s anti-Soviet orientation.
Deserters and Soviet nationals slipping back into Xinjiang and areas with compact minority communities seriously threatened social stability in Chinese border areas. Therefore, in Tacheng, a major exodus zone in 1962, the local government took “preventing returns” as a top political task that must be resolutely accomplished jointly by the Party, the government, the army and the people with all their might. The border area was divided into many sectors, with a given unit responsible for each; all units would coordinate with each other and work closely. Returnees were to be captured with no exception, no matter how many the Soviet side were to unleash. China strongly denounced the USSR for this scheme to send back elements charged with special tasks in an attempt to provoke further subversive activities. If the Soviets organized a large scale armed return of deserters in the name of sending a part of them, the border defence stations, state farms and ranches, and militia companies should first let them proceed some 15-20 km inside and surround them, them report to higher authorities for instruction.33
In May 1965, the Soviet side uneashed 32desertersfromXinjiang slipping back and was rebuked by the Chinese government. Then in June the Soviets told the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it would send back 700 unmarried men. On instructions from the Central Committee of the CPC Xinjiang expressed its willingness to accept them but at the same time condemned the Soviet conspiracy to separate the 700 men, as well as an inventory of their property for scrutiny before accepting them. In this way the Chinese side maintained sharp vigilance against the Soviet proposals through diplomatic channels to send back the deserters. From 1964 to the end of 1965, a total of 47 illicit arrivals were caught in Xinjiang, consisting 8 of Soviet origin and 39 who’d fled to the Soviet side in side in 1962.34
The constant flow of Chinese deserters and returned Soviet nationals back to Xinjiang was of great concern to the Chinese, who believed that militarily the Soviet Union was now fully prepared and intent on mischief. They believed also that the Soviet socialist republics in Central Asia identified China as the enemy and had inflamed anti-Han nationalistic sentiments. Ideologicas groundwork had been laid for a revisionist war adventure to be waged against China when the conditions were ripe. The threat to Xinjiang therefore came mainly from the Soviet revisionism. This understanding led to changes in China’s policies, Struggles along the border amounted to the most acute and intense aspect of its overall strategy against revisionism. From the middle of the 1960s the provincial government of Xinjiang actually began to “give prominence to war preparation and anti-revisionism and go all out combating Soviet modern revisionism and helping Soviet modern revisionism and heoping the Soviet people rise up in revolution.”35
Given the intrinsic relationship between the Soviet nationals and Soviet influence in Xinjiang it can be shown that the former, with their numerous relatives of Chinese nationality and social connections, from 1949 to the mid-1960s formed an extensive social base for further expansion of Soviet influence and provided the basic conditions for the Soviet Union to draw Xinjiang within its sphere of influence. When things went wrong between the two countries, the large-scale illegal recruitment and repatriation of Soviet nationals in fact gave the Soviet Union leverage over Xinjiang. Interaction between the returnees and Chinese border residents, and the heating up of national secessionist feelings, led to changes in policies on both sides of the border: the Soviet socialist republics in Central Asia of the Soviet Union became, in a sense, filling stations and headquarters of national secessionist forces of Xinjiang, and the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, changed from a base of Sino-Soviet friendship and a strategic rear area, into the center of China’s struggle against Soviet revisionism, with Ili an outpost. Relations between the two countries were set to deteriorate
Notes
1. The Archives of Jilin, 77/4/61/79.
2. “Soviet nationals” refers to holders of Soviet passports. By 1958, more than 99,000 of them had been repatriated from Xinjiang. Only 30,000 or so remained in China, 20,000 of whom were in the region. As the Soviets stepped up illegally recruiting new Soviet nationals there, the Chinese side decided at the end of the 1950s that only holders of passports officially issued by the Soviet government were to be regarded as Soviet nationals. No other Soviet papers were acceptable proof of nationality. This decision, however, was not strictly observed. Only after the Ili-Tacheng Incident in 1962 did China began to enforce a rigorous definition: of the ethnic minority people in Xinjiang only holders both of Soviet passports and of resident permits for aliens issued by the public security organs of Xinjiang were legal Soviet nationals, all others wee disqualified. See Ili Archives, 11/1/80/4-16;11/2/21/46; Jilin Archives, 77/4/61/79-80; 77/4/1/38-39; 1/18-1/248/5.
3. Ili Archives, 11/1/80/7; Diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture. The 831 dependents of Chinese nationality repatriated form Ili prefecture in 1960 included some stateless people.
4. This refers to the exldus of border population of more than 60,000 to the Soviet Union from the counties(cities) directly under jurisdiction of Ili prefecture and Tacheng in April and May 1962 and the following riot on 29 May in which mobs stormed and smashed prefectural People’s and Party Committee compounds. For the origins of this incident, see Li Danhui, “Origins of the 1962 Ili-Tacheng Incident as seen through Xinjiang Archives Materials,” Social Sciences in China, Autumn 2001.
5. Ili Archives, 11/1/131/253,263;11/2/22/33,36,
6. Telegram from A. A. Gromyko to the Soviet consul in Xinjiang on 15 December 1949; see Shen Zhihua’s personal collection of official records; Ili Archives, 11/1/80/6.
7. Internal References, 1 December 1950, no. 282, pp. 3-4; Sinjiang Archives, 13/43/8/5.
8. Ili Archives, 11/1/80/6; Data Storing and Research Centre for Modern Russian Hisory, 17/3/1080/20; Xinjiang Archives, 13/43/8/2; record of interview with Chen Xihua by the arthor, 31 August 1998. Calculated on the basis of the list of 25 or 26 leading cadres of Soviet citizenship submitted to Saifudin by he Soviet side, some 10 or 11 of them did not abandon their Soviet nationality.
9. Ili Archives, 11/1/11/9.
10. Ili Archives, 11/1/80/10; 11/1/114/148, 150, 152.
11. Xinjiang Archives, 13/43/8/4-5; 13/44/182/36; Ili Archives, 11/1/114/19, 140-142.
12. Ili Archives, 11/1/114/149-150.
13. Diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture; Ili Archives, 11/1/129/129-133.
14. Xinjiang Archives, 13/44/182/36
15. Xinjiang Archives, 13/43/208/49-50; Ili Archives, 11/1/114/148.
16. Ili Archives, 11/1/114/149; 11/1/114/27-29; 11/1/118/38-39; 11/1/131/105-111.
17. Ili Archives, 11/2/21/46-48
18. Associations of Soviet nationals were set up in November 1946 in Ili, Tacheng and Ashan. The Association of Soviet Nationals in Dihua was set up in August the following year. By 1954, membership of the associations in the three areas of Ili, Tacheng and Ashan had increased to 27,095, accounting for 34% of all Soviet nationals in Xinjiang. On the heels of the creation of Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili, a General Association of Soviet Nationals was organized in December 1955. Branch associations in Ili, Tacheng, Ashan and Bole were all subordinate to the General Association. See: Diplpmatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture; Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China, West Asian Department, 167.7/002; minutes of interview with Chen Xihua by the author on 31 August 1998.
19. Diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture; Xinjiang Archives, 40/2/12/2.
20. Dipomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture.
21. Historical Materials of the 1962 Ili-Tacheng incident in Xinjiang, PP.42-45; Diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture.
22. Xinjiang Archives, 13/43/208/48-49; Historical Materials of the 1962 Ili-Archives, 11/1/80/5, 43-45; 11/1/114/27, 24
23. diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture; Ili Archives, 11/1/114/152.
24. Diplomatic Records of Ili Autonomous Prefecture.
25. Ili Archives, 11/1/121/50-52, 53-55; 11/1/118/12-21; 11/1/114/116-117.
26. Ili Archives; 11/1/114/116-117.The figures are from the original text, It seems there are some mistakes in the text, which should read:”…in Urumqi, the number was 675 in tht first five months of 1961 with 135 per month…”
27. Ili Archives, 11/1/121/15-23
28. Ili Archives, 11/1/121/15-23; 11/2/22/46.
29. Historical Materials of the 1962 Ili-Tacheng Incident in Xinjiang, P. 46; Ili Archives, 11/1/114/117.
30. Ili Archives, 11/1/118/12-21;11/1/131/248-263;11/1/119/104-107;11/1/121/50-52;11/1/124/87-91.
31. Ili Archives, 11/1/129/135-141,27-35; 1/1/131/68-78; 1/1/121/56-61; 1/1/120/230-234.
32. Ili Archives, 11/1/129/27-35; 11/1/131/248-263.
33. Ili Archives, 11/1/129/27-35.
34. Ili Arhives, 11/2/22/32;11/2/22/45-53. No data is available for the final outcome of the repatriation of the 700 bachelors.
35. Ili Archives,11/1/131/262, 261; 11/2/20/31-37.
—Traslated by Song Jun from Lishi yanjiu, 2003, no. 3
Revised by David Kelly