In the spring and summer of 1962, at the height of Sino-Soviet tensions, an incident broke out in the Tacheng area and other counties under the direct jurisdiction of the Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture (IKAP) of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region(XUAR), northwest China, as local ethnic minorities fled to the former Soviet Union in multitudes. This is known as the Tacheng and other counties under the Ili Prefecture Incident, or Ita Incident.

    Some 60,000 Chinese border inhabitants together with their children illegally crossed the frontier in droves, carrying with them a large amount of livestock, farm implements and carts. Meanwhile, on May 29, instigated by a group of people who enticed and coerced the border citizens into exodus, a confused crowd even assaulted the residences of the IKAP People’s Council and the Communist Party Committee of the Ili Region, (1) smashing offices, plundering files and destroying public properties. 

     What caused this major event in the history of Sino-Soviet relations? Over the past three decades, due to a lack of substantive material, Chinese, Soviet and Western academics have failed to make any relatively in-depth analysis of the incident, resorting in their discussions to hypotheses based on inference and conjectures. (2)

    In order to study post-war Sino-Soviet relations, the author made an academic trip to Xinjiang  in August 1998 to gather material related to the Ita event at the Archives of the XUAR and the IKAP, and to interview a number of insiders and eye witnesses..

    Historical origin: Soviet clout and the border question

  Situated in northern Xinjiang, the IKAP, an area where multiple ethnic minorities live in compact communities, borders in its northwestern and northeastern parts on the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federal Republic and the People’s Republic of Mongolia. Established in November 1954, the Ili Kazak Autonomous Region (renamed prefecture later on) embraces the three special administrative districts of Ili, Tacheng and Altay as well as  Kuitun city under the direct jurisdiction of the Ili Prefecture government, which all together manages 24 cities and counties, while also taking care of the affairs of the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. It covers a territory of 350,000 square kilometers with a population of 3.77 million people. (3)

    Soviet influence in political, military, economic, cultural and ideological fields in Xinjiang, especially in the Ili region, can be traced to the Tsarist era. In 1851, the Tsarist government obtained prerogatives of setting up trading spheres, tax exemption in trade, establishing consulates and enjoying consular jurisdiction in Ili and Tacheng by forcing the Qing court to sign the Ili -Tarbahatai Trade Regulations, thus spreading its economic sway rapidly in areas north and south of the Tianshan mountains. Thereafter, the Tsarist Empire annexed large tracts of Chinese western borderlands through a series of unequal treaties and frontier agreements with the Qing .(4)

   The Tsarist army even invaded Ili in 1871 and stationed its troops at  Kuldja (present-day Yining city) for ten years (1871-1881). Such aggressive acts resulted in the emigration and separation of ethnic nationalities in the Ili and Tacheng districts.  Due to Tsarist scheming and coercion prior to and after the signing of the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty in February 1881, about 70,000 people of the more than 130,000 local the Uygur, Moslem and Kazak residents had already “emigrated into” Russia by the time the Qing government took control of the Ili valley. Later on, in the short period from 1881 to 1884, the emigrant population rose to over 100,000 people, or some 60 to 70 percent of the total.(5) Ever since, countless tribal and blood ties were built up among ethnic nationalities in Ili and Russia, especially the Kazak, Kirgiz and Uygur. They share a common language, the same religion and customs. They have therefore kept long and exceptionally close economic, cultural and ideological intimacy.

   Tsarist actions thuslaid the historical foundation for the Soviets to maintain a unique status in a remote part of northwestern China.  Indeed, payinglong-term, close attention to this Chinese frontier region, the Kremlin never slackened its efforts to enhance its political influence there, despite frequent policy readjustmentsIndeed, Joseph Stalin continued traditional tsarist practices of pursuing expansion and setting up buffer areas, so that Moscow continued to intensify its penetration and succeeded in absorbing Xinjiang into its sphere of influence by the mid-1930s.It accomplished this by boosting the local warlord Sheng[EAM1]  Shicai’s regime in every possible manner and squeezing out British and Japanese influence there.

    After the outbreak of the Soviet-German war in 1941, seizing the opportunity presented by initial Soviet setbacks, Sheng  went over to Chiang Kaishek and made every possible effort to force the Soviets to evacuate all their military and economic power. But with a drastic turn in the the European theater, the Russians staged a comeback in the summer of 1944. While conducting negotiations with the Guomingdang regime on a bilateral alliance, Moscow on the one hand made friendly gestures to Chiang Kaishek by stressing its position of not aiding the Chinese Communist Party, and on the other hand supported, , armed rebellion among ethnic nationalities in the three districts of Ili, Tacheng and Alshan (Altay today), in a bid to obtain projected gains at the negotiation table.

    During the revolutionary period in these three districts, Soviet political and military control was much in evidence. Russia not onlykeptthe organs of state power in the East Turkistan Republic in its hands  by sending its trusted followers there to fill crucial leading posts or serve as advisors in the provisional government, but also recruited  intelligence agents in large numbers from among the ethnic and religious upper strata. On top of this, in the national army of the three districts, all company leaders and above were assigned by the Soviet side from 1944 to 1946. (6)

   After the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendly Alliance in August 1945, Moscow, in an attempt to further its control and influence , abandoning its original policy of giving support to the establishment of an independent state in the Ili valley.  Instead it orchestrated behind the scenes peace talks between the regime of the three districts and the Guomingdang Xinjiang provincial government, and promoted the signing in June 1946 of a peace accord.

    Thereafter, though Moscow on the surface evacuated all its officials and advisors in the military and government, it set up military intelligence cells instead, implanting a large number of its intelligence agents and its secret police in the local military and administrative institutions.   Further, Moscow not only retained domination over the Ili region, but also excluded all outside forces including the Chinese communists. As a result, the three districts consistently remained within the Soviet sphere of influence. So much so, that when a group Han Chinese revolutionaries entered Ili in 1947, they had the impression they were in a foreign country. “In fact, the Soviet Consulate made all the decisions there,” they said in their recollections. (7)

    In the beginning of 1949, at a time when the CCP-led people’s revolution had won decisive victories, Moscow once again made policy readjustments. It suggested that its new ally, the Chinese communists, occupy the vast border area quickly, and played[EAM2]  an important role in the process of the peaceful liberation of the region. As a consequence,  Joseph Stalin retained his say over the Xinjiang issue in his dialogue with New China. In the period between late 1949 and early 1950, when talks were underway over signing a new Sino-Soviet treaty, Moscow asked China to sign a supplementary agreement at the final phase of the negotiations, in a bid to repel the influence of a third party in Manchuria and Xinjiang, so as to head off possible Western penetration, thereby reinforcing Soviet traditional influence and special status in the 1950s.(8)

    Next, Moscow intensified its economic penetration and reinforced its  supremacy in the area through expanding Soviet-Xinjiang trade and promoting enterprises of Soviet nationals.

    Soviet-Xinjiang trade had already made giant strides in the period of Shen Shicai’s rule. Soviet customs statistics showed that exports to and imports from the Soviet side climbed from 5.945 million rubles and 4.73 million rubles in 1934 to 43.70 million rubles and 47.097 million rubles in 1941 respectively, or a close to eight-fold increase in bilateral aggregate trade in seven years.(9)

   Despite a temporary drop in Soviet economic clout due to the outbreak of the Soviet-German war and Shen Shicai’s pursuit of an anti-Soviet policy, the Soviets staged a comeback shortly thereafter, by intensifying their economic intrusion, along with the eruption of revolution in the three districts.  While supporting the revolutionary struggles and economic construction of the three districts, the Soviets began setting up various kinds of trade firms and intelligence agencies there for collecting economic information and monopolizing markets, thus controlling local economic lifelines. So much so that even after the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, the Soviet consulate in Dihua repeatedly suggested that the provincial capital of Xinjiang be moved from Urumchi to Yining with the rationale that “ improved Xinjiang economy is reliant on expanded Soviet-Xinjiang trade” and that “Yining is an important channel for Soviet-Xinjiang trade.”(10). By 1949, total Soviet-Xinjiang trade still stood at 72 million rubles with “almost all industrial articles in Xinjiang being imports from the Soviet Union.”  This state of affairs persisted till the mid-1950s.(11)                     

    In addition, the expansion of enterprises run by Soviet nationals in Ili also deepened Soviet economic domination there.  After liberation, the local association of Soviet Nationals promoted trade and industrial firms incessantly. Incomplete figures indicated that by 1958, the capital of trade and industrial firms run by the associations in the Ili-Tacheng-Altay     area totaled Rmb 2.70 million yuan($ 327,000). The size of these firms were substantial; in the immediate years after liberation, their staff and workers in Ili alone had run to over a hundred[EAM3]  and their commercial agencies were set up in Urumchi, Lanzhou, and Shanghai. Taking advantages of their ability to order goods and trade directly with Soviet foreign organizations, these firms accounted for a considerable portion of local commerce, resulting in a near monopoly in the Yining market(12). Needless to say, such a powerful economic force inevitably exerted an paramount impact on the economic life of the local populace.

    Finally, and most important of all, Moscow had retained profound  cultural and ideological leverage over Xinjiang, especially the Ili region.

    If political and economic weight could be removed by a change in policy, cultural and ideological hold would not disappear at the stroke of a pen. Soviet strength stood out in cultural and educational undertakings. In the Ili region, from the revolutionary period of the three districts, non-Han ethnic minority pupils in primary and middle schools used Soviet textbooks. After the establishment of New China, the old routine remained. During his stopover at Alma Ata on his way back, after having attended the negotiations on the Treaty of Sino-Soviet Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance in March 1950, Azizov Saifudin, a leader of the three districts, who later became Chairman of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, asked the Soviet side to provide textbooks for national minority pupils in the primary and middle schools. The Soviets simply reprinted theirs and handed them over to the Chinese side. On these textbooks were phrases such as “ The Soviet Union is our fatherland”, “Moscow is our national capital” and Xinjiang was described as “East Turkistan.” Thus from the very first day of their schooling, minority children in Ili actually received an alien education. Those textbooks were not entirely replaced till 1958. (13)  

   The minority inhabitants in the three districts, who did not understand Chinese and who, due to lack of translation work in national minority languages at the time, were not able to read newspapers and periodicals in their national languages, had to rely on large amounts of newspapers and periodicals in Slavic languages supplied by the Soviet side. There were still 68 different Soviet books, newspapers, and periodicals on sale in Tacheng up to 1959. (14)

   In addition, in the 1950s, Moscow instilled among the Chinese border people the concept of “Soviet superiority”, by using Soviet nationals associations scattered in various places of Xinjiang to publicize the superiority of the Soviet socialist system in a big way. They also intensified thought control over the Soviet community by running special schools or night schools for young people, and organized cadres with Soviet citizenship to study Soviet newspapers, periodicals, documents and Soviet policies and guidelines for national construction. (15)

    As a result of such intensified Soviet education and cultural/ideological propaganda lasting for more than a decade, up to the early 1960s, in the hearts and minds of the majority of the ethnic minority children, there were only the Soviet Union and Moscow.  They did not know what country China was nor of what country Beijing was the capital. Among intellectuals over the age of twenty five, many believed that “the Soviet Union is our motherland; while China is but our second motherland.” Some people among the minority cadres and masses even declared that “There is no Kirgiz (Khalkhas) nationality in China. I am a Soviet citizen. My party is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and my motherland is the Soviet Union. I want to go back to my homeland.” Such a faded and muddled concept of motherland obliged the party and government leading bodies in the Ili Prefecture to carry out the “Three ones” ideological education throughout the region after the outbreak of Ita Incident, namely, “One Party, the Chinese Communist Party; one motherland, the People’s Republic of China; and one path, the socialist path.” This intensive publicity and education in patriotism among the national minorities was aimed at making them understand that the Ili region in Xinjiang is the territory of the motherland, that the Uygur, Kazak and other ethnic minorities, are all Chinese rather than Soviet citizens, that China is a great country and that it is glorious to be a Chinese. (16)

  In order to properly explain the historical origins of the Ita Incident, it is necessary to say a few words about the history of the Sino-Soviet border in the Ili valley.  Along the some 1,500 km-long Sino-Soviet frontier between Ili and the Soviet Union, the basic situation was once “border, yet without borderline, and frontier, yet without defense.”

   By “border without borderline”, we mean that the delineation of the borderline was blurred in many places. For a long time, the herdsmen and their livestock on both sides of the frontier used to come back and forth in the age-old grazing tradition, moving up north in summer and coming down south in winter. (17) After the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, due to Soviet influence in the area and the friendly relations between the two countries, the local Ili authorities based their views of whether a Sino-Soviet borderline was needed on ideology.  They believed then that the reason a borderline was needed between the two great fraternal social countries, which were friendly, bound by solidarity and mutual trust, was not to provide imperialists with an opportunity to suggest that China had lost its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and would even[EAM4]  provoke a world war of aggression.  Precisely because of the existence of imperialism, the Sino-Soviet borderline could not be eliminated and the border defense forces could not be weakened. It should be made clear that Chinese border guards were not targeted against the Soviet Union nor the other way round. The two sides were to work together in cracking down on the activities of spies and secret agents dispatched by the imperialists so as to coordinate closely in protecting the common interests and security of the people of the two countries. (18)

   By “border without defense”, we mean that for a long time, on the Chinese side of the border, no troops were stationed. According to  the recollections of Deng Liqun, when he went to Ili from Moscow, as a

Liaison Officer of the CCP Party Central Committee, he needed only the Soviet consul in Yining as his companion, because there were only Soviet checkpoints at Khorgos, the crucial frontier port, and no border guards nor frontier inspectors on the Chinese side of the border.(19). After the liberation of the entire Chinese mainland, under the spell of the above-mentioned guiding thought about the Sino-Soviet border issue, the frontier land in Ili bordering on the Soviet Union was long in a state of a frontier without defense. Up to the outbreak of the Ita Incident in 1962, there were only two border stations and one checkpoint in the region with an actual borderline running only 300 odd kilometers.  30 percent of the border was patrolled once every several days, some sections were patrolled once a week, and some inaccessible areas were not patrolled at all due to inconvenient transportation, lack of telecommunications equipment and limited number of patrols.(20)[EAM5] 

   In such circumstances, the Chinese side had not enacted any strict, overall control over the border area and a number of places along the frontier were left open for the herders to make frequent free crossings separately or in small groups without being discovered. Besides, the idea of the border was fuzzy among them due to their muddled concept of the motherland. Some of them crossed the border out of curiosity just to see how things were on the other side and others simply went there for hunting or collecting deerhorns. Thus, border crossings of a small number of people and livestock were commonplace in those early years. (21)

   To sum up, then, our brief history of Soviet-Xinjiang relations, Moscow had not only retained profound historical influence in Xinjiang, especially the Ili region, but also had created muddled concepts of state and motherland among local ethnic minority inhabitants by, among other things, taking advantage of close ethnic and tribal ties between Xinjiang and the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Sino-Soviet border area in the Ili Prefecture long remained in a half-open state. During the years of Sino-Soviet friendship, local Chinese authorities and residents were accustomed to frontier crossings by border people due to fuzzy concepts of border defense and lax border administration. These historical factors may explain why the massive exodus of border inhabitants took place in Ili rather than elsewhere.

   And yet, while Soviet historical influence in Xinjiang, the historical conditions in the Ili border region, and muddled concepts of the boundary line among the herders were all key factors behind the Ita incident, the primary cause of the incident was the issue of Soviet nationals residing in Xinjiang, which arose along with Soviet historical influence and played a unique role in Sino-Soviet relations in Xinjiang.                  

        Soviet Nationals : Factor behind Exodus

  One of the major tricks the Soviets played to spread their influence was the readmission to citizenship for Xinjiang residents who had come from the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, and the larger-scale recruitment of new Soviet nationals among local ethnic minorities. Historical blood relations between ethnic minorities on both sides of the frontier had evolved into a complicated network of social relations, which became both a major social underpinning for extensive Soviet infiltration and the background for the massive flight of the border people into the Soviet Union later on.

        The origin and composition of Soviet nationals  

   Two major kinds of people first came to Xinjiang as Soviet nationals. The first was defeated White soldiers and refugees who fled their country after the outbreak of the 1917 Russian October revolution. The second was Soviet farmers who could not bear the wholesale agricultural collectivization and deportation of the kulaks (rich farmers) carried out in the 1930s.  The local Chinese government then issued certificates to these Soviet nationals and recognized them as naturalized Chinese citizens.

   The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the former Soviet Union issued a decree in November 1945, announcing the restoration of Soviet citizenship to Russians residing in Manchuria and other Russian nationals, who had lost their Soviet citizenship. The announcement said the same principle was applicable to Soviet nationals living in Xinjiang and Shanghai as well. (24) The Soviet consulate general in Dihua issued a circular on February 1,1946 declaring that on the order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, readmission may be offered to all those who had lost or been deprived of their Russian or Soviet citizenship, that their children could be accepted as Soviet citizens and that all White Russians residing in China had the right to regain their Soviet citizenship. After this bulletin was put up on the notice board, applicants went to the Soviet Consulate General in an endless stream. Shortly after this, Moscow extended the deadline for application and instigated the Kazaks, the Uygurs and the Tatars into a rush for the offer. It promised to give each new recruit in Xinjiang six meters of cloth and certain monetary allowances every month and the right to watch Soviet films free of charge. (25) 

   Thereafter, the number of Soviet nationals soared. A report on the Soviet community in Xinjiang made in November 1945 by the Administrative Bureau under the Soviet People’s Council of State Security said that there were then 25,000 Soviet nationals in Xinjiang. (26) From records in the Chinese archives based on passport numbers, the Soviet Consulates in Xinjiang granted nationality to 2000 people there in 1946. The figure shot up to 13,000 in 1947 and further jumped to 40,000 in 1947-1948. (27) Deng Liqun was informed by the Soviet Consul stationed in Ili that on the eve of the liberation of Xinjiang, the number of Soviet nationals there together with their family dependents, climbed to 65,000 households with over 200,000 family members. (28)

   After the liberation of Xinjiang, Moscow continued to distribute illegally a large number of papers among local Chinese citizens, encouraging them to emigrate to the Soviet Union. For example, between February 8, 1958 and March 6, 1959, the Soviet Consulate in Ili had issued 4,575 copies of certificates of Soviet nationals, out of which only 15 households had been approved by the Public Security Bureau of the Ili Prefecture.  In July 1959, over 80 illegal documents of Soviet nationals were found in only two counties of Ili, and many certificate-holders were pure Chinese citizens with no relations whatever with the Soviets.(29) The post-liberation changes in the number of Soviet nationals also spoke for themselves. The local foreign affairs organization made an investigation of the conditions of Soviet nationals in 1953. The results of the investigation in the three districts of Ili-Tacheng-Altay evealed 86,757 Soviet nationals. (30) From 1954 when repatriation began to 1959, Ili Prefecture had altogether sent off  142,973 people, out of which 86,890 were Soviet nationals. If there had been no further recruitments in this period, then almost all the Soviet citizens should have been repatriated, with the exception of only about 100 or more people remaining behind. But later statistics showed that in 1960-1963, there were still 11,310 aliens in the entire Ili region.(31)          

    In the process of instigating Chinese citizens to acquire Soviet citizenship, the Ili Soviet Nationals Association (SNA) and its branches played a significant role. This social organization, called “a state within a state” by the Soviet consulate in Yining in the revolutionary period of the three districts, expanded its clout after liberation. With the support of Soviet consulates, the SNAs engaged in activities outside their functions and powers, notably acting as agents for the consuls in accepting applications for Soviet citizenship, handling the relevant procedures and sending away Soviet nationals when repatriation began. Taking advantage of their involvement in such work, they issued bogus papers among Chinese citizens, with the heads of the associations themselves involved. The SNA in Huocheng even declared that a single passport might bring 28 people across the border. Some associations recruited elements with strong local nationalistic feelings and their chairmen were sometimes such elements themselves. They engaged in clandestine activities among the local national minorities. Some of them, who had infiltrated local Chinese organizations of public security, arbitrarily issued certificates to those who claimed that they had lost the photos pasted on their passports, thus helping them to obtain new ones at the consulates. (32) Besides, since the campaign against local nationalism started in Ili in 1959, some cadres, though not Soviet nationals themselves, tried to obtain the papers for Soviet nationals and demanded emigration in order to evade possible criticism. Under such circumstances, trade in Soviet papers became commonplace. (33)  This, in turn, stimulated the corrupt practice of illegal recruitment by the SNAs.

   The Chinese government then complained to the Soviet side about

such activities. After discovering Moscow’s illegal canvassing among Chinese citizens, Mr. He Wei, Assistant Foreign Minister and Consul Romayer of the Soviet Embassy in China reached an agreement on July 12, 1955 that the Soviet side would temporarily stop nationality readmission  among Soviet national minorities residing in Xinjiang.  In October 1956, the Foreign affairs Bureau in Xinjiang reached an accord with Consul General Kazensky in Urumchi stipulating that only by having the certificates issued by local Chinese organizations of public security could the Soviet side issue Soviet passports among Chinese citizens. (34)  Thereafter, registration of aliens began in Xinjiang in December 1956 and in the Ili valley in the beginning of 1957. The Xinjiang authorities had repeatedly made representations to the Soviet consulate there about the illegal recruitment.  In early 1959, Saifudin Azizov negotiated with Soviet Consul General Dabashen to explicitly confirm that only holders of formal passports issued by the Soviet government could be accepted as Soviet nationals. (35) In June-July the same year, the Soviet Foreign Ministry dispatched the Deputy Director of its Consul Bureau Kurikov and the First Secretary of its Far East Bureau Oshipov to Xinjiang for talks with Xinjiang leaders, admitting the Soviet error of wanton issuance of passports. Oshipov pointed out then that it was wrong for the Soviet Consulates in Ili to entrust the Soviet nationals associations with passport issuances. He also talked about instructions from the Soviet Foreign Ministry not long ago that tasks such as passport issuances could only be carried out by the consulates themselves in close contact with local Chinese governments; that the SNA was only a social organization, whereas repatriation should be done by the state; that it was an error for the Soviet consulate in Ili to entrust their own tasks to the SNAs; and that issuances of visas could only be handled by Soviet consulates, consulate generals or cadres from Moscow. Consul General Dabashen also declared at the same time that SNAs had no right to issue certificates, that their officials could only do some concrete technical work, that non-standard papers issued by them were invalid and holders were not allowed to go to the Soviet Union.(36)

   However, despite these Soviet posturings, the illegal activities had not stopped and Soviet consulates had never made strict restrictions on the emigration to the Soviet Union of Chinese citizens holding fake documents. The Ili branch of the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Xinjiang thrice returned to the Soviet consulate in Yining 187 illegal passports confiscated by the local organizations of public security in July 1959, August and November 1961. But by the first half of 1962, an additional 1470 copies of illegal passports were still found in Ili. (37)

              Repatriation of Soviet nationals

   The chief goal of the post-war Soviet Union’s citizenship readmmission and massive recruitment of Soviet nationals was to ease acute labor shortages resulting from sharp population reductions in the war years. Thus the issue of repatriation of Soviet nationals in Xinjiang came up in the early 1950s. In April 1954, the Soviet government made a unilateral decision on the matter. On 23rd the same month, the Soviet Embassy in China brought up with the Chinese Foreign Ministry the issue of repatriating 6,000 households to the Caucasus, Siberia and Kazakhstan for land reclamation. Taking it as a major complicated political task, and ready to offer utmost assistance, the Chinese Foreign Ministry decided on the principles of providing enthusiastic coordination, rendering active assistance, taking into consideration the interests of the Soviet nationals, offering them all the conveniences and sending them back as soon as possible, while asking for assistance from the departments concerned.  Committees Assisting Repatriation of Soviet Nationals were set up in the localities with local foreign affairs departments and bureaus of public security for the concrete work.  Thereafter, Soviet Nationals Repatriation Committees were set up in the Ili Prefecture and various districts under its jurisdiction. (38)

   Upon his return from meetings in Soviet Embassy in Beijing, Soviet Consul in Yining Mr. Shenshin told leading cadres of the CCP Xinjiang Bureau that 500 households would be repatriated from Ili in 1954 with repatriation in other districts to be held up for the moment. Able-bodied persons suitable for land reclamation were the priority targets in disregard of their nationality and professions. The procedures were: first an official announcement by the Soviet Consulate inviting voluntary applicants for repatriation without any limit on their number; then selection of 500 households from among them, to be followed by their going back to the homeland before the September 1 deadline in the three months of June, July and August, with Soviet foreign transportation companies responsible for their journey.

   Thereupon, the CCP Xinjiang Bureau issued an urgent order demanding the district party committee in Ili and relevant city or county party committees to do their utmost in assisting the Soviet side to fulfill its task satisfactorily and in line with the directives of the Party Central Committee and the Foreign Ministry that “since this matter concerns Sino-Soviet friendship, it demands enthusiastic assistance from the Chinese side, which should consider the repatriation a momentous political task of assured success.” Meanwhile, a “Committee for Assisting the Return to Their Country of Soviet Nationals” was set up under the unified leadership of the Party Committee of the Ili Prefecture. (39).  Thus, 500 families of Soviet nationals with 2464 persons from Ili were sent back in 1954. Large-scale annual repatriation followed. From 1954 to November 20, 1959, altogether more than 130,000 people were repatriated including 86,890 Soviet nationals together with 45,983 family members of Chinese nationality.(40)

   Generally speaking, repatriation of Soviet nationals was carried out in the spring of every year since 1954. Arrangements were made in response to the requirements of the Soviet side. The aim was to reinforce the labor force in spring ploughing, summer harvesting and land reclamation in the Soviet border areas and to avoid the severe climate in the winter for facilitating transportation and resettlement of the new arrivals. Thus in February and March every year, several Soviet trucks would come to Yining for receiving Soviet nationals and taking away their belongings in a formidable array. Those staying behind would come to the Soviet Consulate with their friends for the send-off, setting aside local production, and creating uncertainties among the people, thus exerting great adverse impact on the spring ploughing in the Ili valley. (41)                                   

  Despite their complaints, the leading party and government organizations in Ili, in the mid-1950s, with an eye on Sino-Soviet friendly relations, still did their best to accommodate Soviet desires, without paying undue attention to local production.  However, along with deepening disputes between the Chinese and the Soviet communist parties in 1959, the Ili Prefecture had suggested to the Soviet side several times to  shif the repatriation time from April-June to November- December of every year or to days after the completion of spring ploughing. The Soviet side rejected these suggestions, stressing the cold climate in winter, their coverless box wagons, and Kazakhstan’s need for labor force in summer. The Chinese side pointed out the journey was after all only a short one and suggested the use of covered trucks instead, but in vain. (42) The situation persisted till 1962.

              Cadres with Soviet citizenship

    If the Soviet nationals constituted the social foundation for Soviet strength, its core were cadres with Soviet citizenship in the leading party and government organs in Ili and Xinjiang. This was an issue left over from the days of the three districts revolution. At that time, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) sent a large number of its party members and cadres to Ili for initiating the revolution. Many of them held important posts in local party and government establishments. In addition, almost all the local Soviet nationals took an active part in the movement and some of them took up leading posts later on. Meanwhile, a large number of cadres of national minorities were recruited as Soviet nationals in the period, when the three districts were under separate rule after 1947. As a result, there existed a large number of cadres with Soviet citizenship inside the local government. Since the three districts under Soviet control played an important role in the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, most of the cadres there entered the new government organizations. And the national army of the three districts was reorganized as entity into the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army. (43)

    The Chinese government expressed its desire then to ask these cadres, leading ones in particular, to stay at their posts, if possible, but to solve the problem of nationality, that is to say, abandon their Soviet citizenship. The Soviet side then adopted a cooperative attitude on this issue. At the beginning of 1950, when talks were under way for the Sino-Soviet Treaty, the Soviet Foreign Ministry invited Saifudin to the Soviet Union through the Chinese Embassy for talks on this issue. It said that the Soviet government agreed that the leading cadres in Xinjiang with Soviet citizenship should solve their nationality problem and handed Saifudin a list of Soviet nationals holding leading posts in Xinjiang, asking him to brief them on this opinion of the Soviet government. Saifudin immediately reported the matter to Zhou Enlai and told Zhou that he himself wanted to abandon his Soviet citizenship. Zhou welcomed his decision. Later on, the Chinese and the Soviet governments reached agreement on making the best possible efforts to persuade the relevant cadres to abandon their Soviet citizenship and stay behind in China permanently to take part in the country’s socialist construction. The Chinese side, for its part, adopted the principle of “persuading these cadres to abandon their Soviet citizenship of their own free will and approve those who insisted on retaining their Soviet citizenship to go back to their homeland". (44)

   In the early 1950s, some leading cadres in Xinjiang abandoned their Soviet citizenship. But most of the cadres with Soviet citizenship were reluctant to follow suit. This was true especially in Ili, where cadres with Soviet citizenship were concentrated. For example, in counties under direct jurisdiction of the Ili Prefecture, many county magistrates, department or section chiefs, heads of the bureaus of public security were Soviet nationals and served as officials in the Soviet nationals associations. To persuade them all to abandon their Soviet citizenship would have involved too many people. Thus the matter dragged on for quite a long time. (45) Despite the fact that the deadline for the cadres to give up their Soviet citizenship had been postponed time and again in 1950s and the early 1960s, a large number of Soviet nationals still held party and government posts in Xinjiang, notably in Ili. Up to 1960, Soviet nationals accounted for more than 60 percent of the cadres at or above the department or section chiefs in Suiding and Huocheng counties in the Ili Prefecture. Soviet nationals and even SNA officials also made up many leading military and administrative cadres of the Ili prefecture. Soviet nationals constituted 22 percent of the cadres at and above the division level in the prefecture government organs or cities and counties under the direct jurisdiction of the prefecture, and Soviet nationals were the family members of another 25 percent of the same category of cadres.(46) In 1958, there were only a few remaining leading cadres with Soviet citizenship in the area under the care of the Soviet Consulate in Urumchi; whereas there were still 95 such leading cadres in the Ili prefecture. In 1960, concentrated efforts were made to push the work of giving up Soviet citizenship throughout Xinjiang; yet by the end of the same year, registration showed that there were still 1047 cadres with Soviet citizenship across the region. Since registration was not carried out in a thorough-going way, the actual number should have been even higher. Up to 1962, so far as Ili was concerned, there were still 1001 cadres with Soviet citizenship. (47) Besides, many cadres simply concealed their status as Soviet nationals.(48)

    Nevertheless, it should be pointed out here that the Soviet side had been accommodating in handling the nationality issue in the mid-1950s, when Sino-Soviet relations were friendly and even in the late 1950s, when divisions sharpened between the two communist parties, and relations deteriorated between the two countries. Soviet consulates in Xinjiang basically showed respect for Chinese on the demands of going back to the Soviet Union raised by cadres with Soviet citizenship.  If the Chinese side did not approve the request of a certain cadre, the Soviet Consulate would also reject his application. As for the desire of most cadres to retain their Soviet citizenship, the Soviet side also said that the time had come to solve this problem because the People’s Republic of China had then been in existence for ten years. This said though, a small number of cadres with Soviet citizenship were national splittists themselves, who won the sympathy of Soviet consulates. That explains the serious negative effect of such cadres.(49) In fact, they were the core elements in a variety of illegal activities undertaken by the Soviets in Xinjiang.

    It can thus be seen from the above, that Soviet nationals coupled with a large number of their kin and relatives with Chinese nationality, constituted an extensive local social basis for Moscow. Further, the existence of historical ethnic and blood ties resulted in a unique status for Soviet nationals in Xinjiang, which were entirely different from the conditions of Soviet nationals in Shanghai or China’s northeast provinces. Thus their unique status served as a basic prerequisite for the later outbreak of the Ita Incident. Nevertheless, judging from the circumstances prevailing in the 1950s, the return of the Soviet nationals was a normal phenomenon, put forth by the Soviet side in 1954 and approved by the two governments. In spite of the fact that the Chinese side had cause for complaints about the tricks indulged in by the other side in recruiting Soviet nationals, yet taking into consideration of Sino-Soviet friendship, they still rendered their assistance in sending Soviet nationals back home on a regular basis, in response to the Soviet requests. On the other side, the Soviet side also agreed on the opinion of the Chinese side that cadres with Soviet citizenship be persuaded in earnest to stay in China.  In other words, the issue of Soviet nationals was not a factor affecting Sino-Soviet relations.  Besides, a batch of Soviet nationals in Ili emigrated to the Soviet Union with all their family numbers in the spring season every year was a historical phenomenon, besides, was an arrangement made in response to persistent Soviet demands.

   Then, why would a phenomenon that had been normal in the past, develop into a major event claiming world-wide attention in early 1962? As is well known, two major events, the “Great Leap Forward” movement and the rupture of Sino-Soviet relations, took place in China in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The question is, what impact did these two major events exert on the Ita Incident in later days and were they a major cause leading to the outbreak of the Incident?

              Repercussions of the “Big Leap”                             

     In 1958, the Great Leap Forward Campaign and a communization movement to transform rural cooperatives into people’s communes swept across China like a hurricane. The then Chinese top leaders were impatient for quick results. Acting out of well-intentioned wishes and relying on the surging revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses, they made rash decisions to advance blindly, in disregard of objective conditions.  This resulted in serious nationwide economic dislocations and brought about tremendous destruction to the social productive force. Natural calamities in 1960 aggravated the situation, leading to a drastic decline in grain production and rapid deterioration in the living standards of the people. Famine refugees and even starvation deaths occurred in many provinces.

     Were these phenomena chiefly responsible for the large-scale flight of border inhabitants in Xinjiang in 1962? The answer to this question should be sought in a concrete analysis of the impact of the Great Leap Forward on the Xinjiang region, notably the Ili Prefecture.

   The XUAR began to map out and implement the plan for an overall leap forward in industrial, agricultural and animal husbandry production in March 1958. Like the situation in China proper, the characteristic of the campaign in Xinjiang was also undue pursuit of high indicators for economic development, with repeated revisions for hasty achievements. In comparison with 1957, the eventual targets set for 1962 were a 6.2 fold climb in the aggregate output value for agriculture and animal husbandry, with an average 48.5 percent annual increase; and a 16.6 fold sharp rise in the total industrial output value with an average 77 percent annual increase. Xinjiang also put forward an ambitious goal of building eight major production bases of iron and steel, oil, non-ferrous metals, metals, coal, grain, animal husbandry, cotton and sugar refining in the autonomous region in the second five-year plan period (1958-1962). In September 1958, Xinjiang local authorities made an urgent mobilization for building people’s communes and a general rush into action followed immediately. Within the short span of a month, 562 people’s communes had been organized in the entire autonomous region, with more than 960,000 rural households or 99.7 percent of the total being absorbed into the communes, naturally with malpractices such as “yi ping er diao (equalitarianism and gratuitous transfers)” and “gong chan feng (communist style)”. (50)[EAM6] 

     However, from the relevant statistics and what the author personally learned on the spot, the impact on Xinjiang of those “tian zai ren huo (natural and man-made disasters)” in the late 1950s was by far smaller than that on other parts of the country.  During the period of the Great Leap and the three years of natural calamities, overall agricultural production in Xinjiang had made advances despite some problems. Achievements included: a rise in the labor force to 2.62 million people in 1961, 17 percent over the 1957 figure; fairly rapid progress in irrigation and water conservancy with the total irrigated area at 45 million mu (7.5 million acres) in 1961,or more than double the 1952 figure; enlarged cultivated and sown area and with the former at 50.5 million mu (8.42 million acres) and the latter at 41.56 million mu (6.91 million acres) in 1961, both up 61 percent over the corresponding figures in 1957. In the field of livestock industry, though communization led to a steep drop in the number of farm animals in 1961, down to 73 percent of the 1957 figure, yet the total amount of livestock on hand increased year by year, from 17.09 million in 1957 to 22.5 million heads in 1962. As for agricultural harvests, while the production of oil-bearing crops and cotton plummeted, the total amount of grain soared from 2.91 billion catties (1.455 billion kilos) in 1957 to 3.95 billion catties(1.97 billion kilos) in 1960. The figure in 1962 dropped slightly to 3.5 billion catties (1.75 billion kilos). Between 1957 and 1960, the total agricultural output value grew year by year, from 600 million Rmb yuan ($ 72.8 million) to 790 million Rmb yuan, ($ 95.87 million) calculated in 1957 constant prices. A slight drop occurred in the next two years; yet a 750 million yuan ($ 91 million) level was still sustained in 1962. (51)

   Under these circumstances, did famine break forth in Xinjiang to the extent that part of the border herders had to flee the land in search of food ? Generally speaking, from 1959, when the entire country entered the “difficult period” to 1961, although rural and urban life in Xinjiang suffered from tense food supply, yet per capita annual grain rations only dropped from over 200 kgs to 150 kgs.  There existed no serious cases of starvation due to food shortages. The difficulties in Xinjiang were then mainly the result of sudden massive inflow of people from elsewhere in the country.  Statistics showed that between January 1960 and March 1961, about 220,000 people came on their own, out of which 153,000 went there from January to October 1960, mostly victims from areas hit by natural calamity.  From 1959 to November 1961, Xinjiang took in and resettled some 890,000 immigrants from other places of the country, arranged suitable jobs for more than 300,000 young and adult volunteers, who came to assist in frontier construction, and there was also natural growth of the population. As a result, the population in the autonomous region rose from 5.61 million in 1957 to over 7.3 million in 1961, registering an increase of some 1.7 million or 33 percent in three years. (52) This sharp rise in population due to an unending surging inflow of people naturally imposed an enormous pressure on the region. In response to the request from Xinjiang, the CCP Central Committee instructed relevant provinces to make suitable arrangements for the livelihood of local inhabitants and to exercise a strict control over their blind outflow.  For its own part, the Party Committee of the autonomous region took active measures to take in and resettle immigrants. (53) In the end, difficulties derived from immigration pressure had been ameliorated.

   From another angle, it can be seen that the extensive inflow of people from other areas, where serious grain shortages occurred, gave an eloquent testimony to the better production and living conditions in Xinjiang, which resulted from a bumper harvest in those years. Thus grain stocks in Xinjiang still stood at 145 million kgs by June 1961 despite the sudden heavy increase in population and a slight drop in grain reserves. Moreover, Xinjiang even rendered help to some provinces experiencing acute grain shortages due to natural calamity. In late 1960, Xinjiang set up a Grain Allocation Committee in charge of allocating and transshipping grain to Gansu Province. From 1960 to 1962, instead of asking the State to send in grain, Xinjiang sent out 30,000 tons of grain and 8,000 tons of meat to support the State.(54)

    Nevertheless, food crises did break out in individual areas. Cases of food shortage, starvation, diseases and even deaths erupted in Baicheng county of Aksu district in southern Xinjiang in the spring of 1960. It had nothing to do with grain shortages, because by March 1960, the county still had close to 10 million kgs of grain stocks and about 2 million kgs of grain scheduled to be sold back to the county by the State. Wang Enmao, then First Secretary of the CCP Xinjiang Committee, pointed out at an urgent Baicheng work conference held by the XUAR Party Committee in April that the clumsy handling of the food problem at a time of abundant grain stocks could be traced to blunders of serious bureaucratism and subjectivism committed by the leading members of county party committee. Not concerned about the sufferings and hardships of the people, they neither listened to the representations of their inferiors nor reported the actual conditions to their superiors. Thus befell the disaster. For this, in a decision on doing a good job of guaranteeing food supply, issued to the subordinate units, the XUAR Party Committee stressed that grain shortages had never occurred in Xinjiang for a decade.  At a time when conditions were much better than in the past, food problems could not be tolerated, especially such a serious one as that in Baicheng.(55)

    Admittedly, the repercussions of the Great Leap Forward Movement were uneven in Xinjiang. Compared with the southern part of the region, grain shortages were more serious in the northern part.  Wang Enmao admitted at a meeting held in February 1962 that grain problems occurred mainly in the northern part, where the supply level of ration grain and feed grain dropped in many areas and some difficulties also existed in the supply of clothes and some articles of daily use. (56) Since the Ita Incident took place precisely in the Ili Prefecture of northern Xinjiang, here a special analysis is called for.

   Since the launching of the Great Leap in 1958 by the Ili Prefecture, among all the cities and counties under the direct jurisdiction of the prefecture, on account of excessively high targets set for agricultural production without leaving an appropriate margin for unforeseen circumstances and overestimating grain harvest, there existed inflated figures to varying degrees in reporting the completion of state grain purchase quotas. As a result, after the autumn harvest in 1958, a discrepancy of 16.5 million kgs of grain remained between the figures reported to the superiors and the actual amount of grain put in storage. Thus when an inventory of granaries was made in May 1959, a shortage of 9.945 million kgs of grain was revealed in the amount of grain storage and the figures on the books. In addition, close to a million head of livestock died across the prefecture because of heavy snows in the winter of 1959 and bad weather in the spring of 1960.  Cases of dropsy and unnatural deaths were reported in some places, where the arrangements for ration grain were not carried out in earnest in 1960. But such things came about only in individual farms, where harvests were poor, and in some communes composed of frontier-supporting volunteers from interior China.  The Party Committee of the Ili Region adopted measures in time to solve the food problem, demanding strict control over the use of grain sold back to the villages after state purchases, the transfer of remaining seeds into ration grain after the completion of spring sowing and popularizing an increment method of rice cooking in urban and rural areas. (57)

    Taking the situation of the prefecture as a whole, in 1960, grain production reached 240 million kgs, up 20 to 30 percent over the 1959 figure, averaging 600 kgs per capita for the rural and pastoral areas.  Unlike conditions in many places of interior China hard hit by natural disasters, though hailstorm hit about some 20,000 acres of land and verticillium wilt stroke another 20,000 acres of grain fields, they made up only part of the over 1 million acres of sown area in the entire prefecture. Timely remedial measures further alleviated the damage. In December, the party committee issued instructions on arranging the livelihood of the people with the mess hall as the focus. There were then 3405 public mess halls in all the people’s communes of the prefecture, serving 464,000 people, or 74.86 percent of the rural population.  Meanwhile, the prefecture scaled down the levels of ration grains in urban and rural areas, and popularized some grain substitutes and a variety of other remedial measures, thus alleviating the difficulties in food supply. (58)

  By 1961, conditions in Ili further took a turn for the better. The livestock on hand amounted to seven million head or more. Grain supply was more than enough and some were transshipped to Urumchi for support to the urban residents and industrial construction there. Altogether 15 million kgs of grain were appropriated to other places from Ili in the same year.(59) Although in the spring of that year, cases of dropsy were reported among the frontier-aiding volunteers in Huocheng, Tekes and elsewhere, they mostly resulted from errors in resettlement work.  For this, the prefecture party committee issued an urgent circular, demanding party committees at all subordinate levels to organize teams for a checkup of the resettlement work force and living conditions of the young and adult volunteers, treating cases of dropsy and taking good care of their livelihood. (60)

   In sum, during the three difficult years (1959-1961) throughout the country, famine did not visit northern Xinjiang. Even at the worst time in the Ili prefecture, the so-called “san qi kai (three-seven proportion)” arrangement of mixing 70 % coarse cereals with 30% flour and rice was made for the livelihood of the people in the economic use of grain. (61) Life never deteriorated to the point where exodus across the border for survival was inevitable. The entire Ili region tided over the difficult period rather smoothly.

   Overall, as indicated by the material mentioned above, in Xinjiang including Ili and Tacheng, despite difficulties derived from “ tian zai ren huo(natural and man-made disasters)”, there existed no cause for large-scale exodus out of famine. The real cause for the Ita Incident, therefore, must be sought elsewhere.

 Deteriorating Sino-Soviet Relations and the Soviet Instigation                                                        

    Since the second half of 1958, after confrontation over a series of issues such as the Soviet requests for building a long-wave radio station in China for its submarines cruising the Pacific Ocean and for building a Soviet-China common fleet, Soviet condemnation of China’s bombarding Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu Islands in the Taiwan Strait, and China’s role in the Sino-Indian border conflicts, the divisions in the political line and foreign policies between the Chinese and Soviet communist Parties in the mid-1950s escalated into contradictions over state and national interests.

    In July 1960, the Soviet Government unilaterally recalled all Soviet experts working in China. A month later, the Soviet border guards provoked the first border incident by driving away Chinese inhabitants residing the area in dispute at Botsuaiger Pass in Xinjiang, thus starting a succession of border disputes later on.  After the 22nd Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Sino-Soviet relations further  worsened over the Albanian issue.     

   Against the background of ever-worsening Sino-Soviet relations, changes also took place in the Soviet Union’s policy toward China’s Xinjiang region, shifting away from the past practice of consulting and cooperating with the China side in arranging the repatriation of Soviet nationals to active intervention in the work.  From the early 1960s up to outbreak of the Ita Incident, such changes found their manifestation in the following four aspects:

     First, Soviet consulates began to indulge in provocative, splittist propaganda by taking advantage of the errors and mistakes in the work of the party and government in Xinjiang, especially the Ili region, and the temporary difficulties in the livelihood of the people, thus speeding up the pace of massive illegal recruitment of Soviet nationals among the Chinese citizens and instigating the Chinese border inhabitants into border crossings.

     In 1960, after the XUAR Party Committee decided against massive repatriation of Soviet nationals in that year, the Soviet Consulate in Yining still made hectic preparations for repatriation on a large scale. It instigated and bribed some Soviet nationals and illegal elements among Chinese citizens or issued instructions to staff members in the consulate to make secret contacts and registrations among Chinese minority nationalities of the Kazaks, Uygurs and Uzbeks, spurring them into applying to the Soviet Consulate for Soviet citizenship. When they failed to produce any papers for their status as Soviet nationals, the Soviet Consulate would ask them to write letters to their relatives living in the Soviet Union to send them such certificates.  People without any relations whatever with the Soviet Union were also roped in the registration for repatriation. The Soviet Consul issued instruction that once the name lists were compiled and negotiations with the Chinese side ended in success, these people would be sent back to the Soviet Union. Faced with massive applications for repatriation among the Chinese national minorities, the Soviet Consul adopted a provocative attitude, answering them that “Only if the Chinese government agrees on your repatriation, would we offer our approval accordingly.” Meanwhile, under the incitement of the Soviet consulates, the SNA head office in Ili and its branches in Altay, Huocheng, Zhaosu and Yining made contacts and engaged in large-scale registration activities among Chinese minority nationalities in a planned way.  In that year, five cases of illegal registration of Soviet nationals were discovered in Ili and 5,269 photos were found, with 131,186 people involved in illegal registration. (62)

   In addition, the activities of issuing a variety of documents to Chinese citizens by Soviet consulates, SNAs and organizations in the Soviet Union intensified. They included: provisional nationality certificates or certificates testifying to the loss of passports issued by Soviet consulates; application forms for Soviet citizenship issued by the SNAs; passport transcripts or reissued birth certificates sent from the Soviet Union and a variety of appeals, consent letters, invitation letters, written pledges and what not.

   The Soviet side gave out news that “Any holders of these papers can be accepted as Soviet nationals qualified to go to the Soviet Union,” and encouraged or organized them in doing so. A 1960 sample survey showed that about 25 to 40 percent of inhabitants in the cities and counties under the direct jurisdiction of the Ili Prefecture were holders of various Soviet papers. A general survey and registration of foreign nationals held then in the Tacheng District resulted in 64,59 certificates voluntarily produced by the holders for examination, or more than eight times the population of local Soviet nationals. Large numbers of holders of these papers could also be found then in Urumchi and Kashi.(63)

   Since 1961, especially after the 22nd Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Soviet nationals not only insisted on going to the Soviet Union themselves, but also incited others in society to follow suit. The Soviet consulates also intensified their recruitment activities through the SNAs. (64) While issuing Soviet passports, the Secretary of the SNA in Yining declared that “The Grain rations here are so low that many people must be willing to go to the Soviet Union. Give these passports to those Chinese citizens with such desires. We want to send all the local Islam believers to the Soviet Union.” (65) During his interview with Soviet nationals and Chinese citizen applying for Soviet citizenship, the Secretary of the Soviet Consulate in Yining also bragged repeatedly that “ The Soviet people are now enjoying a life of abundance. All the Kazaks who came here from the Soviet Union would be accepted as Soviet nationals, no matter whether they have necessary papers or not. Our doors are wide open to them.  You are all welcome to the Soviet Union sooner or later. The only hitch is: whether the Chinese government gives its approval or not. There is no obstacle whatever on our part.  You are all entitled to go back to your homelands. Any one who came over here from the Soviet Union, would be recognized as Soviet citizens, in disregard of his possession or non-possession of the certificate for a Soviet national.  They would be issued formal papers for Soviet citizen, once they cross over the border. I, on behalf of the Soviet government, approve of your going to the Soviet Union.”  He even threatened those individual Soviet nationals, who would rather give up their Soviet citizenship, in this way, “The 1936 Soviet Government Decree to Soviet nationals abroad demanded that they all return their native land for farming. Only a few bad elements ran away and gave up their Soviet citizenship.” (66)  In 1961, a single group of eight people engaged in illegal recruitment activities in Yining alone registered more than 6,000 illegal Soviet nationals in secret under the direct guidance of the local SNA chairman and received over 2,000 Rmb yuan ($ 227) in cash from the association.(67)

    In the 1950s, in negotiations with the Chinese, the Soviets frankly  admitted their errors in the illegal recruitment of Soviet nationals and worked out solutions through bilateral consultations. In the early 1960s, however, when the Foreign Affairs Division (Ili Branch) of the Ili Prefecture briefed Sarunov, Soviet Consul in Yining on the main content of the September 3, 1961 joint directive of the Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Public Security concerning recruitment of Soviet nationals by Soviet Consulates, he flatly denied the facts of illegally issuing passports to Chinese citizens. (68)  By that time, such Soviet activities had already been carried out in such a widespread and thorough-going way that a trend had already come into existence for a large number Chinese border citizens to apply for going to the Soviet Union.  The problem then could no longer be solved through bilateral consultations.  In the 6 years from 1954 to 1959, altogether 86,890 Soviet nationals along with their 45,983 family dependents of Chinese nationality were repatriated to the Soviet Union from the Ili Prefecture; whereas in the 3 years from 1960 to 1962, 8,559 Soviet citizens with as high as 20,907 so called family dependents were repatriated, excluding those Chinese border citizens with all kinds of certificates of the Soviet Union who originally intended to depart, yet failed to do so. (69)  From this can be seen the seriousness of the illegal recruitment of Soviet nationals by the Soviet side.                     

   Second, the Soviet consulates had changed their approach to the question of nationality abandonment by Chinese cadres with Soviet citizenship. They tried their utmost to dissuade these cadres against their resigning their posts in the Chinese party and government organizations.

   In August 1960, acting on the directive of the Chinese Central Government, the XUAR Government decided on seeking a thorough solution to the problem. It carried out mobilization among those cadres, in the spirit of trying to persuade them to stay at their posts by giving up their Soviet citizenship and of consenting to the demands of those who insisted on departure.  Since most of the cadres insisted on departure, the Chinese departments of public security issued them exit visas accordingly. But the Soviet Consulate General in Urumchi did a sudden complete about-face by dissuading these cadres from giving up their Chinese posts in haste and informed the Municipal Bureau of Public Security by phone calls its refusal to issue entry visas to these cadres.(70)

   Meanwhile, although the two Soviet consulates in Urumchi and Yining agreed that cadres with Soviet citizenship should apply for Chinese nationality and stay at their posts permanently in China, yet they made all kinds of troubles in handling their applications for giving up Soviet citizenship. They tried by all means to find out Chinese policy toward these cadres and attempted to pressure the Chinese side into making concessions by giving consent to the continued stay in Chinese state organs of cadres with Soviet citizenship. The Soviet Consul General said that if the large number of cadres with Soviet citizenship holding various posts in the party, government and military establishments in Xinjiang, especially Ili, did not want to give up their Soviet citizenship, repatriation was not necessarily the only way out.  The solution should be sought on a voluntary basis. Persuasion rather than compulsion should be the approach for both the Soviet and Chinese sides. Thus between May 1960 and March 1961, all applications for abandonment of Soviet citizenship were turned down by the Soviet Consulates.(71)

    In fact, an ulterior motive could be discerned in this Soviet volte-face. After all, retention of a large number of cadres with Soviet citizenship in the Chinese party, government and military establishments, could facilitate Soviet influence in and control over Xinjiang.  As a matter of fact, many cadres in the Ili region who had concealed their Soviet citizenship, kept regular contacts with Soviet consulates, reporting them inside information about China and even passing on to them top secret documents issued by the CCP Central Committee.  Some cadres in the police force even received secret payments from Soviet consulates. After the outbreak of the Ita Incident, individual members of the upper social strata declared that “The Soviet Consulate has evacuated, but our underground Soviet Consuls stay behind.” (72) In the course of the Ita Incident, cadres with Soviet citizenship were intransigent on fleeing the country. Those with strong local nationalistic feelings or resentful of the Communist Party and the government turned out to be ring leaders in instigating, organizing and forcing ordinary inhabitants into fleeing to the Soviet Union.

   Third, the Soviet side began instigating the exodus of Chinese citizens by using post and broadcasting.

   In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union enticed Chinese border residents  into going over to its side by sending them letters, various illegal documents, newspapers, periodicals and other propaganda materials through Soviet collective farms, district or township governments. The broadcasting station in the then Kazakhstan SSR voluntarily stopped its the Uygur and kazak language programs in 1950, but resumed the broadcasting in the first half of 1961 by regularly disseminating recorded talks of those who had fled to the Soviet side or interviews with them in praise of life in the Soviet Union so as to stir up national separatist feelings. The proximity in the times and frequencies of their broadcasts to those of the Uygur and Kazak language programs of the Chinese Broadcasting Station facilitated their reception . (73)

    Meanwhile, those Chinese citizens, who had already fled the country, wrote back to their relatives frequently and sent them by parcels rationed articles in China such as rice, flour, soaps and cotton cloth to show off better living conditions across the border and persuade them to follow suit. Some wrote to their relatives, who were then cadres responsible for checking the exodus through persuasion, enticing them to go over, thus undermining the persuasion efforts of the Chinese side.(74)

     Between 1961 and 1962, there was a steep rise in letters and parcels sent from the Soviet Union. For Tacheng district, letters from the Soviet side rose from 5,038 in the first quarter of 1961 to 6,609 in the same period the following year, or a 31 percent increase.  For Urumchi, 40,324 letters came in 1961, or a monthly average of 3,360 letters, to 51,978 in the first five months of 1962, and the monthly average figure jumped to 10,395, or a 209 percent average monthly increase.  Similarly, parcels sent to Tacheng increased from 340 items in the first quarter of 1961 to 632 items the same period the following year, or a 85.2 percent growth. For Umruchi, parcels from Soviet side rose from 675 items in 1961 to 851 items in the first five months of 1962, the corresponding average monthly figures rose from 139 to 170 items, or a 22.3 percent average monthly increase. By the same token, Tacheng district received 462 newspapers, periodicals and other printed matter in the first quarter of 1961. The figure rose to 923 items, or a 99.8 percent increase in the same period of 1962.  The corresponding figures for Urumchi were 550 items and 704 items respectively, or a 28 percent increase. (75)

   Fourth, the Soviet Union took a direct part in instigating the Chinese border people to flee the country and gave them coordinated support in April to May 1962.

   Between the winter of 1961 and the spring of 1962, Deputy Consul Djitov, First Secretary Chemohonik and other Soviet consular officials in Yining went to Tacheng district six times for illegal activities.  They interviewed altogether 4,743 men-times of local inhabitants. Especially on April 4, 1962, instead of paying a visit to the local government first as usual, Djitov went straight to the local SNA to meet residents assembled there.  He incited them to flee the country by saying the Kazaks would eventually return to the Soviet Union, and urging them to “Just flee to the other side of the border, if your country does not obstruct you.”  He met with 1573 men-times of Chinese citizens having Soviet nationals as their kinsfolk within five days and deliberately postponed the scheduled interview on April 7 to the afternoon of April 8. When the number of Chinese citizens exceeded 500 people, Djitov arbitrarily called a mass rally without the prior permission of the local government. He instigated the people to flee the land and instructed representatives of the Soviet nationals to spread the message after he left the scene that he would “turn a blind eye to the exodus ” and that “the people would be held responsible for their own action.”  During this period, Djitov went to the Soviet Union and came back twice via Bakto for making contacts. Shortly after his departure, several hundred people sent in a joint application for going to the Soviet Union and threatened a large-scale exodus. Feelings were played up to create an atmosphere of public opinion that a massive illegal flight across the border was imminent. Between mid-April and late May 1962, 74,570 Chinese border inhabitants in Ili and Tacheng joined the flight, with 61,361 people crossing the border to the Soviet side illegally. (76)

     When the Chinese border inhabitants fled the country, the Soviet border troops, instead of repeating the past practice of sending them back through contacts with the Chinese border posts, made openings along the frontier line in a planned manner, for coming to their aid and resettling them. A provisional registration station was set up at the Kuzewen checkpoint. A makeshift reception station was also set up at Kokbashtav with four tents and a yurt equipped with a telephone and dozens of trucks and motorcycles. At each reception station were doctors, ambulances and mobile vending cars with Soviet cadres from the party, government, military organizations or from the police and intelligence departments taking charge of the station. The Soviet side opened up several breaches on their barbed-wire entanglements along the Sino-Soviet frontier area at Tacheng, Yumin, Khorgos and Tsabutsar. They turned on searchlights, shot red and green signal flares and used the lamps of their cars to light up the surroundings and show the direction for flight. Soviet border troops also dispatched trucks to transport the border-crossing Chinese inhabitants to concentration spots for registration, issuing money and grain and rapidly resettling them in adjacent collective farms.  Besides, the Soviet side also spread rumors that “ the breaches will be sealed on 22 April or 25 April” and passed on message that those who intended to go to the Soviet side should bring with them more livestock and property and that they would not be allowed to cross over until the majority members of their production brigades arrived, thus creating several peaks of large-scale exodus. From the reports of those who fled to the Soviet side and were captured by frontier guards after the Ita Incident and returned to Xinjiang later on, the Soviet side told them that “Many Kazaks came over from the Chinese side because we have made openings on the frontier line. Now our superiors have ordered us to seal them temporarily. Maybe your Chinese government has made complaints about this.”(77)

   After the occurrence of large-scale exodus of border inhabitants, the party committees at all levels in Ili Prefecture rapidly mobilized personnel from various circles to go to the remote border areas and carry out large-scale, arduous education and persuasion. In the initial stage, education and persuasion were the method adopted to check the f