Sheng Shicai
Xinjiang at the time was ruled by warlord governor Sheng Shicai. Dalelkhan was made the deputy chairman of the Society for the Advancement of Kazakh Culture. In 1937, he became a core member of the Anti-Imperialist Society of the Altay region. In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, Sheng Shicai began to move away from Soviet-backing. Dalelkhan opposed Sheng Shicai and moved to the Soviet Union to study. He received military training in Almaty and in October 1943, proposed organizing a national liberation army in Altay, Xinjiang. By then Sheng Shicai had severed ties with Soviet and Chinese Communists and the Soviet authorities supported Dalelkhan's plans. They sent a team of 12 military advisors to accompany him back to Ashan (Altay), via Mongolia, and they set up a militia base in Qinggil County, where they taught Kazakh nomads about the ideas of revolution and trained them into a partisan force.