page_title: Second East Turkestan Republic
section_title: Absorption by the People's Republic of China
hierarchical_section_title: Second East Turkestan Republic / Absorption by the People's Republic of China
caption_attribution_description: English: In July 1952, Xi Zhongxun was appointed by the Central Committee of the CCP to Xinjiang Province to deal with the affairs of the insurgency of Osman Batur. This is Xi Zhongxun (middle), Saifuddin Azizi (left, vice chairman of Xinjiang Province), Burhan Shahidi(right, chairman of Xinjiang Province). 中文: 1952年7月，习仲勋受党中央委派，到新疆成功处理了乌斯满叛乱事件。图为习仲勋（中）与新疆省人民政府主席包尔汉（右）、副主席赛福鼎·艾则孜合影。
context_page_description: The Second East Turkestan Republic, commonly referred to simply as the East Turkestan Republic, was a short-lived Soviet-backed Turkic socialist people's republic. The ETR existed in the mid-1940s in Northern Xinjiang. It began as a revolution in three northern districts of Xinjiang Province of the Chinese Republic, resulting in the Ili Rebellion. In 1946 it canceled its independent participation and joined the Xinjiang Provincial Coalition Government, but maintained de facto autonomy. In August 1947, the officials of the ETR withdrew from the Xinjiang Provincial Coalition Government and re-asserted their independence. The rest of Xinjiang was under Kuomintang control. This region is now part of the Northern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.
context_section_description: In August 1949, the People's Liberation Army captured Lanzhou, the capital of the Gansu Province. Kuomintang administration in Xinjiang was threatened. The Kuomintang Xinjiang provincial leaders Tao Zhiyue and Burhan Shahidi led the government and army's switch to the Communist Party of China (CPC) side in September 1949. By the end of 1949, some Kuomintang officials fled to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, but most crossed over or surrendered to the CPC. On 17 August 1949, the Communist Party of China sent Deng Liqun to negotiate with the Three Districts' leadership in Ghulja (Yining in Chinese). Mao Zedong invited the leaders of the Three Districts to take part in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference later that year. The leaders of the Three Districts traveled to the Soviet Union on August 22 by automobiles through Horgos, accompanied by Soviet vice-consul in Ghulja Vasiliy Borisov, where they were told to cooperate with the Communist Party of China. Negotiations between Three Districts and Soviet representatives in Alma-Ata continued for three days and were difficult because of the unwillingness of Three Districts leader Ehmetjan Qasimi (whose strategy was opposed by two other delegates-Abdulkerim Abbas and Luo Zhi, while Generals Ishaq Beg and  Dalelkhan supported Ehmetjan) to agree to incorporate the Three Districts into the future Chinese communist state, supposedly in 1951. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed two years earlier, on 1 October 1949. Ehmetjan regarded the current situation as a historic opportunity for Uyghurs and other people of Xinjiang to gain freedom and independence that shouldn't be lost. So, the Three Districts delegation was offered to continue negotiations in Moscow directly with Stalin before departure to Beijing. On August 25, the eleven delegates, Ehmetjan Qasimi, Abdulkerim Abbas, Ishaq Beg, Luo Zhi, Dalelkhan Sugirbayev and accompanying officers of the Three Districts, boarded  Ilyushin Il-12 plane in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, officially heading to Beijing, but flight was diverted for Moscow. On September 3, the Soviet Union informed the Chinese government that the plane had crashed near Lake Baikal en route to Beijing, killing all on board. On the same day Molotov sent a telegram to Ghulja to inform Saifuddin Azizi (interim leader of the Three Districts when Ehmetjan Qasimi was not in Ili, and a member of Communist Party of Soviet Union) about the Tragic death of devoted revolutionaries, including Ehmetjan Qasimi, in airplane crash near Lake Baikal en route to Beijing. In accordance with instructions from Moscow, Saifuddin Azizi kept the news secret from the population of the Three Districts and it was unreported by Beijing for several months until January 1950, when the then-unrecognisable bodies of the Three Districts leaders were delivered from the USSR and when the People's Liberation Army of China had already secured most of the regions of the former Xinjiang Province.
  After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, some former KGB generals and high officers (among them Pavel Sudoplatov) revealed that the five leaders were killed on Stalin's orders in Moscow on 27 August 1949, after a three-day imprisonment in the former Tsar's stables, having been arrested upon arrival in Moscow by the Head of MGB Colonel General Viktor Abakumov, who personally interrogated the Three Districts leaders, then ordered their execution. This was allegedly done in accordance with a deal between Stalin and Mao Zedong, but this allegation has never been confirmed. The remaining important figures of the Three Districts, including Saifuddin Azizi (who led the Second delegation of the Three Districts, which participated in Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in September in Beijing, which proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949), agreed to incorporate the Three Districts into the Xinjiang Province and accept important positions within the administration. However, some Kazakhs led by Osman Batur continued their resistance until 1954. Saifuddin then
caption: Saifuddin Azizi, Xi Zhongxun (father of 6th paramount leader of China Xi Jinping), Burhan Shahidi in July 1952 after successful quelling of Ospan Batyr Kazakh insurgency in Xinjiang.
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