[Type here] Uyghur Initiative Papers No. 11 December 2014 The influence of intellectuals of the th first half of the 20 century on Uyghur politics Nabijan Tursun In the first half of the 20th century, as a result of the Uyghur education The opinions expressed here are movement that spread across Eastern Turkistan, a new understanding and those of the author only and do national consciousness started to develop among Uyghurs. Uyghur intellec- not represent the Central Asia tuals trained abroad, along with the intellectuals from different countries, Program. played a prominent role in the development of nationalism in this period. These Uyghur intellectuals included both those in Eastern Turkistan and Uyghur intellectuals in diaspora. The emergence and development of the Uyghur intellectual class in this period took place in accordance with the dispersion of Uyghurs across three different geographical regions: Eastern Turkistan; Central Asia and Russia; and Turkey and the Middle East.1 The rise of the Uyghur education movement played a significant role in the emergence of the Uyghur intellectual class. The Uyghur education movement, which started in the 1920s and 1930s, was shaped and mobilized by three groups within Uyghur society. The first group consisted of businessmen and merchants who traveled abroad and saw the development of neighboring nations. They include the Musabay brothers’ family, the Muhiti brothers, Tash Ahunum, and others. They built schools and funded these schools with their own resources, thereby assuring the continued existence and expansion of these schools. Uyghur Initiative Papers No. 11, December 2014 The second group was made up of intellectuals national independence movement that aimed to who were trained abroad. The representatives of construct Uyghur national identity and establish this group included Mesut Sabiri, Memet Eli Uyghur statehood. It achieved its first accom- Tewpiq, Tursun Efendi, Qutluq Shewqi, and the plishments in two different times. National sov- founders of Ili educational associations, includ- ereignty with self-determination was established ing Merup Seidi, Teyiphaji Sabitof, and other in Kashgar on November 12, 1933, and in Ghulja intellectuals that had returned to East Turkistan on November 12, 1944. In this nationalist from the Soviet Russia before 1932. movement and in various independence strug- gles, Uyghur intellectuals played an active and The third group comprised religious scholars significant role. who were part of the Jadid movement. Figures from this group include Abdulqadir Damolla, Of course, the members of the Uyghur intellectu- Sabit Damolla, Abdukerimhan Mehsum, al class of this period were deeply influenced by Shemsidin Damolla, and Muhemmed Imin ideological struggles and opinions of the coun- Bughra. tries that they were trained in. They applied the principles of the ideological movements and In the 1930s and 1940s, a significant number of strategies of political struggles they saw else- Uyghur intellectuals emerged as a result of the where to the national independence struggle of advancement of Uyghur education. Central Asia the Uyghur people. The external ideologies that became a major resource for Uyghur intellectuals, they encountered or they accepted were directly and the number of intellectuals who were related to the Uyghur political struggle in the trained in different fields of the arts and sciences first half of the 20th century, to the principles of in universities in this region increased, and the sovereignty of the two Eastern Turkistan Repub- standards of scientific endeavor advanced. lics, and to their state ideologies and goals. Between 1934 and 1937, Sheng Shicai sent more In my opinion, it is possible to make a tripartite than around 400 students to the Central Asian classification of the ideological sources and phil- University in Tashkent and to other colleges in osophical trends of the Uyghur intellectual class Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, as a result of pres- in the first half of the 20th century. sures from the national independence movement and the support of the Soviet Union.2 He also 1. Ideals for establishing an independent Turkic built high schools, teacher-training schools, and republic based on Turkic nationalism and Islam as the Xinjiang Institute in Ürümchi, and he estab- the official state religion. lished the Union of Cultural Development for all the ethnic groups of the province. The Union of The source of this idea was the awakening and Uyghur Cultural Development was the biggest blossoming of Islamism in the Muslim world, cultural organization in Xinjiang and included including northern and western Asia, calls for 1883 schools with 180 thousand students.3 independence there, and the goals of establishing independent states by bringing together the Various associations took action in the field of Turkic nations, and the Idil-Ural Turkic people of education. In this period, a generation of Uyghur Eurasia. intellectuals, with university or high school de- grees, was cultivated. These intellectuals played The representatives of this ideological trend in- the role of promoters, organizers, and leaders of cluded Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and intellectu- a broad-based political movement in the 1930s als from other groups who actively participated and 1940s. in the nationalist revolts of 1933 and 1934. They played important roles in establishing and lead- In this paper, I focus on the role of Uyghur intel- ing the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Republic, oc- lectuals in the political life of the Uyghurs in this cupying prominent posts in the government. period and explains their basic ideas. In the Among them were intellectuals who had visited 1930s and 1940s, the Uyghur nationalist move- Istanbul, Cairo, Bombay, Kabul, Kazan, Bukhara, ment increased its strength, transforming into a Tashkent, and other cities, were trained in the 2 Uyghur Initiative Papers No. 11, December 2014 universities in these cities, and went back to this congress.8 The Kashgher Millet Mejlisi (Kash- their own homelands, with the aim of launching gar People’s Congress) had the military and ad- an education movement and of strengthening ministrative authority to decide government political and national identity in Eastern Turki- policy and to appoint certain high-ranking offi- stan. cials. The Congress tried to avoid the old Chinese system. Several progressive Uyghur religious scholars, including Abduqadir Damolla, Muhemmed Imin The Association of Independence was a corner- Bughra, Sabit Damolla, Abdulla Damolla, stone of the East Turkistan Republic and actively Shemsidin Damolla, and Qutluq Haji Shewqi, tried to unite all the guerrilla groups while pre- were not only the leaders of the reform and edu- paring the political and nationalist foundations cation movements among Uyghurs. They also for an independent state. aimed to promote and carry out principles based on republicanism and national independence. Some of the Uyghur and Uzbek intellectuals in Almost all of them had lived for long periods in Kashgar and opinion leaders with Jadidist and Muslim countries, including Turkey, and in a pro-independence ideals, as well as political fig- number of cases they were also educated in ures who participated in the political events in these countries. They were thus influenced by Central Asia of the 1920s and 1930s—especially the ideological trends in these countries and those involved in the activities of the Shurai- tried to apply these ideas to the political life and Islamiye Organization—took part in the Autono- destiny of the Uyghurs. mous Government of Turkistan, engaging in pro- independence movements which were later la- Although these religious scholars, under the beled as basmachi and condemned by the Soviet leadership of Sabit Damolla, aimed to synthesize Union.9 Some of the participants in the Associa- Islamic and Republican ideals, their main aims tion of Independence were familiar with Turkic were to establish a state with national character- national state ideology and the Soviet–Russian istics and to bring under one rule Uyghurs, Kyr- state administrative system in Central Asia gyz, Kazakh, Uzbek, and other Turkic nations. through their experiences with the Turkistan The "Association of Independence," which was Autonomous Government in Kokand. founded in 1933 in Kashgar,4 took the organiza- tions of the "Young Bukharanias"5 and "Young The "formal" beginning of the "Basmachi" Khivans,"6 which had existed in Central Asia at movement is usually associated with the Tsarist the beginning of the 20th century, as a model. Imperial Decree of June 25, 1916, which ordered the first non-voluntary recruitment of Central Most of the participants in this political organiza- Asians into the army during the First World tion in Kashgar were Uyghur intellectuals, reli- War.10 The movement was a reaction not only to gious scholars, and businessmen. The association conscription, but to the Russian conquest itself endorsed republican ideals and attempted to and the policies employed by the tsarist state in rule Kashgar with a republican regime. Some Western Turkistan. After communists destroyed Uzbek representatives, who struggled against the Turkistan Autonomous Government in the Soviet rule and the Bolsheviks in the Ferghana Ferghana Valley, the struggle of Muslims of Valley, relocated to Kashgar and also joined this Western Turkistan against communists not only organization.7 continued, but escalated in intensity. The strug- gle continued under various methods well