History
According to its former members,the Uyghurstan People's Party was founded in or a few years before 1967 or 1968. [1] Chinese historian Zhang Yuxi suggests that the group may have been established clandestinely as early as 1963. [2] The group changed its name to the East Turkestan People's Revolutionary Party (ETPRP) to echo the legacy of the earlier East Turkestan Revolutionary Party (1946–1947) and to appeal to Turkic populations aside from the Uyghurs,particularly the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in China. [1] [3]
Former ETPRP members claimed the group reached a peak of 60,000 fighters and 178 underground branches in 1969,which would have made the ETPRP the largest separatist group in Xinjiang since the region's 1949 takeover by the People's Republic of China. However,these figures have never been verified by a third party. [3] [4] The group initially set up clandestine branches in Kashgar and Ürümqi,the cultural and political capitals of Xinjiang,but its leadership was based in Soviet Kazakhstan. [1] [3]
After a failed insurrection in 1969,the ETPRP gradually weakened due to the arrest and exile of most of its members. [3] The ETPRP blamed the Soviets for their "lack of commitment" to supporting the separatists. [2] Soviet support decreased as Sino-Soviet relations began warming up again that year. [3]
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