Magaza Masanchi

Magaza Masanchi (27 July 1886 – 3 March 1938; ) or Ma Sanqi was a Dungan communist revolutionary commander and Soviet statesman. He participated in the Russian Revolution on the Bolshevik side. Karakunuz in Kazakhstan was renamed Masanchi after him. He was a victim of the Great Purge by Joseph Stalin.

Career Masanchi was born in Alma-Ata and his father was a farmworker.

Dungans residing in town joined the Red Army after serving in the Tsarist forces when going back to Pishpek, fighting for the Soviets in Semirech'ye. However, Dungan peasants were apathetic to both sides in the Civil War, it was reported that the Bolsheviks committed atrocities against the indigenous inhabitants of Central Asia. On the side of the White Russians were Rich Dungans and the Islamic Dungan clerics.

Masanchi originally took part in World War I as a member of the Imperial Russian Army. After the Tsar was overthrown he went to Tashkent. Magaza Masanchi fought for the Soviet Union with Dmitry Furmanov. He became an official in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan after the Civil War.

After going to the 1921 Third Congress of the Comintern Masanchi battled the Basmachi movement. He was also a member of the Soviet secret police.

Masanchi was a victim of the Stalinist Great Purge. He was rehabilitated later.