In 1937, during the Xinjiang War (1937), Ma Shaowu was accused by the Soviet puppet Sheng Shicai of being part of a "Fascist-Trotskyite" network, including Khoja Niyas Hajji, Ma Hushan, along with other totally ridiculous claims, which Sheng Shicai used as an excuse to conduct his own purge in Xinjiang along with Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.