The fate of Kazakh-Kyrgyz refugees who fled from political pressure in the first quarter of the twentieth century and the first years of the establishment of Soviet power in the Xinjiang province of Western China has not been sufficiently studied. Although the historical experience of crossing the border as a measure of salvation from various political, socio-economic crises in the regions has long been established, the difficult situation in Zhetysu at the beginning of the 20th century caused an unprecedented wave of emigration. The ranks of refugees heading to Western China were joined by groups of armed White Guards who were defeated on the northern Zhetysu Front, as well as Dungans, Taranchintsi, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Cossack residents of southeastern Kazakhstan. Although the Xinjiang authorities accepted the weapons of the White Guard militias and provided them with food aid, solving the refugee problem in the region has become a serious problem. The position of the party and executive bodies of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on the return of Zhetysu refugees from Xinjiang was implemented in the form of a special commission on refugees. A unit of the special commission for refugee affairs has also been created in the Kuldzha and Chigichak regions of the Xinjiang province. The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR intervened in the process of returning peaceful and amnestied military refugees through diplomatic acts in the form of the “Ili Protocol” of March 27, 1921. This article examines the situation of refugees in Xinjiang, the activities of the subcommittee on refugees in Xinjiang, the activities of representatives of the NKID in Western China, the attitude of the Xinjiang authorities towards refugees, the return of refugees sold into slavery, based on domestic and foreign archival materials, published collections of documents and memoirs refugees. The results of the study can be used as educational material on social history and migration problems of the first quarter of the twentieth century in the process of training humanities specialists in higher educational institutions.