In April 1944, Tore, eleven other Turkic leaders formed a separatist organization in Ghulja (Yining) to end Chinese Nationalist rule and establish an independent East Turkestan.

[5] Elihan Tore was elected as president of the Second East Turkestan Republic (ETR) the day after a successful rebellion in Ghulja on 12 November 1944.

[citation needed] Tore was the only person in the ETR leadership who opposed Joseph Stalin's order to terminate hostilities with the Chinese Nationalists and start negotiations in October 1945.

[citation needed] On 16 June 1946, six days after signing a peace agreement between the ETR and Chinese Nationalists, Tore was forcibly returned to the Soviet Union by the KGB and confined there.

He spent the rest of his life under house arrest in Tashkent, where he wrote a book about Xinjiang titled Türkistan kaygısı ("Turkistan Tragedy").