Mongolia's Cold War History

0:00 Mongolian history is absolutely fascinating,

0:03 but is dominated by that Teujin guy, understandably too.

0:07 He did forge an empire that stretched from the Pacific to Europe.

0:10 But Mongolia is more than just step warriors and their horses.

0:14 The story of Mongolia's existence under communism is

0:17 arguably one of the Cold War's most fascinating tales,

0:21 although one that seems to be

0:22 rather underexplored compared to the other welldocumented

0:26 histories of other countries like Vietnam

0:28 or North Korea in Asia's Eastern block.

0:31 I'm your host, David,

0:32 and today we are going to start looking at the 20th century history of Mongolia.

0:36 This is the Cold War.

0:45 When most people think of Mongolia, they think of its vast step,

0:48 the stunning mountains and forests, and nomadic traditions.

0:52 The more historically minded will, of course,

0:54 recall Timujin Chingaskhan, the ambitious leader of the Mongol Empire,

0:58 who wrecked havoc across Asia and Europe in the 13th

1:02 century and established the largest continuous territorial empire in history.

1:07 However, I am willing to bet that far fewer people are aware that the Cold War

1:12 saw Mongolia caught up in the very center

1:14 of 20th century geopolitics and great power competition.

1:19 Many even think that communist Mongolia was

1:21 merely a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

1:24 But again, this was not the case.

1:27 So, what is the story of Mongolia's time as a communist state?

1:30 How did the Mongolian People's Republic come to be?

1:33 and why was it so integral to the story of the Cold War in Asia?

1:37 Let's now explore the history of the Mongolian People's Republic.

1:41 As we alluded to in the introduction, the history of Mongolia in the preodern

1:45 and early modern period is deeply rich and complex.

1:49 But for the sake of brevity,

1:51 after being conquered in the 17th century by the Manchus,

1:54 the land of the Mongols was divided into inner and outer Mongolia with most

1:59 of outer Mongolia forming what is today recognized as the state of Mongolia.

2:04 Outer Mongolia traditionally had much more autonomy than Inner Mongolia.

2:08 And after the 1911 collapse of theQing dynasty in China,

2:12 outer Mongolia began asserting its right to nationhood.

2:16 However, Mongolia was seized again by the Republic of China in 1919.

2:21 The same year, Bolshevik forces in civil

2:23 warstricken Russia had recognized Mongolia's independence.

2:27 So, Mongolian revolutionaries got in contact with Boleviks

2:30 in Siberia seeking assistance against the Chinese.

2:34 Subsequently, Russian soldiers arrived in Mongolia in the winter of 1920,

2:38 and by February 4th, 1921, Chinese forces had been driven out.

2:44 So the Mongolian revolutionaries in question were led by a figure called

2:48 Damdin Sukbatar who in 1920 founded the Mongolian People's Republic or MPP.

2:54 Following Mongolia's Russianbacked victory over the Chinese,

2:57 the MPP established a provisional government as its

3:00 first congress on the 1st of March 1921.

3:04 Later that year in July, Sukbatar, supported by Soviet troops,

3:08 gained full control of the territory and established the MPR,

3:12 the Mongolian People's Republic.

3:14 So far so good, right?

3:16 Well, caught between Russia and China and with its autonomy under threat,

3:20 the MPP was quickly marred by internal

3:22 divisions between staunch communists and nationalists.

3:26 With the help of the Soviets, though, in January 1922,

3:29 the leader of the nationalist faction, Doug Simon Bodu, was forced to resign.

3:34 In August, he was executed as a counterrevolutionary.

3:37 After Sukpatar's death in 1923, the MPP program was amended so that the party

3:43 could be completely purged of nationalist elements and by 1924,

3:48 the MPP was principally under the control of the communists.

3:52 The MPP was renamed the Mongolian People's Revolutionary

3:55 Party or MP and it joined the Common.

3:59 The capital Nommen Kuri was also renamed to Ulan Batar that same year.

4:05 Despite the purge, several nationalist figures did remain in the NP.

4:09 And in these early years, they managed to maintain considerable influence,

4:13 especially over Mongolia's economic affairs.

4:16 They initially promoted the slogan get rich to promote small-cale

4:20 business in a program similar to Lenin's new economic policy,

4:24 which characterized the Soviet economy at the time.

4:27 Obviously, the communists hated this, but luckily for them anyway,

4:32 they remained far more influential politically.

4:34 As a result, in 1926, the fifth party congress called

4:38 for the restriction and nationalization of private property,

4:42 while the seventh party congress in 1928 denounced what it

4:45 called the nationalists right opportunism

4:48 and subsequently dismissed several leaders.

4:51 By the late 1920s then the communist

4:54 control of the MPP was becoming increasingly solidified.

4:58 Relatedly by that point in time Joseph Stalin had gained

5:01 unopposed control of the communist party in the Soviet Union.

5:04 So the MPP increasingly looked to him for inspiration.

5:10 Stalin wanted Mongolia to transition from the democratic

5:13 to the socialist stage of the communist revolution.

5:16 And so in 1929, the Mongolian state began expropriating monastery property.

5:21 It also forced herdsmen into collective farms and communes

5:25 in a process akin to Stalin's collectivization of agriculture in the USSR.

5:30 This was unpopular enough that it resulted in several armed uprisings

5:34 against the leftist policies of the MPP from 1930 to 1932,

5:40 which became collectively known as the Huskll uprising.

5:43 Principally led by the llamas of the Buddhist faith.

5:46 It resulted in the deaths of over 1,500

5:48 people as Soviet-backed Mongolian troops quelled the uprising.

5:53 Over the duration of the Hooves uprising,

5:55 it's estimated that onethird of Mongolian livestock was decimated while over

5:59 800 properties belonging to the nobility and Buddhist church were confiscated.

6:04 Additionally, over 700 heads of noble households were executed.

6:08 In response to the uprising,

6:10 Moscow ordered the MPRP to curtail its unpopular initiatives

6:14 and pinned the blame on hardline leftists within the party.

6:18 This resulted in several more high-profile

6:20 expulsions from the party in May 1932.

6:23 Throughout the mid1 1930s, the MPRP scaled back its persecution

6:27 of religious leaders and its attempts at collectivization.

6:31 But the horrors quickly resumed as Horlujin Choan,

6:34 a leading figure of Mongolia's communist revolution of the 1920s,

6:38 sought to establish himself as the outright leader of the MPP.

6:43 With Moscow's assistance and again in lock

6:45 step with Stalin's own approach to governance,

6:47 the Soviet NKVD helped Chibbal son to instigate a series of purges

6:52 against leading figures in the MP in order to secure his own position.

6:58 As summarized by professor Christopher Kaplanssky, quote,

7:01 under the direction of his Soviet handler, Madv Petrovich Chopyak,

7:05 Chibbelan had internal affairs committee rules amended in May 1936

7:09 to facilitate the detention of high-ranking

7:11 politicians without first consulting political superiors.

7:15 Soon thereafter, 23 high-ranking llamas

7:18 were arrested following a year-long trial.

7:20 They were publicly executed in early October 1937.

7:24 In the 2-year period between 1937 and 1939,

7:28 anywhere between 20,000 and 35,000 so-called

7:31 enemies of the revolution were executed,

7:34 including numerous high-ranking government figures

7:36 and members of the intelligencia.

7:39 Though nowhere close to the millions killed under Stalin,

7:42 this still amounted to between 3 and 5%

7:45 of Mongolia's population at the time and is hugely significant.

7:50 Amid all the purging, Chibbal son decided he was stressed and spent

7:54 6 months relaxing in Sochi in the USSR,

7:57 mingling with senior Soviet officials, including Stalin himself.

8:01 When Chobal son returned to Mongolia and ended the purge in April 1939,

8:06 he did so as uncontested leader,

8:08 simultaneously holding the title of prime minister,

8:11 Minister of Internal Affairs,

8:12 Minister of War, and Commander-in-Chief of the Mongolian Armed Forces.

8:16 He also claimed that the purge had been

8:18 overzealously conducted while he was away in the USSR,

8:22 an attempt to absolve and distance himself of any guilt.

8:26 At this point, it does seem worth asking though,

8:28 if Chibalan and the MP were so close to the USSR in the 1920s and 30s,

8:33 why didn't Mongolia just join the USSR at the same

8:36 time the Soviets were expanding their influence in nearby Central Asia?

8:40 Well, the answer is actually fairly simple.

8:43 Effectively, the Soviets wanted to avoid a war

8:45 with China and to a lesser extent with Japan,

8:48 something whose chances would have increased significantly

8:52 had Mongolia been incorporated into the USSR.

8:55 As a result, the Soviets

8:56 enthusiastically supported Mongolia's communist development,

9:00 but stopped short of offering it full republic status.

9:04 Still though, questions regarding Mongolia's sovereignty

9:06 and its place in the world

9:08 came to the four with the Soviets entry into the Second World War.

9:12 Though Mongolia did not officially join the Soviet war effort,

9:15 it promised to provide assistance in the form of volunteers

9:18 and material and its economy was mobilized to reflect this.

9:23 The most important wartime development for Mongolia, however,

9:26 was almost certainly at the Yaltta conference in May 1945.

9:31 Indeed, at this time,

9:32 Mongolia was still broadly recognized internationally as part of China.

9:37 But with Great Britain and the US in particular

9:39 seeking the Soviets's help in the war against Japan,

9:42 the Soviets sought the recognition of the status

9:45 quo in Mongolia as a precondition for their assistance.

9:48 This was accepted by the allies

9:50 and Mongolia gained de facto international recognition.

9:53 The Soviets subsequently used Mongolia as a base for their war on Japan,

9:57 which saw around 650,000 Soviet troops stationed in the country.

10:03 Shortly after this, the Soviets persuaded the Republic

10:06 of China to recognize what was once outer Mongolia

10:09 as independent when Stalin promised not to support

10:12 the Chinese Communist Party in the ongoing Chinese civil war.

10:16 This resulted in the signature of the 1945 Sinos Soviet treaty.

10:21 An independence referendum was then held

10:23 in the Mongolian People's Republic in October 1945.

10:27 Oddly enough, 100% of voters, yes, you've heard me right,

10:32 100% opted for independence with zero votes registered

10:36 against the notion anywhere in the entire country.

10:40 Historian Sergey Rechenko described the referendum

10:42 as regarded by both sides as political

10:45 theater due to the peculiarity of a supposed unanimous 100% vote in favor.

10:51 Still though, these wartime developments were huge for Mongolia

10:55 and granted it legitimacy on the international stage.

10:58 Mongolia then entered the Cold War in relatively good shape.

11:01 It had avoided the devastation of war, secured its independence,

11:05 and the USSR was willing to support it economically and politically.

11:09 It's puzzling then that for all the vicious purges

11:12 against nationalists instigated by Choy Balsan and his predecessors,

11:17 many Mongolian politicians were seriously enthusiastic

11:20 about reuniting the MPR with Inner Mongolia.

11:24 However, when the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil

11:27 War in 1949 and proclaimed the People's Republic of China,

11:31 this made the MP's ambitions far more complicated.

11:35 As you would expect, Mongolia transferred its recognition of the Chinese state

11:39 from the Republic of China to the PRC.

11:42 But what would China's turn to communism mean for Mongolia's sovereignty?

11:46 Like Chibbalan, Chinese leader Ma Dong also

11:49 hoped to unify outer and inner Mongolia.

11:52 He, however, wanted Mongolia to join the new people's republic.

11:55 From their position of post-war strength, however,

11:57 Soviet leadership flatly refused when Mao tried to raise the question in 1949.

12:02 For example, during a secret consultation with senior Chinese officials,

12:06 Soviet diplomat Anastas Mikoyan told Mao directly

12:09 that Mongolia had quote long grown accustomed

12:12 to the taste of independence and was

12:14 unlikely ever to surrender that independence voluntarily.

12:18 According to the transcript of the meeting,

12:20 Ma backtracked and replied that he did not defend the great Han

12:23 chauvinistic line and would not raise

12:25 the question of Mongolia's reunification again.

12:28 It wasn't long after this that Stalin

12:30 and Mao signed the Sinos Soviet Treaty of Friendship,

12:33 Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.

12:35 On the 14th of February, 1950, Stalin wanted to limit the potential for the PRC

12:41 to encroach on the Soviet sphere of influence, especially in East Asia.

12:45 So, as part of the agreement,

12:47 Stalin made the PRC guarantee the MRP's independence from China.

12:52 But the treaty also recognized Inner Mongolia as part of China,

12:56 putting Choy Balasan's hopes of reuniting the NPR with Inner Mongolia

13:01 completely to bed as he was utterly reliant on Soviet support.

13:05 Despite this, after Stalin's death,

13:07 the Chinese twice more raised the Mongolian issue.

13:11 Once in a still classified conversation with Nikita Kushchoff in the fall

13:15 of 1954 and a second time in a conversation with Mikoan in April 1956.

13:21 According to Sergey Ranchenko, quote, "The record of Mikoan's April 1956 meeting

13:26 with senior CCP polit bureau member Liu Xiaoi

13:29 and Premier Xiao and lie shows how the Chinese

13:32 leadership hoped to connect Mongolia with the question

13:35 of Stalin's mistakes and thereby cancel its independence

13:39 in the wake of Krushch's condemnation of Stalin's

13:42 personality cult." Leu drew a parallel between

13:45 Mongolia and Ukraine with Mongolia being China's Ukraine.

13:49 Rechenko goes on to suggest that Chinese claims on Mongolia

13:53 did nothing to strengthen proletarian solidarity between the two parties.

13:57 In any case, Chib Balan died of cancer in Moscow

14:00 in 1952 and was replaced as prime minister by Yung Jayin Tendinbal,

14:06 the MPP's general secretary and had been second in command to Chib Balan.

14:11 Unlike Chibasan, however,

14:13 Tedenbal was enthusiastic about bringing Mongolia into the Soviet Union.

14:17 So he started raising this issue despite the fact that it

14:21 had been clearly off the table since at least the late 1920s.

14:25 Tedin both formally and informally asked the USSR

14:28 to annex it at least six times.

14:31 And every single time the answer was no.

14:34 And the reason well by this point even

14:36 though the USSR's issues with China had been mostly

14:39 settled the USSR was getting everything it needed

14:41 from Mongolia without the trouble of integrating it fully.

14:45 It got a buffer zone with China and Moscow could hold the Mongolia

14:48 issue over Beijing's head as a bargaining chip if it ever needed to.

14:53 Moreover, the MPP's leadership was largely bereft

14:56 of any real willingness to give up Mongolia's sovereignty.

14:59 This once again showed that tensions between nationalist camps and more

15:04 orthodox communist camps in the party had still not disappeared completely.

15:09 Still, these developments in the 1950s paved the way

15:12 for the MPR's relations with the PRC to improve somewhat.

15:17 During this period, the Chinese went on a charm offensive towards

15:20 the Mongolians with Mao receiving a Mongolian delegation in September 1956.

15:25 Mao said that our ancestors exploited you for 300 years and outlined

15:30 that the Chinese sought to repay our debt to the Mongolian people.

15:35 In 1949, the Trans Mongolian Railway was opened,

15:38 connecting Ulan Batar to Moscow via the Trans Siberian Railway.

15:43 This was then extended to the Chinese border

15:45 and was later linked with Beijing in 1955.

15:49 China promised to send between 100 and 300,000 workers to Mongolia.

15:54 But the prospect of this was daunting for Sedenb given

15:57 that Mongolia's population at the time was just 800,000 people.

16:02 was such a huge inflow of Chinese workers

16:04 intended as a fifth column against the NPR.

16:07 Rechenko suggests that the Sino Mongolian

16:10 friendship resembled a cat-and- mouse game

16:12 with Mao privately pushing levers to return the former province back to China.

16:17 Sedenbal's hesitation certainly suggests that the MP saw things this way.

16:23 Luckily though, China did not take immediate steps

16:25 and Mao instead encouraged the MPP to focus

16:28 on eradicating their nation's nomatic heritage and speeding

16:31 up industrialization before providing more tangible support.

16:35 Thus, though Sedenbal and the MP remained

16:38 wary of the nature of China's overtures,

16:40 at this point they were in a position where they could resist

16:43 Mao's more insidious ambitions under the protection

16:46 of Soviet support for Mongolia's sovereignty.

16:50 In the early 1960s, however, Mongol's relationship with China was characterized

16:54 by a sharp decline linked directly to the Sinos

16:57 Soviet split as the Mongolians had little choice but to back the Soviets.

17:02 Or did they?

17:03 In the same period, other communist countries,

17:06 namely North Korea, Albania, and Romania,

17:09 all exercised a degree of sovereignty within the international communist world,

17:13 maintaining arms length relations with both Moscow and Beijing.

17:17 Yet, given Mongolia's historical relationship with both Russia and China,

17:22 its choice was unsurprising.

17:24 As promised, Mao had sent some Chinese workers to Mongolia in the late 1950s,

17:29 albeit only 8 to 10,000 of them.

17:32 When Chinese Premier Jawan Lai met with Senbal in December

17:35 1962 for what turned out to be the final time,

17:39 they clashed heads and Jao withdrew the Chinese workers out of Mongolia.

17:44 But to suggest that Ulan Batar merely followed Moscow's

17:47 line on Beijing would be unfair to the MRP.

17:50 If anything, the Mongolian leadership was actually much more critical.

17:54 For instance, Khuchchev actually continued supporting China

17:57 on its ongoing border disagreement with India

18:00 amid the split much to the disappointment of Indian Prime Minister Jaral Nu.

18:05 Kushchev even said of China, quote,

18:08 "In relations between us, there is no place for neutrality.

18:11 This would be a betrayal.

18:13 We shall always be in one camp and share joys and sorrows.

18:17 Sedenbal by contrast wrote in his diary in 1963

18:21 that quote the Chinese are preaching feudal isolation.

18:24 However, their goal is different.

18:26 In reality, they want to make other countries into their satellites.

18:31 Nevertheless, Sedenbal,

18:32 who was caught between the great powers of the USSR and China,

18:36 was not really in a position where he could truly express the NPR's position.

18:41 Having said that, the split did make Mongolia's

18:44 role as a Soviet ally much more important,

18:47 and this yielded considerable benefits both internationally and domestically.

18:52 In July 1963, Mongolia thus applied for membership of the Warsaw Pact,

18:56 citing its desire for modern weaponry and technology.

19:00 While Mongolia was only granted observer status and thus not formally admitted,

19:05 this status nevertheless afforded Mongolia Moscow's tacet military support.

19:10 Indeed, a buildup of Chinese troops

19:12 on the Mongolian border in late 1965 prompted Sedinbal

19:15 to ask Leonard Brev for direct assistance

19:18 when he visited Ulan Fatar in January 1966.

19:22 This was granted in February of 1967 when the Soviet Polit Bureau

19:27 adopted resolution P23320 on stationing Soviet

19:31 forces on the territory of the MPR.

19:34 By March 1968, the USSR had stationed around

19:37 800 Soviet Army tanks and 100,000 troops in Mongolia.

19:41 In the context of the Cold War,

19:42 then Ulanbatar's close relationship with Moscow thus

19:45 afforded it both a guarantor of its

19:48 independence against an increasingly irudentist China and unprecedented

19:52 strategic importance in Moscow's split with Beijing.

19:55 So while Mongolia's foreign policy had developed in almost complete alignment

19:59 with the USSR's since the end of the Second World War,

20:03 its political system had taken a slightly different turn.

20:06 Indeed, unlike the post Stalin thaw in the USSR, the death of Cho Balasan,

20:11 who you will remember is the man who had instigated all the Stalinist purges

20:14 of the 1930s did not prove to be a watershed moment in Mongolian politics.

20:19 Though Choy Balan's personality cult did come under criticism

20:22 at the April 1956 plenum of the central committee of the MPP,

20:27 Sedenbal was cautiously negative about a Mongolian thaw.

20:32 Amid growing criticism of his leadership in the late 1950s and early 1960s,

20:36 Sedenbal instigated yet another purge against his rivals,

20:39 though he stopped short of executing them.

20:42 Instead, several high-profile political rivals were forced into exile,

20:46 including first secretary of the MPP,

20:48 Dashin Damba, in 1959 and fellow polit member

20:52 Damarin Tommor in 1962 on charges of nationalism.

20:57 In 1964, a whole host of others known as the anti-party group who were

21:02 inspired by Brev's coup against Khrushchev decided

21:05 to overthrow Sedenbal but were defeated and exiled.

21:08 Thus, when Brev visited Ulan Batar in 1966 to offer Moscow's military support,

21:14 Sedenbal presided unchallenged over the 15th Party Congress.

21:18 With these purges and Suddenbal was free

21:20 to build a cult of personality around himself,

21:23 one that would characterize both the lives of ordinary Mongolians

21:27 and the domestic political system until his fall in 1984.

21:31 But as we've seen in today's episode, until the mid1960s at least,

21:35 Mongolia's development was largely defined by its

21:38 relations with the USSR and with China.

21:41 Certainly, the NPR would likely not have survived without the Soviets help.

21:45 And the MP's ruthless approach to descent within

21:48 the party was largely facilitated by the Soviets.

21:52 Perhaps surprisingly, the Second World War and the subsequent Chinese civil

21:55 war catapulted Mongolia into the throws of Cold War geopolitics,

21:59 turning it from a mere Soviet satellite state into a key battleground

22:03 for influence amidst one of the communist world's most crucial turning points,

22:08 the Sinos Soviet split.

22:10 But as Ted Senbal's triumph against his opponents

22:12 in the 1960s eludes, in the aftermath,

22:15 Mongolia was increasingly developing its own political identity that would

22:19 set it on a somewhat divergent path from its Soviet neighbor.

22:23 By the early 1960s, Sedenbal had forced his opponents into exile

22:27 and essentially established himself as the unchallenged leader of the MPR.

22:32 Thus, when Leonard BRNV visited Ulan Batar

22:35 in January 1966 to provide Soviet military support,

22:39 there was nobody left to challenge Sedenbal and he

22:43 was free to develop his cult of personality.

22:45 The rise of British Navas as leader of the USSR in 1964,

22:49 just 2 years prior to his visit to Ulan Batar,

22:52 was a particularly fortuitous development here.

22:55 And why, you might ask?

22:56 Well, as you'll see in our video looking at the Usuzbek Cotton scandal,

23:00 Brev brought with him the stability of Cadre's doctrine.

23:03 This was characterized by Brev's desire to have

23:06 men in charge that he could trust,

23:08 meaning that he effectively devolved power to Republican leaders he liked

23:12 and gave them a blank check to rule as they saw necessary.

23:16 Though Mongolia was obviously not officially a Soviet republic, in practice,

23:21 Brev's stability of Kadres's doctrine extended to Mongolia given

23:25 how close the ties were between the two countries.

23:28 Though Mongolia was obviously not officially a Soviet republic, in practice,

23:32 Brev's stability of Kadres's doctrine extended to Mongolia given

23:36 how close the ties were between the two countries.

23:39 As such, Sedenbal's purges and unwillingness to liberalize the system

23:43 to the same extent as Krushchev had done didn't matter.

23:47 If he had BRV's trust and Suddenbal thought

23:49 he was taking the best course of action, his position was safe.

23:53 With this, Senbal wasted little time to begin his self agrandisement.

23:58 For example, on his 50th birthday in September 1966,

24:02 he was presented with the highest distinction

24:04 of hero of the Mongolian People's Republic

24:07 as well as an order of Sukbatar for his special services to the party,

24:11 state, and Mongolian people.

24:13 A decade later on his 60th birthday,

24:15 he received another order of Sukpatar and an exhibition

24:18 about his life was opened in Ulan Batar.

24:21 At the same time, Brev awarded him an order of Lenin.

24:24 In total, he received or gave himself

24:27 six order of sufatar awards throughout his rule.

24:31 Sedenbal also enjoyed wearing 11 rows of medals and an army

24:34 marshals star-studded baton with diamonds during his public appearances.

24:39 This image was hardly received well in private by ordinary Mongolians,

24:43 most of whom earned a pittance working in the factories

24:46 and fields which formed the backbone of the NPR's planned economy.

24:51 Sedenball's Russian wife, Anastasia Filotova,

24:54 was too a particularly unpopular figure.

24:57 Sedenbal's 1991 obituary in the New York Times

25:00 stated that she was widely seen as the power

25:03 behind the throne and Soviet influence on everyday

25:06 life and the Mongolian system was rife.

25:09 Senba's wife almost certainly played a role

25:12 in this, as well as the Mongolian leader ongoing sympathy

25:15 for the USSR's complicated relationship with China and his willingness

25:19 to allow Soviet troops to remain in Mongolia.

25:23 Despite Senba's obvious affinity for the Soviet Union, however,

25:26 his attempt to conduct education at all levels in Russian rather than Mongolian

25:31 was narrowly defeated in the early

25:33 1970s amid opposition from other party members.

25:37 In a way, this was a victory for any nationalist sentiment

25:40 that remained in the MP after the purges of the early 1960s.

25:45 Relatedly, and in the meantime,

25:47 changes were taking place within the MPP apparatus.

25:51 Communist Party membership had risen so much during the 1960s

25:54 that by the 16th Party Congress in July 1971,

25:59 82% of the delegates who attended were new.

26:02 Two years later in June 1974, however,

26:05 Senbal expanded his power even further when he resigned

26:08 his position as chairman of the council of ministers,

26:11 which was effectively the premiership and was elected

26:14 chairman of the presidium of the people's great kural, the national legislature.

26:18 This formally enabled him to become Mongolia's head of state.

26:22 Up until this point, Sedenbal's positions as general secretary of the MPRP

26:26 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers had been separate,

26:30 so his becoming head of state did little to quell

26:32 any claims he was not building a cult of personality.

26:37 You might ask yourself if there were parallels

26:38 with Senbal's leadership of Mongolia within the Soviet Union.

26:42 The case of Usuzbekiststan's Shahiff Rashidov could prove a useful comparison,

26:47 but overall there was certainly not a cult

26:50 of personality around either Krushchev or Brev after dalinization.

26:55 In fact, both leaders actively avoided it.

26:57 The extent to which the MPR centered around

26:59 Senbal himself therefore represented a notable departure from Mongolia's

27:03 tendency to follow the trends in Soviet domestic

27:06 politics which had hither too defined its political system.

27:10 The Mongolian economy too developed somewhat differently from the Soviet one.

27:14 Though the MPP introduced 5-year plans in the early 1930s,

27:18 the Hooves uprising and its fallout saw them quickly abandon this in 1932.

27:23 Annual plans were reintroduced in 1941 with a regular

27:27 schedule of 5-year plans not established again until 1961,

27:32 despite a one-off in 1948.

27:34 From 1961, 5-year plans were developed regularly

27:37 in line with those of the Soviet Union.

27:39 Accordingly, throughout the Cold War,

27:41 the Mongolian economy was largely based on agriculture and industry.

27:46 To a large degree, though, this was actually against BRV's wishes.

27:49 Whereas Brev wanted the MPR to provide

27:51 primarily agricultural goods and minerals for the USSR,

27:55 Senbal sought to develop a greater

27:57 balance between heavy industry and agriculture.

28:00 As such, by 1985, a reported 18.3% of national income

28:05 was derived from agriculture and a further 32.4% came from industry.

28:10 The remainder was mostly based on domestic

28:13 trade and services which accounted for 31.6%.

28:17 Moreover, in June 1962,

28:19 Mongolia joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comic-Con,

28:23 which in general terms was similar to the Americans Marshall Plan.

28:27 But the 60s was nevertheless a pretty rough decade for the Mongolian economy.

28:31 Mongolia was plagued not only by bad weather like blizzards,

28:35 which in 1967 alone caused the loss of $37 million worth of livestock,

28:40 but its lack of raw materials for heavy

28:43 and light industry also hampered sectoral development.

28:47 Indeed, despite Senball's hopes for Mongolian industry, by 1986,

28:51 agriculture still accounted for almost 60% of the MPR's exports,

28:55 and the industrial goods they did export

28:57 were not considered competitive in the Eastern block.

29:00 China's withdrawal of economic support for Mongolia following

29:03 the Sinos Soviet split only dampened things further.

29:07 In fact, things were so poor that following the end

29:09 of the fourth 5-year plan for the period 1966 to 70,

29:13 the MP admitted that the economy had quote not

29:17 developed as rapidly as those of fraternal socialist states.

29:21 However, the fifth 5-year plan covering 1971-75 did

29:25 facilitate some net gains for the MPR's economy.

29:28 This was principally because the plan was underwritten by Moscow

29:31 and the economic investment from Comic-Con finally started to yield

29:35 results as specialists and their families poured into Mongolia

29:39 from every corner of the Soviet Union and Eastern block.

29:42 Among those who moved to Mongolia was Alexander Zalinski

29:46 and that surname is no doubt familiar to almost all of you.

29:49 Alexander is the father of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zalinski.

29:53 The Ukrainian president's father worked in the mining sector

29:56 in Erdinet where Vladimir lived for 4 years during his childhood.

30:01 Anyway, during the fifth 5-year plan,

30:03 Mongolia's gross industrial output rose by 45% compared to the fourth plan.

30:09 But the economic stagnation,

30:10 which characterized British Net's leadership of the USSR in the 1970s,

30:14 quickly jettisoned any hope that this was a sign

30:17 of more meaningful and prolonged growth among Mongolians.

30:21 Sedenbal subsequently became known as the Khan

30:23 of stagnation for his poor economic policies.

30:27 So with the USSR propping up the MPR's

30:29 economy and Senbal's cult of personality firmly in place,

30:33 life in Mongolia remained fairly stable throughout the 1970s.

30:37 But Brev's death in 1982 prompted the new Soviet leadership under

30:41 Yuri Andropov to consider alternative ways to manage the communist system.

30:46 Increasingly aware of the mounting external

30:49 and internal pressure on his position,

30:51 Zenbal did not miss the opportunity to enact

30:54 another purge of the party from 1981,

30:57 which saw a third of the central committee dismissed from their posts.

31:00 He also did not miss the opportunity to cover himself in glory once again.

31:04 At the 18th Party Congress,

31:06 he was praised as the best leader of party and state by fellow MPP members.

31:11 Sedenbal's good fortune would soon change though amid

31:14 the burgeoning atmosphere of reform in the USSR.

31:17 On the 9th of August 1984, when Sedenbal was on holiday in Moscow,

31:21 the Kremlin's doctor diagnosed him as being overworked.

31:25 Senbal had been suffering with health problems since at least 1973,

31:30 but his erratic behavior had since become a major concern.

31:34 The pilot bureau thus summoned other senior members of the MPP

31:37 to Moscow and told them that Suddenbal had to go.

31:41 Two weeks later on the 23rd of August,

31:43 the Mongolian Polit Bureau dismissed Senbal from all positions

31:47 due to his state of health and with his agreement.

31:51 By many accounts, Sedenbal's fault was

31:53 rather graceful despite how disliked he was.

31:56 But any personal hopes for a positive legacy

31:59 Senbal may have harbored could not have lasted long.

32:02 Indeed, in 1988, the MPRP officially blamed him

32:06 for the major shortcomings and emissions of the last 40 years.

32:10 And in March 1990, he was completely expelled from the Communist Party.

32:14 Suddenbal retired to Moscow where he lived

32:17 with his family until his death in April 1991.

32:21 Moscow handpicked Sedenbal's replacement, Jamin Baton,

32:25 a figure who had been prime minister of Mongolia since 1974.

32:29 By the 1980s, the stagnation

32:31 of the Mongolian economy was unignorable and Batmong, much like Gorbachof,

32:36 recognized that the overentralization of the economy was causing issues.

32:40 He began to reform the system slowly,

32:43 even going so far as to print a full translation

32:45 of Gorbachev's speech to the 1986 Congress of the CPSU,

32:49 demanding the liberalization of the economy in the MP's mouthpiece, UNE,

32:55 which played a similar role to that of Pravda in the USSR.

32:59 Batmon also proposed reforming the bureaucracy.

33:02 However, he was slow to replace cadres who resisted changes to the system.

33:06 Although the fact that he highlighted these challenges himself in a speech

33:10 to the MPP members in July 1987 suggests that his intentions were sincere.

33:16 Nevertheless, perhaps predictably, changes in the USSR under Grobachov would

33:21 hasten the process of reform in Mongolia.

33:23 As the USSR was facing its own economic difficulties amid pistroka,

33:28 it increasingly struggled to provide Mongolia with the fiscal

33:31 and human capital support it had become accustomed to.

33:35 Moreover, Gorbachov started pursuing a pivot

33:38 to the east after a speech in Vladivosto

33:41 in 1986 in which he outlined his concerns over tensions in the region.

33:46 By April 1987, he had withdrawn 25% of the Soviet forces stationed in Mongolia.

33:51 In response, Mongolia signed an agreement with the PRC in June 1987,

33:56 where they outlined the peaceful resolution of border disputes as well

33:59 as their intentions to increase trade again after the Senos Soviet split.

34:04 The same year, Mongolia also established

34:06 formal relations with the United States.

34:08 These moves represented in effect an indirect

34:11 acknowledgement that Mongolia would have to start

34:13 trying to stand on its own two feet without the protection of the Soviet Union.

34:18 As Mongolia slowly but surely lost the USSR's material backing,

34:22 criticism of the socialist system grew from within the MPP.

34:26 In 1988, key government leaders challenged communist policies and even

34:31 floated the idea of establishing a fully democratic system.

34:35 The next year in 1989, a commission appointed by the polit bureau

34:38 investigated the earlier purges of Chibbalan and Sedenbal,

34:42 concluding that at least 20,000 of the Mongolians who the state

34:46 had executed or exiled should have their names cleared of any crimes.

34:52 And then in a move that proved to be fatal for Mongolia's one party system,

34:56 the MP put on a celebration of International

34:59 Human Rights Day shortly after in December 1989.

35:03 According to historian Morris Rasabi,

35:05 the scene observers in government house witnessed on December 10th,

35:08 1989 both surprised and shocked them.

35:12 As snow drifted down gently,

35:14 200 people marched around with banners and signs calling for the elimination

35:18 of bureaucratic oppression as well

35:21 as a promise to implement Paristoka and Glasnost.

35:24 It was increasingly evident that the tides

35:26 were shifting perhaps irreversibly so.

35:29 Remarkably, on the 11th and 12th of December

35:32 at the 7th plenum of the 19th Congress of the MPP,

35:36 officials supported the demands for Paristoga and Glasnost.

35:39 The Mongolians were keen to avoid the gruesome

35:41 scenes of Tianan Square 6 months earlier

35:44 in neighboring China and wanted to prove

35:46 that they were not cut from the same cloth.

35:49 The December 10th protesters had also carried placards saying,

35:53 quote, "A multi-party system is essential.

35:57 honor human rights above all and freedom of the press.

36:01 So days after the Mongolian Democratic Union

36:03 was formed and held its first meeting.

36:06 By December 17th, its leaders had officially

36:08 submitted their demands to the ruling MPP,

36:12 specifying what Paristoka and Glasnost looked like in their minds.

36:16 But the process for the reformers from here was a bit more difficult.

36:21 MP officials did not specify a timeline for the reforms they proposed

36:25 and it could perhaps be argued that they only nominally supported them.

36:30 Those who protested and formed the Mongolian Democratic

36:32 Union were primarily from the intelligencia and to put

36:36 more pressure on the government they needed

36:38 to incorporate a broader cross-section of Mongolian society.

36:42 Reformers thus started petitioning across the country

36:45 in an attempt to appeal to dissatisfied workers.

36:48 They found particular success in Erdinet, the city where Zalinsky had grown up.

36:52 Workers were tired of being treated

36:54 like second-class citizens by the Soviets who

36:56 managed the factories and the reformers convinced them to turn on the MPP.

37:02 These workers were then incorporated into the Mongolian Democratic

37:05 Union and the protests against the government grew in size.

37:09 The December 10th protests attracted around just 200 participants.

37:14 But the next demonstrations on the 21st of January

37:17 1990 attracted thousands and the crowd was far more diverse.

37:22 By late April, the protests in Ulan Batar and other Mongolian cities

37:25 were drawing in tens of thousands of participants on a regular basis.

37:29 In the meantime, the MPP announced that an open election for the Hural,

37:34 Mongolia's parliament, would be held in June 1990,

37:37 agreeing that other parties could run.

37:40 These completely peaceful processes became known as the Mongolian Revolution.

37:45 While the peaceful transition to a multi-party

37:47 system was certainly a watershed moment,

37:49 the MPP was still at a massive advantage, namely because it had access to funds

37:55 which the Mongolian Democratic Union did not.

37:58 The MP began buying off Mongolians, increasing wages for poorly paid workers,

38:03 increasing student benefits,

38:04 and offering financial support to agricultural cooperatives.

38:08 Given that these were the constituent groups of the reform movement,

38:12 this spelled trouble and the NPRP was confident

38:15 that it would win in a competitive election.

38:18 Simultaneously, cracks started to emerge in the nent reform movement,

38:22 perhaps surprised by how quickly they had

38:24 managed to win over the MP's representatives.

38:27 The reformers did not have time to articulate

38:30 a proper political program which offered an alternative to communism.

38:35 Instead, they simply agreed that the regime should go.

38:38 But what precisely would it be replaced with?

38:41 Ahead of the election, the reformers had split into various camps,

38:44 among them the Mongolian Democratic Party,

38:46 the National Progressive Party, and the Mongolian Social Democratic Party,

38:50 all of whom had their own ideas.

38:52 Despite attracting workers early on, these parties suffered

38:56 from a lack of support in the countryside,

38:58 particularly amidst the MP's efforts to buy their support.

39:02 At the first Congress of the newly

39:03 formed Mongolian Democratic Party, for instance,

39:06 53% were intellectuals, 40% were workers, and only 7% were agricultural workers.

39:13 45% were also university educated,

39:16 which highlights how the reformist movement remained very

39:18 much one built by and characterized by intellectuals.

39:23 By the time of the election in June,

39:24 the reform parties only offered up candidates

39:27 for 346 of the 430 seats in the hural, leaving 84 MP members to run unopposed.

39:35 As a result of the aforementioned issues,

39:37 the MP won a huge majority of 357 seats,

39:42 while the reformers as a block won just 26 seats.

39:46 Though the popular vote revealed more positive developments,

39:49 60% voted for the MPP and 30% voted for the reformers,

39:54 it was clear that toppling the MP would not be

39:56 as easy as it had seemed just 6 months earlier.

40:00 But looking only at the results of the election

40:02 does not necessarily tell the whole story.

40:05 As it became clear throughout the 1980s that the USSR was in trouble,

40:09 Mongolia started to open up to the outside

40:11 world and Western organizations and government advisers poured in.

40:16 Correspondingly, the first deputy minister

40:18 and economist David Davad Dorjin Gambold had

40:21 been advocating for the input of advisers from the International Monetary Fund,

40:25 the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank since the late 1980s to help

40:29 the country transition from a planned economy to a free market one.

40:34 As early as August 1990,

40:35 representatives from the IMF visited Mongolia and produced

40:38 a report outlining potential steps towards a market economy.

40:42 While in May 1991, an even more comprehensive study was conducted.

40:47 By late 1991, the Asian Development Bank had also issued its own report.

40:52 And the now infamous economist Jeffrey Saxs,

40:54 the man who many blame for the negative

40:56 effects of neoliberal shock therapy reforms in Russia,

41:00 had also visited Mongolia in March 1991,

41:03 outlining his support for Ganbul's vision.

41:05 Though there were some concerns about the negative

41:07 effects of free market reforms in the short term,

41:10 Ganbold decided to implement them with immediate effect.

41:14 He started by privatizing the ownership of around

41:17 25 million animals before turning to enterprises.

41:21 They split enterprises into large ones, enterprises worth more than $50,000,

41:26 and small ones, which mostly concerned domestic trade and service operations.

41:31 In an attempt to make the process as fair as possible,

41:34 each Mongolian born before May 1991 was given seven

41:38 vouchers for large privatization and three for small privatization,

41:42 in effect, enabling them to buy up stakes in stateowned enterprises.

41:46 However, much like Russia's voucher privatization system would be

41:50 hijacked by individuals who became known as the oligarchs,

41:53 Mongolia's privatization process was also beset with problems.

41:57 Namely, Mongolians had grown up in a socialist planned economy,

42:01 so had no conception of either the potential benefits of private

42:05 ownership or the value of what they could get with their vouchers.

42:09 Predictably, this left the scheme vulnerable to abuse.

42:13 One study later estimated that by 2003

42:16 just 1,500 individuals owned 70% of the shares

42:20 of the 330 companies that were considered

42:23 large enterprises during the initial privatization process.

42:27 The privatization process and the transition to a market economy

42:30 was further undermined by the absence of the rule of law.

42:34 There was an assumption among

42:35 western economic reformers that establishing private

42:38 property rights would spontaneously generate

42:40 the institutions necessary to protect it.

42:43 But as the examples of Mongolia and later Russia would prove,

42:48 this was simply not the case.

42:50 At the same time, other elements of the reforms,

42:52 namely the liberalization of prices,

42:54 were wreaking havoc on the Mongolian economy.

42:57 Amid price liberalization, inflation reached a rate of 325% in 1992 and remained

43:04 at 183% in 1993 with horrendous impacts on ordinary Mongolians.

43:11 Such inflation forced domestic industries out of business as they simply could

43:14 not afford neither the raw materials they needed nor their employees salaries.

43:19 Mongolian savings too were wiped out.

43:22 To again quote the historian Morris Wasabi,

43:24 "Consumers in the communist era had suffered shortages of goods and long lines,

43:28 but prices were low." After the mid1 1990s,

43:32 products were available mostly from abroad,

43:34 but prices were so high and salaries so low

43:37 that most consumers could only look longingly at store window displays.

43:41 Nevertheless, though the Mongolian economy was in ruins,

43:44 there were some positives.

43:46 After the December 10th demonstrations and the peaceful

43:50 transition to democracy, the following year, a small corral of 50 members was

43:54 instructed to start drafting a new constitution.

43:57 The entry of international economists was accompanied by a flurry

44:00 of political advisers with groups such as the Asia Foundation,

44:04 an American NGO funded by the US government and corporations

44:08 opening offices in Ulan Batar in the early 1990s.

44:11 Such groups promoted the development of civil society and also assisted

44:15 the Mongolian corral politicians in their drafting of the new constitution.

44:20 By January 1992, the new constitution was adopted by the Mongolian

44:24 government coming into force on the 12th of February the same year.

44:28 Consisting of 70 articles, it established a representative democracy

44:32 and enshrined the freedom of political speech, press, assembly, and movement.

44:37 Perhaps the most important element of the new

44:39 constitution was that it reduced the size

44:41 of the parliament dramatically to a single 76 member

44:45 democratically elected parliament known as the state great hural.

44:50 Elections were subsequently announced for June 1992.

44:53 Despite the massive economic problems,

44:56 the MPP still managed to capitalize on the disagreements and weaknesses

45:00 that had marred the reform movement in the June 1990 elections.

45:04 and the MP won almost 60% of the popular vote

45:08 and 70 of the 76 seats available in the new parliament.

45:12 Still though, by the time the next

45:14 parliamentary elections came round in June 1996,

45:17 the MP finally lost its majority to the Democratic Union Coalition.

45:22 With this, the 7 decade rule of the MP

45:26 finally came to an end and the transition was complete.

45:30 Overall then to consider the Mongolian People's Republic simply

45:33 as a Soviet republic in all but name would

45:35 be to overlook a number of important nuances which

45:38 characterized Mongolia's rather different

45:40 transition to democracy and capitalism.

45:43 Indeed, Suddenbal's cult of personality was quite unique

45:47 for a country so closely aligned with the USSR,

45:50 and the unified reaction against it within the MPP and Mongolian

45:55 society was likely what made Mongolia's transition to democracy so peaceful.

46:00 Since the early 1990s, Mongolia has remained one of the most democratic former

46:04 communist countries outside the former Eastern block in Europe

46:08 and has largely avoided the transitional challenges faced by most

46:12 former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucases.

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