The ascendancy of the Manchu
The rise of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty, which had such profound effects on the fate of Mongolia, began long before 1644, the year a Manchu emperor was first seated on the throne in Beijing. In the late 16th century it was becoming clear that a new barbarian conquest of China was again possible. In competition with the various Mongol princes and tribes already mentioned, the Manchu had the advantage that in the southern part of northeastern China (Manchuria), but outside the Great Wall, there was a large Chinese population with a number of urban centres and a flourishing trade that, instead of passing by land through the Great Wall, went largely by sea to the Shandong Peninsula—to the rear, that is, of the rulers in Beijing. These Chinese were somewhat alienated from other Chinese. They had for centuries been accustomed to trading with the barbarians and to farming under the patronage of barbarian princes, and they did not like Beijing’s periodic attempts to maintain a “closed frontier” along the Great Wall.
The Manchu not only subjugated these Chinese but also cultivated their loyalty and were soon heavily dependent on them, not only economically but for military manpower. To balance this dependence, they built up a network of alliances with their other neighbours, the easternmost Mongols, and Mongol troops took part in the Manchu conquest of China. Before the Manchu occupied Beijing, they established control of the southern fringe of Mongolia, which they organized as part of their military reserve for the domination of China. This organization is the origin of the institutional and administrative concept of “Inner” Mongolia. It took the Manchu about a century to add northern, or “Outer,” Mongolia to their empire, resulting in two Mongolias markedly different from each other, Inner Mongolia being much more closely integrated with China.
Meanwhile, the Oirat (Jungar) made a belated effort to unite all the Mongols in rivalry with the Manchu. The Oirat were strengthened by their control of a number of the East Turkistan oases but weakened by rivalries among their chiefs, by the diversion of much of their strength to adventures in Tibet, and by the reluctance of the Khalkh princes to accept the overlordship of princes not descended from Genghis Khan. Led by such warriors as Galdan (Dga’-ldan), the Oirat made sweeping campaigns far to the east in Mongolia but were never quite able to consolidate their gains.
Unwilling to accept submission to the Oirat as the price of unification, the Khalkh princes rallied more and more to the Manchu, who guaranteed their aristocratic privileges and titles in a great convention at Dolon Nor (Duolun), Inner Mongolia, in 1691. With the added resources of Khalkh, the Manchu were then able to mount a long series of military campaigns in which they annihilated the Oirat power with tremendous slaughter.
This conquest was not completed until 1759, however, and it was complicated by many events, particularly a major revolt against Manchu rule in western Khalkh in the 1750s led by a noble named Chingünjav. He was a coconspirator with an Oirat leader named Amursanaa, who in turn had first submitted to the Manchu and then rebelled against them. This was the last period of general warfare involving the Mongols, and it ended with a considerable redistribution of the tribes; several Khalkh groups that had fled from the Oirat into Inner Mongolia never returned; a few Chahar from Inner Mongolia were settled in East Turkistan as garrisons; numbers of the Oirat group were included in the western part of Khalkha geographically but not within the tribal organization; some ended their migrations at the Alxa Plateau (Ala Shan Desert), at the western end of Inner Mongolia, but not within the Inner Mongolian organization; and some ended theirs far away in the Koko Nor–Qaidam Basin region of Tibet. The most distant Oirat wanderers (mostly Torguud and Dörvöd) had migrated in the early 17th century from the Altai Mountains to the Volga River, where they took service under the tsars and participated in the Russian conquest of the Caucasus region. In 1771 about 70,000 families migrated all the way back to East Turkistan—which by then had been renamed Xinjiang (“New Frontier”) by the Manchu—where they were accepted under Manchu rule and allotted pastures for grazing. The descendants of those who remained on the Volga were known as the Kalmyk (Kalmuck).
The ensuing period of peace degenerated into stagnation and economic decline. Chinese camp followers had accompanied the Manchu conquest, and from this grew Chinese control of the caravan trade and of a barter trade exploiting usurious terms of credit. Because Mongol troops were of decreasing use for the control of China, there was no incentive for the Manchu to protect, economically, this source of manpower, and the Manchu authorities relied increasingly on the potentates of Tibetan Buddhism, who were themselves increasingly corrupt, for the control of Mongolia. Chinese colonization began to encroach on the pasturelands of Inner Mongolia, and at the end of the 19th century an attempt was made to plant a screen of Chinese colonists along the frontier between Siberia and Outer Mongolia.
Owen Lattimore Alan J.K. SandersMongolia from 1900 to 1990
At the turn of the 20th century, Japan and Russia were competing to expand their empires into northeastern Asia at the expense of the Qing (Manchu) rulers in China. Russia had encroached southward into northern Manchuria. Meanwhile, Japan had fought and won the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and had demanded that China cede the Liaodong Peninsula and its strategically important harbours of Dalian (Dairen) and Port Arthur (Lüshun; now part of Dalian) on the Chinese coast. However, the Western powers intervened, and in 1898 Russia negotiated a 25-year lease of the peninsula with China, much to the anger of Japan. In the ensuing Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan prevailed, and Russia ceded to Japan all its interests in northeastern China. In addition, by secret treaties concluded after the war, Inner Mongolia east of the meridian of Beijing was recognized by Russia as a Japanese sphere of interest.
Meanwhile, the British, concerned about a possible Russian threat to India through Tibet, which the Manchu could not control, sent an expeditionary force under Francis Younghusband to Lhasa. In 1904 the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa and took refuge in Urga (now Ulaanbaatar) with the Javzandambakhutagt (Mongolia’s spiritual leader) for nearly two years. The agreement signed between Britain and Tibet in 1904 presented Tibet as an independent state and made no reference to Qing rule, although the Manchu amban (governor) was present at the signing. However, in 1907 the Qing negotiated their own treaty with the British that recognized Chinese suzerainty in Tibet. In 1910 Chinese troops entered Lhasa, and the Dalai Lama again fled, though this time to India, returning in 1912. In a treaty signed at Niislel Khüree (now Ulaanbaatar) in January 1913, Tibet and Mongolia declared themselves both to be free from Manchu rule and separate from China, and they pledged to cooperate as sovereign states.
Independence and revolution
Mongolia at the start of the 20th century was agrarian, and its people were highly stratified socially and economically. There were two classes of vassals: the khamjlaga, who under Manchu law were serfs for life of the local nobility and civil administrators; and the shavi, the vassals of the monastery estates. Trade in essentials like tea, rice, and tobacco was in the hands of Chinese companies, which willingly extended credit at high interest rates. The currency consisted of units of livestock, as well as tea bricks, small silver ingots, and some foreign coins. When the officials and nobility got into debt, they would increase their taxes in kind on the population. As a result, many Mongols were impoverished and occasionally rebellious, despite the risk of terrible punishment at the hands of the Qing authorities, who had built fortified administrative centres and garrison towns like Khovd and Uliastai to control Mongolia’s regions.
By 1911, when the Chinese Revolution broke out, unrest was widespread in Mongolia. In December the Manchu amban was ordered to leave, the Javzandamba was proclaimed the Bogd Khan (“Holy King”), and he declared the independence of Mongolia—Inner Mongolia and Tannu Tuva (Tyva), as well as Outer Mongolia. Also at that time, the Bogd Khan’s capital, Ikh Khüree (“Great Monastery”), was renamed Niislel Khüree (“Capital Monastery”). The Qing emperor abdicated in 1912, and the Republic of China was proclaimed. Also that year Russia signed a treaty with the Bogd Khan’s government that recognized Mongolia, although the interpretation of this recognition between the two parties differed: Mongolia considered itself independent of China, while Russia characterized Mongolia as being “autonomous.” The Russian position was further underlined in 1913, when Russia and China issued a declaration stating that Mongolia was still under Chinese suzerainty. Mongolia objected, but this status was reinforced by a joint Russian-Chinese-Mongolian treaty in 1915, in which the Bogd Khan’s government was obliged to accept autonomy under Chinese suzerainty. As a result, the Bogd Khan was unable to unite Inner with Outer Mongolia, nor was he able to prevent Russia from colonizing Tuva.
Soviet power was established in St. Petersburg following the Russian Revolution of 1917, and it gradually was extended eastward across Russia. In August 1919 the Soviet Russian government recognized Mongolian autonomy, but within a few months Chinese troops had occupied Niislel Khüree and deposed the Bogd Khan. During that turbulent period, Mongolian nationalists Dansrangiin Dogsom, Dogsomyn Bodoo, and others formed underground resistance groups and established contact with Russian Bolsheviks. In June 1920 a group of these revolutionaries formed the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), and two months later several MPP members, including Soliin Danzan and Dambdyn Chagdarjav, were sent to Moscow to seek help from the Comintern (Third International) and to meet Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin. Two other revolutionaries, Damdiny Sükhbaatar and Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who had stayed in Siberia in the city of Irkutsk, made their way to the small town of Troitskosavsk on the border with Mongolia to organize the resistance. Meanwhile, tsarist cavalry units under the command of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (known as the “Mad Baron”) entered Mongolia from eastern Siberia, advanced on Niislel Khüree, drove out the Chinese occupation forces, and in February 1921 restored the Bogd Khan to the throne under the baron’s control.
The rule of the Mad Baron was cruel and bloody but relatively brief. In March 1921 the Mongolian revolutionaries gathered in Troitskosavsk and held the first MPP congress, where they adopted a program of action and appointed a provisional cabinet. A Mongolian revolutionary force was assembled under Sükhbaatar’s command that, along with Soviet army units, advanced southward into Mongolia and in July 1921 captured Niislel Khüree. A “people’s government” of Mongolia was appointed, with Bodoo as prime minister, and July 11 subsequently was celebrated as the anniversary of its establishment (now the first day of the naadam sports festival). The Bogd Khan was reinstated as a constitutional monarch with limited powers. The baron was captured in August, handed over to the Soviet authorities, and executed. In November Danzan and Sükhbaatar were sent to Moscow to meet Lenin, and the first Mongolian-Soviet treaty was concluded.
A power struggle ensued between nationalists and communists. In 1922 Bodoo and Chagdarjav were accused of “counterrevolutionary activities” and executed, and the situation was exacerbated by the death of Sükhbaatar in February 1923 and of the Bogd Khan in May 1924. The third congress of the MPP was convened in August 1924, during which Danzan was accused of “bourgeois tendencies” and executed. At the congress, calls were made for Mongolia to develop a close friendship with the Soviet Union, to purge the country of “oppressor class elements,” and to adopt a Leninist “noncapitalist path of development.” In addition, either at the 1924 congress or early in 1925, the party was renamed the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP). A national assembly, the Great Khural, convened on November 8–26 and adopted Mongolia’s first constitution, renaming the country the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR). The capital, Niislel Khüree, also was renamed Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator), meaning “Red Hero.”
Counterrevolution and Japan
On the Bogd Khan’s death, the limited monarchy lapsed, but the new MPR government obstructed the search for a reincarnation of the Javzandamba. By 1929 the government had instituted an official ban on recognizing any reincarnations. The 1920s were marked by violent swings in the MPRP’s policies. In 1924–28 the party leadership pursued “Get rich!” policies that later were described as “right opportunism,” which were countered after a change in leadership by a period of “left deviation.” The leftists soon began setting up herding communes on property expropriated from landlords and monasteries. These actions precipitated a series of insurrections that were finally suppressed by April 1932. Shortly thereafter, however, the Comintern decided that the Mongolian revolution had been progressing too rapidly and was not yet at the socialist stage of development, and the MPRP adopted more moderate policies—a trend that became known as the “new turn.”
The MPRP congress held in October 1934 drew attention to a new threat to Mongolia: that from Japan. In 1927 Tanaka Giichi, then the Japanese prime minister, had called for a policy of Japanese expansion in East Asia. Japan already had established a strong presence in Manchuria, on Mongolia’s eastern border, when on September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army staged the Mukden Incident as a pretext for occupying the city of Mukden (now Shenyang). Japanese troops soon occupied all of Manchuria, and in 1932 Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo there. In 1933 Japan annexed Jehol province—situated on the border of Inner Mongolia and now divided between Hebei and Liaoning provinces—outright and claimed Outer Mongolia (i.e., the MPR) as part of Manchukuo. Mongolian and Kwantung Army troops clashed at Lake Buir on Mongolia’s eastern border in 1935, prompting the Soviet and Mongolian governments to sign a mutual aid protocol in March 1936, in which they agreed to support one another in the event of attack. The Nationalist government in China protested this pact as being contrary to Chinese claims of suzerainty over Mongolia. In 1937 Japan annexed Chahar province (now in Inner Mongolia), on Mongolia’s southeastern border, and then, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing (July 7), went to war with China.
The uncertainty, both internal and external, posed by the Japanese threat engendered political hysteria that developed into wholesale arrests and executions on charges of counterrevolutionary activity and spying for the Japanese. Khorloogiin Choibalsan, minister of internal affairs, with the help of the Soviet NKVD (secret police), had tens of thousands of innocent victims rounded up, who were forced to admit their “guilt” and then were executed. After Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pointed out that there were many more Buddhists than MPRP members in Mongolia, most of the country’s monasteries and temples were destroyed, their treasures stolen, and their lamas shot or put to forced labour. Prominent Mongolians eliminated during the period of purges included two prime ministers, Peljidiin Genden (served 1932–36) and Anandyn Amar (1936–39), who after their arrest in Mongolia were tried in Moscow and executed (in 1937 and 1941, respectively) for “counterrevolutionary crimes”; Marshal Gelegdorjiin Demid, commander in chief of the army, who died of food poisoning while traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway in August 1937; and Darizavyn Losol and Dansrangiin Dogsom, two veteran revolutionaries arrested in 1939 and sent to the Soviet Union, where Losol died in 1940 awaiting trial and Dogsom was executed in 1941.
Mongolia’s slow collision with Japan escalated into a series of battles after the Japanese and Manchukuo troops invaded the northeastern corner of Mongolia in 1939. The fighting reached its climax in August, when Mongolian and Soviet troops under the command of Soviet Gen. Georgy Zhukov annihilated a large Japanese force near the Khalkhyn (Halhïn) River on the Mongolia-Manchukuo border. Japan subsequently abandoned any plans to invade the Soviet Union and shifted the focus of its expansionist efforts to the Pacific and Southeast Asia during World War II (1939–45).
Choibalsan, who in addition to serving as minister of internal affairs had become minister of war in 1937, was appointed the country’s prime minister in March 1939. The MPRP congress held in March 1940 declared the beginning of the socialist stage of Mongolia’s political development and named Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal general secretary of the party. Mongolia remained isolated from the outside world, recognized only by the Soviet Union, its political mentor and economic prop. Although Mongolia’s health and education services had been greatly improved with Soviet help during the previous decade, industrial development was still in its infancy. The only major economic projects of the 1930s were a wool-washing factory set up at Lake Khövsgöl, a narrow-gauge railway line constructed between Ulaanbaatar and the nearby Nalaikh coal mine, and a complex of factories established at Ulaanbaatar that processed agricultural produce and made building materials.
In a major cultural change, it was agreed at a conference in Moscow in 1931 to create Latin scripts for the Mongol, Buryat, and Kalmyk languages. The plan was quickly implemented, with rules devised, publishing organized, teaching scheduled, and regulations issued. Official use began in 1933. However, Stalin later changed his mind; the Latin script was abandoned; and modified Cyrillic alphabets were ordered. The Cyrillic alphabet for Mongol was introduced in 1945, and the traditional Mongolian vertical script was abandoned.
As World War II engulfed Europe, Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union (April 1941). Two months later Nazi leader Adolf Hitler launched the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and Mongolia gave its Soviet ally moral support, material assistance (foodstuffs, livestock, and winter clothing), and later money to finance a tank regiment and a fighter squadron. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, it was agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan in exchange for recovering territory in the Far East previously lost to Japan and the understanding that the status quo in Mongolia’s “independent” status (i.e., Soviet control) would be preserved. The Soviet Union and Mongolia declared war on Japan in early August and entered Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. By the time Japanese resistance had collapsed on August 22, Mongolian units had advanced southward beyond the Great Wall.
Between Russia and China
As part of the Yalta Conference agreements, a plebiscite was held in Mongolia in October 1945 under United Nations (UN) auspices, with the vote overwhelmingly in favour of independence over autonomy. The Republic of China recognized Mongolia in January 1946, and the two countries signed a friendship treaty in February. In June 1946 Mongolia made the first of several unsuccessful applications to join the UN. Meanwhile, Mongolia recognized the People’s Republic of China on the latter’s proclamation in 1949 and established diplomatic relations with North Korea (1948), the Soviet satellite countries of eastern and central Europe (1950), and India (1955). Mongolia gained admission to the UN in 1961, and in 1963 the United Kingdom became the first Western country to establish relations with Mongolia.
The 1950s were a time of political transition and economic advancement. Choibalsan died in 1952 in a Moscow hospital, and Tsedenbal was appointed chairman (i.e., the equivalent of prime minister) of the Council of Ministers, (the highest organ of executive power. In 1954 MPRP General Secretary Tsedenbal was ousted by Dashiin Damba, who was designated MPRP first secretary, but in 1958 Tsedenbal retook control of the party—also as first secretary—and had Damba dismissed on ideological grounds. The collectivization of livestock herding was completed in the 1950s, as the herders were obliged to hand over all but a few of their animals to the large cooperative farms (negdel). The Trans-Mongolian Railway—jointly built by the Mongolians and Soviets and completed in 1955—spanned Mongolia from north to south and served as a symbol of Soviet-Chinese solidarity, but it was built using the Soviet broad rail gauge rather than the standard gauge used in China. In 1958 Mongolia began attending Comecon meetings, joining that organization in 1962.
Mongolia and China signed a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance in 1960, and the two countries amicably redemarcated the long frontier between them. However, the ideological dispute that developed between the Soviet Union and China over the unity and leadership of the communist movement soured Mongolia’s relations with China. China sharply criticized the Soviets for their handling of the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis with the United States and two years later conducted its first atomic bomb test—the prevailing winds carrying radioactive fallout northward into Mongolian territory. In January 1966 Mongolia and the Soviet Union signed a new treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance that included secret protocols allowing the Soviets to station troops, aircraft, and missiles in Mongolia. Sino-Soviet relations degenerated further following clashes between their troops along their border at the Ussuri (Wusuli) River in March 1969. Meanwhile, Chinese leader Mao Zedong had launched the movement that became known as the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), during which the Mongols of Inner Mongolia in particular suffered considerably.
In 1949 the MPRP had condemned how Mongolian history was being taught, claiming that those with “bourgeois nationalist” views were extolling Genghis Khan’s conquests and Mongolia’s “feudal” past at the expense of the achievements of the party and the Mongolian revolution. Nonetheless, as the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan’s birth approached in 1962, the party decided to organize celebrations honouring it that were to include unveiling a new monument to him, delivering speeches, and issuing a set of commemorative postage stamps. However, following Soviet criticisms that labeled Genghis a “reactionary” whose “Tatar-Mongol yoke” had laid waste to Russia, Mongolia quickly canceled the celebrations and withdrew the stamps. There followed a fresh MPRP evaluation of Genghis Khan, which also deemed him a reactionary and which credited him only for unifying the Mongol tribes. Any deviation from that line was considered unwanted promotion of nationalism and was not tolerated. This policy stifled virtually all discussion of Genghis Khan and Mongol nationalism for the next 40 years.
Tensions between Mongolia and China escalated throughout the 1970s. Mongolia accused China of wanting to annex Mongolia and, as a pretext for its territorial claims on Mongolian territory, of promoting Genghis Khan as a Yuan dynasty emperor. China, during its own 800th anniversary celebrations, countered by criticizing the Soviet Union for “occupying” Mongolia by stationing troops and military equipment there. In April 1978 China called for the Soviet withdrawal from Mongolia, and Premier Tsedenbal promptly visited a Soviet army unit stationed in Mongolia to thank it for protecting the country against the Chinese “threat.” Mongolia began expelling Chinese immigrants in early 1979, accusing them of “expansionist plots,” which further exacerbated distrust between the two countries. Tensions in the region eased considerably in the mid-1980s as Soviet and Mongolian leaders took steps to normalize relations with China. Diplomatic relations were restored between Mongolia and China in 1986.
Reform and the birth of democracy
Mongolia’s third constitution, adopted in 1960, which renamed the national assembly the People’s Great Khural (PGK), marked the beginning of the country’s transition—with Soviet assistance—to a modern industrial-agricultural society. Darkhan, now one of Mongolia’s largest towns, was founded in 1961. Television broadcasting began in September 1967, and satellite communications were inaugurated in January 1971. In November 1973 Mongolia and the Soviet Union agreed to build a copper-mining and ore-concentrating joint venture, which proved to be the key to developing Mongolia’s prosperity on the basis of its mineral wealth. As the new town of Erdenet grew up around it, the plant’s first stage went into operation in 1978. Another milestone for Mongolia was the spaceflight of its first cosmonaut, Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, who in March 1981 spent several days in orbit aboard a Soviet spacecraft.
Jamsrangiin Sambuu, who had been Mongolia’s head of state since 1954, died in 1972, and the post remained vacant until mid-1974, when Tsedenbal filled it. Tsedenbal was replaced as chairman of the Council of Ministers by Jambyn Batmönkh. At the MPRP congress in May 1981, Tsedenbal adopted the title of general secretary, and in December he began a series of purges of prominent party members, which he described as “rooting out the weeds.” The party ordered the registration of ownership of all typewriters, duplicators, and photocopiers in an effort to control the dissemination of information. However, in August 1984 Tsedenbal himself was removed from his party posts while on holiday in Moscow. Batmönkh replaced him as general secretary and, in December, as head of state.
Batmönkh called for reform of the system and criticized Tsedenbal, while the MPRP, which for years had condemned national pride as nationalism, began reevaluating the historical role of Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire. However, the attempts at introducing versions of the Soviet policies of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (economic and political restructuring) in Mongolia were halfhearted and ineffective, and the result was economic stagnation and demands for further social reform.
In 1988 members of a group called “New Generation” (or “New Times”) began posting protest handbills at night in Ulaanbaatar. By late 1989 young Mongolians were organizing themselves into “informal” movements like the Mongolian Democratic Association (MDA), whose coordinator was democracy leader Sanjaasürengiin Zorig. In December 1989 the MDA held two big rallies in Ulaanbaatar, and after more demonstrations in February 1990 the MPRP had Stalin’s statue removed from in front of the State Library. Further demonstrations in Ulaanbaatar calling for the MPRP leadership to step down and the start of a hunger strike in the city’s main Sükhbaatar Square finally induced the Politboro to resign on March 9. Batmönkh was replaced as party leader by Gombojavyn Ochirbat and as head of state by Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat.