ABSTRACT
The Seventh Parry Congress In late 192.8 Mongolia did not present the picture of a country engaged in fundamental revolution. The confiscation of feudal property had been proclaimed as a matter of policy between 1921 and 192.4, but nothing had been done to implement this declaration. The old cattle-owning nobility and the Church continued to flourish, and lent their support to the Party and the Government, in which they still played an influential part, in spite of the Party purge of 192.4. By 1927 some six hundred members of the nobility, over two hundred entrepreneurs, and over one hundred lamas had found their way back into the ranks of the Party. The Fifth Party Congress of 1926 has piously repeated the slogans and resolution of the Third, re-affirming the Party's determination to overcome resistance on the part of the Church to its policies, but nothing effective was done. Mongolia was in fact making steady economic and social progress, not in the direction of communism, but along the divergent road of free enterprise. The State was not systematically interfering in normal commercial transactions, though Chinese merchants had been complaining continually since 1921 of chicanerie and discriminatory treatment. What figures we have for the year 192.6 show that Mongolia's external trade was still to an overwhelming extent with countries other than the US S R. Only 1, per cent of her imports came from that country, and only 20 per cent of her exports were sent there. On the home market a similar situation prevailed. Of the I,700 shops said to be active in Mongolia, over 1,450 were Chinese, while there were also eightyone shops run by English, American, German and Russian companies. Nearly three-quarters of retail turnover was in the hands of foreign firms. The remainder was accounted for in almost equal proportions by the Mongolian Central Co-operative and by
Soviet state organs. Internal transport was still in private hands, and there were some seven hundred privately-run petty handicraft shops functioning. Foreign specialists from western Europe were setting up small factories and power stations. A German firm had developed the first Mongol typewriter, successfully solving the problem of a vertical script running in lines from left to right by having the carriage travel in the direction opposite to the normal one. The first Mongol atlas had been designed and printed in Germany. A German firm manufactured Mongolia's fi-:st military medals. Mongolia was still open to enterprising foreigners who wanted to come in and set up their own businesses. It was at this time, for instance, that a group of Scandinavians, including the well-known author Henning Haslund, was able to set up in north Mongolia what promised to be a profitable and up-to-date trading post and farm. For a short while the Swedish YMCA was able to run a school and hospital in Urga, before both were closed at Soviet instigation and the missionaries expelled.
