ABSTRACT
After extensive expropriation and the left’s experiment with forced collectivisation in 1929-1930, the nomads’ country was ready for the next stage of social transformation, which had to occur according to the ‘non-capitalist development’ model. International conditions suitable for following this way of development were already present, and domestic ones were being created. While the threat of Chinese occupation and Japanese intervention from the south and the east was increasing, ties between Mongolian and Soviet leaders were becoming closer, and the USSR’s assistance was growing in all spheres. The new MPR’s political elite, after pushing away the formerly privileged groups, was establishing firm control over the economy and broadening the sphere of activity of its supra-legal repressive organisations (primarily the IDO). The extensive expropriation of 1929-1930 led to a general decrease in the
population’s living standards and spread the seeds of dictatorship through local party organs. The left’s campaign was completed and afterwards officially condemned. The governmental reforms of 1932, conforming to the New Course proclaimed by the CC MPRP Third Extraordinary Plenum, demonstratively corrected mistakes made by the left’s experiment and stimulated further party building. Discussions about the Mongolian left’s extremes were rather popular at
Comintern meetings, during which its leaders repeated an obvious truth: they were speculating on how ‘the Mongols – the nomad-individualists, lacking collective psychology’,1 had managed to ‘carry out collectivisation on a broader scale than in the USSR’. As early as the Eighth MPRP Congress, it was stated that what had been achieved in the sphere of collectivisation in the Soviet Union in three years was achieved in Mongolia in six months. Comintern agents could not allow themselves to openly announce the real reason for this fact, as already in the early 1930s a repressive atmosphere reigned: the crisis of the Comintern, owing to its Stalinisation, was already under way. The Comintern’s time in Mongolia was coming to an end, and contacts took place mainly at the party level – between the MPRP and the RCP(b). According to the guidance of the latter, Comintern agents had to agree with its conclusion regarding how to correct the destructive
actions of the left’s extremes: ‘Now on the agenda we have direct socialismbuilding.’2 It turned out that after enriching the party treasury by means of expropriation and plunder, the time had come to cool emotions and start building a socialist society in a country of widespread nomadism. Here I would like once again to debunk the myth that confiscation and
collectivisation were entirely imposed upon the Mongols by Soviet advisers as something alien to their society and culture. The MPRP’s ‘people’s’ power (as for any other party of the same type) was based on terror; this use of terror was not foreign to Mongolian history. Long before Chinggis qan, ‘the submissiveness of the steppe inhabitants had been maintained by cruelty’.3
In the 1920s-1930s the cruelty was grounded in the IDO’s and other similar structures’ repressive activities. At the same time, the mass revolts of the summer of 1932 signalled the opposite of submissiveness. Something was lacking to force the population to obey the power-holders. What could it have been? An autocratic ruler, a punitive despot, qan-father? The next few years passed in preparation for such a leader, and the second part of the 1930s became the period of Kh. Choibalsan’s rise to the top of the MPR. In 1933, however, Choibalsan (accused after the Seventh MPRP Congress of ‘right deviation’, and afterwards of supporting confiscation extremes) remained a background figure. P. Genden ascended to political leadership. He and A. Amar again pro-
moted the slogan ‘Get richer’. It looked as if without that catchphrase, without swinging the pendulum to the right, it was impossible to restore the destroyed households of the majority of the population. ‘After forced collectivisation of 1930-1932 the only way out was cooperation.’4 That was why the New Course focused on the ‘support of domestic nomadic households with limited private and cooperative trade’.5 Soviet advisers, who targeted the Mongolian market, were the main consultants to the MPR’s government on following that course. At the beginning of the 1930s, commodities from the USSR could hardly reach the MPR’s population, since they were controlled by MonTsenKop, the remaining Chinese traders and commissioners. USSR-MPR trade networks were supposed to be maintained via cooperation. At the same time, Genden’s government6 declared its intentions to establish trade (and other) relationships with other foreign states. The intentions were not solely declarative: the open border stations appeared to exchange goods with the eastern countries of China and Japan.7 The ban on private trade was lifted and the number of legal entrepreneurs noticeably increased (from 28 traders in 1932 to 1,100 in 1934).8 In 1933, the Mongolian Transport (MongolTrans, Rus.) monopoly was liquidated, which led to a boost in carting transportation. Trade organisations and the arad negotiated formal trade agreements. Still, these government measures should not be mistaken for fundamental market reform: given the strict political regime, private trade did not have much chance to develop. The Mongol-Soviet joint stock enterprise ‘Mongolsovbuner’, established in 1933, was soon nationalised, in 1934. The same year state, sector and small-scale cooperation
accounted for 80 per cent of total MPR trade turnover. Nationalisation was becoming total. The still turbulent rebellions pushed the MPR’s government to abandon
leftist extremes and stimulate the economy. But the rebellions were not at all suppressed by economic means. The USSR provided military assistance to quash the revolt. In 1933, the detachment sent by K.E. Voroshilov quelled the upheaval in Tsetserleg,9 beginning a period of propaganda against the ‘Japanese threat’ and ties between ‘some counter-revolutionary layers of the Mongolian population’ (particularly the lamas) and agents of Japanese imperialism. In April to May 1933, the Mongolian press addressed the counter-revolutionary movement in Tsetserleg: Was it driven by ‘leftists’ or the Japanese? In order to create an ideological basis for their prospective penetration into the Central Asian steppes, the Japanese spread propaganda in the MPR, which aimed to rouse the left’s extremes, especially anti-lama policy10, and to escalate pan-Mongolist trends in Outer and Inner Mongolia.11 Thus, both the USSR and Japan tried to use all their influence in the region. The Mongols realised that the confrontation of these two powers – the
USSR and Japan – would culminate on their territory. They also saw their inability to prevent that conflict. Although the MPR’s involvement in Soviet military operations in 1934 was unavoidable, public discussion on an independent foreign policy and the right to freely choose allies continued. The Mongols clearly recognised Japan’s human resources and economic potential, and a comparison of possible benefits did not unequivocally favour the Soviet Union. Still, the preservation of the Mongolian state by all possible means was desired by the elite who foresaw the ultimate loss of independence in the scenario of Japanese occupation and, as most Mongolian politicians suspected, this would be followed by Chinese rule. The new Mongolian political elite itself came to power and maintained its rule by means of the Soviet Union and the Comintern, which became key advisers. The Soviet military technique that quickly helped suppress the 1932 mass revolts once again demonstrated to the Mongols which neighbour was their true friend. Some members of the government, who before 1932 had made a habit of expressing their hesitation about the expediency of complete reliance on the USSR, calmed down and confessed that they ‘had made a mistake and the USSR was the only power capable of helping them’.12 However, as noted by Comintern agents, the idea of flexibility, of ‘with whom and how we could benefit remained deep in their minds’.13
