The People's Republic of Mongolia

[Marxach-Léinínach]

This is something I'd like an anti-revisionist opinion on. Now, we all know that under Tsedenbal the PRM was basically just a state-capitalist puppet state of the USSR, but what about when Stalin was alive and Khorloogiin Choibalsan was the leader? Was it always just a pro-Soviet nationalist state, albeit with more independence when Stalin was alive, or do you think it was a good dictatorship of the proletariat?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why it never became a Soviet Republic is really, really a sticking question.

[Pavlov's House Party]

Why it never became a Soviet Republic is really, really a sticking question.

True, even Tannu Tuva was annexed into the Soviet Union as an autonomous oblast in 1944. What makes it even weirder is that considering the Japanese-Soviet clashes in the 1930s, why wouldn't the USSR want to annex it to secure its defenses in the east? Perhaps the idea was that if the Japanese invaded through Mongolia the Red Army could fight them there and have the Mongolian countryside destroyed instead of that of a soviet republic.

EDIT: I did some reading on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_People%27s_Republic) and found out that up until 1945, Mongolia was still de jure part of China despite the fact it was its own state. Annexing Mongolia could have led to military quarreling between the Chinese Nationalist forces and the USSR, which wouldn't have been helpful for the Soviets considering Japan had already invaded. Also interesting is that during the Russian Civil War, Mongolia was occupied by a crazy White Russian general named Roman Ungern von Sternberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ungern_von_Sternberg), who also organized the only massacre of Jews in Mongolian history.

[ComradeOm]

True, even Tannu Tuva was annexed into the Soviet Union as an autonomous oblast in 1944. What makes it even weirder is that considering the Japanese-Soviet clashes in the 1930s, why wouldn't the USSR want to annex it to secure its defenses in the east?China, in a word. Russia had been involved in Tuva since the mid 19th C, formally annexing it in the last years of the Tsardom, but Mongolia had been firmly in the Chinese orbit for centuries. Fighting in the province went on into the early 1920s as the Republic of China dispatched an army to reassert its authority in the province. So Moscow lacked any real basis for annexing the territory and doing so would have overly antagonised the Chinese. Besides, there was really nothing of worth to be gained from formally incorporating it into the USSR, much less costly to maintain a puppet regime

[scarletghoul]

In fact the Taiwanese government still claims Mongolia as its territory :lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

China, in a word. Russia had been involved in Tuva since the mid 19th C, formally annexing it in the last years of the Tsardom, but Mongolia had been firmly in the Chinese orbit for centuries. Fighting in the province went on into the early 1920s as the Republic of China dispatched an army to reassert its authority in the province. So Moscow lacked any real basis for annexing the territory and doing so would have overly antagonised the Chinese. Besides, there was really nothing of worth to be gained from formally incorporating it into the USSR, much less costly to maintain a puppet regime

That Chinese occupation army was probably withdrawn once the Japanese extended their occupation of China. The best chance for incorporation was in 1945, and moreover:

http://internationalbusiness.wikia.com/wiki/Mongolia%27s_Natural_Resources

There were lots of natural resources to be gained.

[ComradeOm]

That Chinese occupation army was probably withdrawn once the Japanese extended their occupation of ChinaNah, it was defeated sometime during the Russian Civil War. Can't recall the exact date but it was shortly before China fell apart completely. Lot of crazy stuff went down along in that region, some truly bizarre shit. This was where Semenov and von Sternberg plied their grisly trade. In fact I think it was the latter who was responsible for both the Chinese defeat in Mongolia and ultimately pulling the Reds into the country. He definitely set up camp around Ulan Bator and had himself declared some sort of god-king. Like I said, pretty bizarre

[Gustav HK]

I think that the PRM was viewed as a very autonomous republic of the USSR.
Since it didn´t had a proletariat (or if it had then it was too small to play any important role) in 1924, the Soviet proletariat had to be the leader of the Mongolian peasants, until it made its own proletariat.

I believe that Stalin's goal was an independent Mongolia under the DoP (under its own proletariat), and it was somewhat reached, but the special relations between the PRM and the USSR (under Stalin), made the PRM a very easy victim of the Khruschovite-Brezhnevite social-imperialists.

[Kléber]

How exactly was Mongolia more independent while Stalin ran the USSR? Tens of thousands of Mongolians were executed in the 1930's by and at the behest of the NKVD. During Stalin's reign a number of MPRP leaders who went against Moscow like Yapon Danzan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yapon_Danzan), Anandyn Amar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandyn_Amar) and Peljidiin Genden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peljidiin_Genden), were arrested and shot on phony charges. I can hear the "Stalin genuinely believed they were Japanese spies" excuse coming, but let me pre-empt that by saying it sounds pretty ridiculous coming from fans of Hoxha and Mao, who were accused of being CIA agents by the same lying bureaucracy.

[Glenn-Beck]

Soviets probably wanted a Mongolian independent state to act as a buffer state with China.

[MarxSchmarx]

Mongolia under its second president/4th prime minister Peljidiin Genden (a predecessor of Choibalsan) was anything but a soviet satellite state - and Genden basically set the tone for Mongolian domestic policy until at least the late 1930s.

Stalin himself criticized Genden's anti-clericism and forced collectivization as "leftist deviation" and Genden later called Stalin a "new Czar" to his face at a reception at the Mongolian embassy in Moscow. Genden sought to play the Soviets off against the Japanese and, where he could, the ROC, but eventually the soviets caught up with him and accused him of spying for the Japanese and had him killed. Choibalsan and other successors learned this lesson very quickly.

As far as an anti-revisionist stance on Mongolia under Choibalsan, I guess the best that could be said for it is that Japanese espionage was a real concern, the clergy was deeply invested in being independent of the state and retaining its feudal privileges, and that Mongolia was, like Russia, keen on rapidly modernizing in the face of external threats. The sticky situation of annexation viz. China was very real, and this fear was alive and well after Mao took over China - Mao had, after all, declared the Mongolians to be part of the Chinese state. Allying closely with the Soviets, and doing as much as they could to earn their good graces, was in fact a very sensible strategy to prevent re-absorption by China.


In fact the Taiwanese government still claims Mongolia as its territory :lol:

Although Taiwan was one of the last countries to recognize (outer) Mongolia's independence, this has no longer been the case since 2002:
http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=798&CtNode=128