Mongolia

Mongolia is a country in northeast Asia, bordering China, Russia, and with a tiny border to Kazakhstan. The country's population estimate in 2002 was 2,694,432, and Mongolia's capital is Ulaanbaatar (sometimes spelled "Ulan Bator"). Ulaanbaatar is also home to a large portion of the thinly-populated country's citizens, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 800,000. Other prominent cities in Mongolia include Darkhan (meaning "smithy" or "blacksmith") which was a city created as a model town under Mongolia's communist rule, with a population of 95,500, and Choibalsan, with a population 47,000. At 1,564,116 square kilometres, Mongolia is the nineteenth largest country in the world, but also the least densely populated nation on earth, with an average of 1.7 persons per square kilometer. After Kazakhstan, Mongolia is the second largest land-locked country on earth.

History

Mongolia's historical significance is in the 12th century conquests of Genghis Khan (meaning "great khan" or great ruler), whose armies swept across what is now Russia and much of eastern Europe, stopping at Vienna, killing large numbers in their path. Genghis Khan's cruelty can be seen in his method of conquest: cities and populations that immediately submitted to his rule were spared, and allowed to live freely, paying tribute, while those who fought back against the Mongol armies were ruthlessly slaughtered. Arguably, Mongolia was that era's world power, and was feared by most of Europe.

What led to Mongolia's eclipse from the world stage was, ironically, a question of succession. Genghis Khan died unexpectedly, and his generals were summoned back to the (then) capital Kharkhorum (now a ghost town in Mongolia) to choose a new "khan," meaning king. For reasons not entirely clear, the Mongols never re-gained their dominant power, and Mongolia entered a centuries-long period of decline, becoming what was essentially a backwater dominated by Siberian nomadic rulers and Chinese dynastic officials.

Sovietization

The darkened areas represent territorries of Soviet ambitions and designs, 1921 - 1949.

During the Russian Civil War immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution, parts of the White Army fled into Mongolia. The Soviet Red Army was sent there and remained until 1925. Mongolia was transformed into a Russian dependency and was the first country outside of the Soviet Union to become an actual part of the Soviet zone of occupation. It remained a Chinese province but a Soviet dependency.

In January 1935, Soviet troops entered Mongolia. On March 12, 1936, an agreement with a Soviet puppet regime was signed. The Soviet Union ignored Chinese protests. In 1936 military expenditures were doubled, and by 1938 more than half of Mongolia's budget was for defense. Economic planning was implemented. By 1939 Choybalsan had emerged as the premier, the minister of war, and the undisputed leader of Mongolia. During World War II the Mongolian Army numbered between 80,000 and 100,000 troops, a huge percentage of the total population of 900,000.

An antireligious campaign continued slowly but relentlessly. Emphasis was placed on ideological warfare. Political commissars were attached to monasteries, construction of new monasteries was forbidden by law, the enrollment of minors was disallowed, and monks became eligible for military service. Many monasteries were destroyed; others were expropriated by the Communist regime. Suppression became especially bloody in the second half of the 1930s. In 1937 and 1938, about 2,000 of monks were executed. Thousands were arrested and jailed. The financially shattered monasteries gradually were closed in the period 1938 to 1939. The campaign against the Buddhists was largely successful. Within two decades, the resident monastic population was reduced from about 15,000 to approximately 200 monks.

There also were renewed purges in the inner party ranks in 1937 to 1939. Uncooperative political leaders were accused of aiding the Japanese. One after the other, many top party and government officials fell from power and were executed or were imprisoned.

Khalkhin Gol

Japan and the Soviet Union clashes at Nomonhan and Changkufeng 1938-39.

In 1938, Soviet and Japanese fought many skirmishes across the common border their troops occupied along the Manchurian and Mongolian frontiers. Skirmishes, beginning in 1939, gradually grew into open warfare by May 1939 with Japanese forces based in Manchukuo. That summer a Japanese army invaded eastern Mongolia. Soviet General Georgi Zhukov commanded the Soviet-Mongolian army that met this invasion. In a battle at Khalkhin-Gol (also Khalkhyn Gol) on 20 August, the Soviets threw the Japanese back across the Manchurian border. The Japanese may have sustained as many as 80,000 casualties compared with 11,130 on the Comintern side. Hostilities ended on September 16, 1939. The Soviet Union and Japan signed a truce, and a commission was set up to define the Mongolian-Manchurian border. Although Japan did not invade again, it did mass large military forces along the Mongolian and the Soviet borders in the course of the war, while continuing its southward drive into China.

The Soviet position in Mongolia was now fully consolidated. Throughout World War II, Choybalsan followed Moscow's directives, livestock, raw materials, money, food, and military clothing were taken from Mongolia to the Soviet Union.

Liberation

In the years after 1990, Mongolia became a multi-party democracy, which -- in contrast to the almost previous 70 years -- actively sought ties with western countries, especially the US.