Outer Mongolian Revolution of 1921
Encyclopedia
The Outer Mongolian revolution of 1921 was both a military and political event. With the assistance of the Soviet Red Army
, Mongolian revolutionaries expelled Russia
n White Guards
from the country, and created a new state, named the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. Although nominally independent, the Mongolian People’s Republic was a satellite state
of the Soviet Union
until 1990. The revolution also ended Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia, which had existed since 1691.
had enforced—albeit with mixed success—a policy of segregating the non-Han peoples on the frontier from Han Chinese
. By the end of the 19th century, however, China faced the prospect of being parceled out among the Western powers and Japan
, each competing for its own sphere of influence
in the country. On the northern frontier, Russian Empire
was viewed by the Qing court as posing the greatest threat to its territorial integrity. In response, the Qing government adopted a different policy, the “New Administration” (Xin zheng), which called for the sinification
of Mongolia through Chinese colonization, the exploitation of Mongolia’s natural resources (mining, timber, fishing), military training, and education.
Many Mongols regarded the "New Administration" a major threat to their traditional way of life, as was agreed to be preserved when they recognized authority of the Qing emperors, and began to seek independence. In July 1911 a group of Khalkha
nobles persuaded the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the head of Mongolian Buddhism (Lamaism
), that Mongolia must declare its independence from the Qing Dynasty. They agreed to send a small delegation to Russia to obtain its assistance in this undertaking.
In October 1911 revolution broke out in China
, with one province after another declaring its independence from the Qing government. On December 1, 1911 Outer Mongolia declared their independence
, and established a theocracy
under the Khutuktu. On December 29 he was installed as the Bogd Khaan (Great Khan, or Emperor) of Mongolia. This ushered in the Bogd Khaan era, 1911-1919
to him instead of those to the Qing emperor; and the Bogd Khaan assumed the right of conferring upon the lay nobles their ranks and seals of office. This new state also reflected Mongols’ desire to reshape their country into a modern state—they formed a national parliament composed of two chambers, a government with five ministries, and a national army.
The church discovered new opportunities for political gain and financial profit. Despite the presence of a state government, real power lay in the Bogd Khaan’s court. The church appropriated revenues for its purposes. And it enlarged its financial holdings by, for example, transferring to the church estate (Ikh shav) wealthy herdsmen who traditionally had owed their services and taxes to lay princes. There is a wrong view that over time, the greed of the church so disaffected the lay nobility that it came to reject the very principles of theocracy upon which the new country had been founded. According to Mongolian and Russian sources, the Mongolian society was generally satisfied with the theocracy but there were different views on future development of the country.
On the diplomatic front, the Mongols worked tirelessly between 1912 and 1915 to win international recognition of a new pan-Mongolian state
that would include (Inner Mongolia
, Barga
, and Tannu Uriankhai
). The Republic of China, for its part, did all it could to re-establish Chinese sovereignty over the country. Russia refused to support full independence for Mongolia; nor would it agree to the restoration of Chinese sovereignty. The matter was settled in 1915 by the tripartite Treaty of Kyakhta, which in summary provided for Mongolian autonomy within the Chinese state, and forbade China from sending troops to Mongolia. Both the Chinese and Mongols found the treaty equally obnoxious, although for different reasons.
in 1917 and the Russian Civil War
a year later changed the Mongolian-Chinese dynamic. In response to rumors of an imminent Bolshevik invasion, the Mongolians, very reluctantly and only after much encouragement by the Chinese High Commissioner Chen Yi at Urga (modern Ulaanbaatar
), requested in the summer of 1918 military assistance from China (approximately 200 to 250 troops arrived in September). The invasion in fact did not occur. In view of this, the Bogd Khaan’s government requested that the troops be recalled. The Peking government refused, seeing this violation of the Kyakhta Treaty as the first step in restoring Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia.
Early in 1919 Grigori Semyonov
, a White Guard general, had assembled a group of Buryats
and Inner Mongols in Siberia for the formation of a pan-Mongolian state. The Khalkhas were invited to join; they refused. Semyonov threatened an invasion to force them to participate. This threat galvanized the lay princes, who now saw a larger opportunity: the end of theocratic rule. In August the Mongolian Foreign Minister approached Chen Yi with a message from the “representatives of the four aimags
” (i.e., the Khalkhas) with a request for military assistance against Semyonov. More importantly, perhaps, it contained a declaration that the Khalkhas were unanimous in their desire to abolish autonomy and restore the previous Qing system.
Negotiations, with participation of the Bogd Khaan's representatives, began immediately. By October Chen Yi and the Mongolian princes had agreed upon a set of conditions, the “Sixty-four points,” effectively recreating the political and administrative system. The "points" were submitted to the Parliament. The upper house consented to it; the lower house did not. However, in this as in all other matters submitted to the Parliament in the past, the upper house prevailed. Chen Yi sent the draft Articles to Beijing. The Bogd Khaan dispatched a delegation of lamas
to Beijing with a letter stating that the people of Mongolia did not want to abolish autonomy. This was all a contrivance of Chen Yi, he wrote, and he asked that Chen be recalled. The Beijing government was not interested in esoteric arguments whether or not a consensus existed in Mongolia for the abolition of autonomy. The "points" were submitted to the Chinese National Assembly, which approved them on October 28.
” headed by Duan Qirui
. The government had come under severe public criticism for its failure at the Paris Peace Conference
to obtain a just settlement of the Shandong problem
. There was criticism also of Duan’s “War-participation army,” which ostensibly had been formed for service in Europe in the First World War but in fact was used to maintain Duan’s internal control. To divert criticism, he simply rechristened his office the "Bureau of Frontier Defense" and his army the "Frontier Defense Army". In June 1919 Xu Shuzheng
, a prominent member of Duan’s clique, was named “northwest frontier commissioner,” making him the senior Chinese military and civilian officer of Outer Mongolia.
Earlier, in April, Xu had submitted a plan to the Beijing government for the total social and economic reconstruction of Mongolia, proposing, among other things, that Chinese colonization and intermarriage between Chinese and Mongolians be encouraged in order to “transform the customs of the Mongols.” In short, Xu appeared to want nothing less than the total sinification of Mongolia under his authority.
Chen Yi’s Sixty-four points, which guaranteed Mongolia a kind of autonomy, would have compelled Xu to abandon his plans. This may explain the timing of his personal intervention. Xu arrived in Urga in October accompanied by a military contingent. He informed Chen that the Sixty-four points would have to be renegotiated based upon a new set of proposals, his “Eight Articles,” which called for an increase in population (presumably through Chinese colonization) and economic development. Xu presented the Articles to the Bogd Khaan with a threat that refusal to ratify them would result in his deportation and that his closest advisers to China. The Bogd Khaan submitted the Articles to the Mongolian Parliament: the upper house accepted them; the lower house did not, with some of its members threatening to expel Xu by force. Lamas resisted the Xu's plans most of all. Again, the upper house prevailed. On November 17, 1919 Xu accepted a petition—signed by the ministers and deputy ministers but not by the Bogd Khaan himself—for the abolition of autonomy.
Xu returned to Beijing, where he received a hero’s welcome arranged by the Anhui clique. By December, he was back in Urga to organize a formal ceremony for the transfer of authority: soldiers were lined on either side of the road to the Bogd Khaan’s palace; the portrait of the President of China was borne on a palanquin; the flag of the Chinese republic followed, and after it a marching band. Mongols were required to prostrate themselves repeatedly before these symbols of Chinese sovereignty. That night, some Mongolian herdsmen and lamas gathered outside the palace, and tore down the flags of the Chinese Republic hanging from the gate.
The first group owed its existence principally to D. Bodoo
(1885–1922), a highly educated, 35 year-old lama, who worked in the Russian Consulate at Urga during the Bogd Khaan era. Sharing a yurt
with Bodoo was Kh. Choibalsan (1895–1953) (later to be known as the “Stalin
of Mongolia"). A certain Mikhail Kucherenko, a typesetter in the Russo-Mongolian printing office and a member of the Bolshevik underground in Urga, occasionally visited Bodoo and Choibalsan; conversations, no doubt, turned on the Russian revolution and the political situation in Mongolia. In time, other Mongolians joined Bodoo and Choibalsan in discussions over the abolition of autonomy and the failure of Mongolian princes and senior lamas to put up an effective resistance to the Chinese.
The leaders of the East Urga group were S. Danzan
(1885–1924), an official in the Ministry of Finance, and D. Dogsom
(1884–1939), an official in the Ministry of the Army. Another, albeit less prominent at the time, member was D. Sükhbaatar (1893–1923), a soldier in the Mongolian army who, after his death, was canonized by Communist historians as the “Lenin
of Mongolia". The beginning of the East Urga group may be traced to mid-November 1919, when several of the more militant members of the lower house of the Mongolian Parliament, including Danzan and Dogson, met secretly on the first night following its dissolution by Xu Shuzheng, and resolved to resist the Chinese. Twice they approached the Bogd Khaan to obtain his support for armed resistance; twice the Khaan counseled patience. The group plotted to seize the Mongolian army’s arsenal and assassinate Xu Shuzheng; however, the placement of Chinese guards at the arsenal and a revised travel itinerary for Xu thwarted both plans.
A new sense of purposefulness now animated both groups. They had maintained a wary distance from one another, perhaps because of their different agendas—the Consular Hill group espousing a rather progressive social program while the East Urga group was more nationalistic in its goals—and there had been little cooperation between the two. The Soviet invitation changed that. The two groups met on June 25, and formed the “Mongolian People’s Party” (renamed later the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
, adopted a “Party Oath,” and agreed to send Danzan and Choibalsan as delegates to Russia.
Danzan and Choibalsan arrived in Verkhneudinsk, the capital of the pro-Soviet Far Eastern Republic
, in the first part of July. They met with Boris Shumyatskii
, then acting head of the government. Shumyatskii knew little about them, and for three weeks dodged their demands for a speedy Soviet decision whether or not to provide military assistance to the Mongolians against the Chinese. Finally, perhaps at Shumyatskii’s suggestion, they sent a telegram to members of the MPP in Urga with a coded message that they should obtain a letter, stamped with the seal of the Bogd Khaan, formally requesting Soviet assistance. The MPP did succeed in obtaining a letter from the Khaan’s court, albeit with difficulty. Five members of the Party—D. Losol, D. Chagdarjav
, Dogsom, L. Dendev, and Sükhbaatar—brought it to Verkhneudinsk. When the seven men met with Shumyatskii, he told them that he had no authority to make a decision on their request; they must go to Irkutsk.
On arriving in Irkutsk in August, the Mongolians met with the head of what was later to be reorganized as the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International (Comintern
), and explained that they needed military instructors, 10,000 rifles, cannon, machine guns, and money. They were told that they must draft a new letter, this time in the name of the Party, not the Bogd Khaan, stating their objectives and requests. Such a petition would have to be considered by the Siberian Revolutionary Committee in Omsk.
The Mongolians divided themselves into three groups: Danzan, Losol, and Dendev left for Omsk; Bodoo and Dogsom returned to Urga, where they were to enlarge the party’s membership and form an army; and Sükhbaatar and Choibalsan proceeded to Irkutsk to serve as a communication link between the others. Before separating, the group drafted a new appeal with a more revolutionary message: The Mongolian nobility would be divested of its hereditary power, to be replaced by a democratic government headed by the Bogd Khaan as a limited monarch. The document also contained a request for immediate military assistance.
A White Guard invasion of Mongolia under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg
, however, forced the Soviet government into action. In late October to early November 1920 Ungern with about 1,000 troops had laid siege to the Chinese garrison in Urga numbered about 7,000. On November 10 or 11 the three Mongols were hurriedly summoned to a meeting with Soviet authorities. They were told that the Party would be supplied with all the weapons it needed, but they must quickly return to Mongolia, and there increase the Party’s membership and raise an army. At the same time, Moscow ordered the Soviet Fifth Red Army to cross the Mongolian border, and destroy Sternberg.
The Chinese garrison in Urga, however, had successfully repulsed Ungern’s attack. This altered the Soviet strategy. The army of the Far Eastern Republic was exhausted. Only the Fifth Army of the Reds was left on the eastern front, and already by late 1920 many of its more experienced units had either been demobilized, or sent west to fight in Poland, or assigned to the labor front, where they were needed to repair the badly damaged Siberia economy. Thus, when the Chinese repulsed Ungern, the Soviets on November 28 withdrew their order for an invasion.
However, Ungern launched a second attack in early February 1921. This time he was successful. Chinese soldiers and civilians fled the city in panic. With the fall of Urga, the Chinese administrations and military garrisons at Uliastai
and Khovd departed quickly for Xinjiang. The Bogd Khaan was restored as Mongolian monarch by Ungern. Mongolian Bogd Khaan and his government were also restored, and a solemn ceremony held on 22 February.
On March 13 a provisional government of seven men was formed, soon to be headed by Bodoo. On March 18 the Mongolian guerrilla army, its ranks now enlarged to 400 through recruitment and conscription, seized the Chinese garrison at Kyakhta Maimaicheng
(the Chinese portion of Kyakhta). A new confidence now animated the Party. It issued a proclamation announcing the formation of the government, the expulsion of the Chinese, and the promise to convene a congress of “representatives of the masses” to elect a permanent government. A propaganda war of sorts between the provisional government and the Bogd Khaan’s court followed: The Party saturated the northern border with leaflets urging people to take up arms against the White Guards; the legal Bogd Khaan's government barraged the same area with warnings that these revolutionaries were intent upon destroying the Mongolian state and shattering the very foundations of the Buddhist faith.
The new Soviet government, isolated as it was by international community, was anxious to establish diplomatic relations with China. It had sent a representative to Beijing; the Chinese government reciprocated with its own to Moscow. Perhaps the principal reason that the Soviets had hesitated to aid the Mongolians too openly was fear of prejudicing those negotiations. But by early 1921 whatever restraints there were upon open Soviet support for Mongolia had ended: China suspended talks with the Soviet government in January 1921; the Chinese government appeared to be incapable of dealing with Ungern; and in early March it had refused Soviet military assistance against the White Guards. It was then that the Russians became firmly committed to the Mongolian revolution.
The material expression of this commitment was an increase in the flow of Soviet advisers and weapons in March to the MPP. In March and April, Soviet and Far Eastern Republican units were transferred to Kyakhta, while the Mongols doubled the number of their guerrillas to 800. Ungern's forces attacked Kyakhta in early June. He encountered a Red Army troops army several times larger his size. The White Guards were thrown back with losses. On June 28 the main Soviet expeditionary corps crossed the border into Mongolia, and on July 6 the first Mongolian and Russian units entered Urga.
The Mongolian revolutionaries went to work immediately. On July 9 they sent a letter to the Bogd Khaan’s court, announcing that power was now in the hands of the people: “The disorder which reigns presently is as much due to the shortcomings of the [hereditary] leaders as to the fact that the existing laws and situation do not correspond any longer to the spirit of the times. Everything, therefore, except religion, will be subject to gradual change.” On the next day the Party’s Central Committee issued a resolution declaring the formation of a new government headed by Bodoo, with the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu as a limited monarch. On July 11 he was ceremoniously installed on the throne of Mongolia.
The Chinese government was not indifferent to Ungern’s invasion. It appointed Zhang Zuolin as commander of an expeditionary army to deal with him. However, the occupation of Urga by Red forces in July and internal Chinese warlord politics forced him to abandon his plans.
On the diplomatic front, the Soviets had proposed to the Chinese the convening of a tripartite conference, similar to that of 1914-15, to discuss Mongolia’s relationship with China. The Chinese government, however, emboldened by the prospect of Zhang’s expedition, responded that Mongolia was part of China, and thus could not be the subject of international negotiations. It was not until 1924 that a Chinese-Soviet treaty was concluded, by which the Soviet Union recognized Mongolia as an integral part of China, and agreed to withdraw its troops. The treaty notwithstanding, the death of the Khutuktu in that same year provided an opportunity for the MPP to dispense with the theocratic rule; the Party announced the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic. In 1945 the Chinese Nationalist government recognized the full sovereignty of the Mongolian People’s Republic (Chiang Kai-shek
was to withdraw that recognition a few years later).
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, Mongolian revolutionaries expelled Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n White Guards
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
from the country, and created a new state, named the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. Although nominally independent, the Mongolian People’s Republic was a satellite state
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
until 1990. The revolution also ended Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia, which had existed since 1691.
Mongolian revolution of 1911
For about two centuries, the Qing DynastyQing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
had enforced—albeit with mixed success—a policy of segregating the non-Han peoples on the frontier from Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
. By the end of the 19th century, however, China faced the prospect of being parceled out among the Western powers and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, each competing for its own sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
in the country. On the northern frontier, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
was viewed by the Qing court as posing the greatest threat to its territorial integrity. In response, the Qing government adopted a different policy, the “New Administration” (Xin zheng), which called for the sinification
Sinicization
Sinicization, Sinicisation or Sinification, is the linguistic assimilation or cultural assimilation of terms and concepts of the language and culture of China...
of Mongolia through Chinese colonization, the exploitation of Mongolia’s natural resources (mining, timber, fishing), military training, and education.
Many Mongols regarded the "New Administration" a major threat to their traditional way of life, as was agreed to be preserved when they recognized authority of the Qing emperors, and began to seek independence. In July 1911 a group of Khalkha
Khalkha
Khalkha is the largest subgroup of Mongol people in Mongolia since 15th century. The Khalkha together with Tsahar, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by the Altan Urag Khans until the 20th century; unlike the Oirat people who were ruled by the Dzungar nobles or the Khorchins who were ruled by...
nobles persuaded the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the head of Mongolian Buddhism (Lamaism
Buddhism in Mongolia
Buddhism in Mongolia derives much of its recent characteristics from Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelugpa school. Traditionally, Mongols worshiped heaven and their ancestors, and they followed ancient northern Asian practices of shamanism, in which human intermediaries went into trance and spoke to...
), that Mongolia must declare its independence from the Qing Dynasty. They agreed to send a small delegation to Russia to obtain its assistance in this undertaking.
In October 1911 revolution broke out in China
Xinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...
, with one province after another declaring its independence from the Qing government. On December 1, 1911 Outer Mongolia declared their independence
Outer Mongolian revolution of 1911
The Outer Mongolian revolution of 1911 occurred when the Chinese province of Outer Mongolia declared its independence from the Qing dynasty during the Xinhai Revolution. A combination of factors including economic hardship and failure to resist Western imperialism led many in China to be unhappy...
, and established a theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
under the Khutuktu. On December 29 he was installed as the Bogd Khaan (Great Khan, or Emperor) of Mongolia. This ushered in the Bogd Khaan era, 1911-1919
Bogd Khaan era, 1911-1919
The new Mongolian government was a fusion of Buddhist theocracy, Qing imperial usages, and 20th century Western political practices. The Bogd Khaan assumed the same powers—symbolic and real—of Qing emperors in the past. He adopted a reign title, “Elevated by the Many;” the Mongolian nobility now owed their tributeTribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
to him instead of those to the Qing emperor; and the Bogd Khaan assumed the right of conferring upon the lay nobles their ranks and seals of office. This new state also reflected Mongols’ desire to reshape their country into a modern state—they formed a national parliament composed of two chambers, a government with five ministries, and a national army.
The church discovered new opportunities for political gain and financial profit. Despite the presence of a state government, real power lay in the Bogd Khaan’s court. The church appropriated revenues for its purposes. And it enlarged its financial holdings by, for example, transferring to the church estate (Ikh shav) wealthy herdsmen who traditionally had owed their services and taxes to lay princes. There is a wrong view that over time, the greed of the church so disaffected the lay nobility that it came to reject the very principles of theocracy upon which the new country had been founded. According to Mongolian and Russian sources, the Mongolian society was generally satisfied with the theocracy but there were different views on future development of the country.
On the diplomatic front, the Mongols worked tirelessly between 1912 and 1915 to win international recognition of a new pan-Mongolian state
Greater Mongolia
Greater Mongolia as a region, is the contiguous territories primarily inhabited by ethnic Mongols. It approximately includes the modern state of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China , and the Buryat Republic as well as a few smaller territories in...
that would include (Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, Barga
Barga
Barga is a medieval town and comune of the province of Lucca in Tuscany, central Italy. It is home to around 10,000 people and is the chief town of the "Media Valle" of the Serchio.-Geography:...
, and Tannu Uriankhai
Tannu Uriankhai
Tannu Uriankhai is a historic region of the Mongol Empire and, later, the Qing Dynasty. The realms of Tannu Uriankhai largely correspond to the Tuva Republic of the Russian Federation, neighboring areas in Russia, and a part of the modern state of Mongolia....
). The Republic of China, for its part, did all it could to re-establish Chinese sovereignty over the country. Russia refused to support full independence for Mongolia; nor would it agree to the restoration of Chinese sovereignty. The matter was settled in 1915 by the tripartite Treaty of Kyakhta, which in summary provided for Mongolian autonomy within the Chinese state, and forbade China from sending troops to Mongolia. Both the Chinese and Mongols found the treaty equally obnoxious, although for different reasons.
First steps toward the abolition of autonomy
Outbreak of the Bolshevik RevolutionOctober Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
in 1917 and the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
a year later changed the Mongolian-Chinese dynamic. In response to rumors of an imminent Bolshevik invasion, the Mongolians, very reluctantly and only after much encouragement by the Chinese High Commissioner Chen Yi at Urga (modern Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar
Ulan Bator or Ulaanbaatar is the capital and largest city of Mongolia. An independent municipality, the city is not part of any province, and its population as of 2008 is over one million....
), requested in the summer of 1918 military assistance from China (approximately 200 to 250 troops arrived in September). The invasion in fact did not occur. In view of this, the Bogd Khaan’s government requested that the troops be recalled. The Peking government refused, seeing this violation of the Kyakhta Treaty as the first step in restoring Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia.
Early in 1919 Grigori Semyonov
Grigory Semyonov
Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, or Semenov , was a Japanese-supported leader of the White movement in Transbaikal and beyond from December 1917 to November 1920, Lieutenant General and Ataman of Baikal Cossacks .-Biography:Semyonov was born in the Transbaikal region of eastern Siberia...
, a White Guard general, had assembled a group of Buryats
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...
and Inner Mongols in Siberia for the formation of a pan-Mongolian state. The Khalkhas were invited to join; they refused. Semyonov threatened an invasion to force them to participate. This threat galvanized the lay princes, who now saw a larger opportunity: the end of theocratic rule. In August the Mongolian Foreign Minister approached Chen Yi with a message from the “representatives of the four aimags
Aimag
Aimag is a Mongolian and Turkic word for a tribe.It is also used as a term for country subdivisions in Mongolia and China, see aimag .The name of the Aimak people in central Afghanistan derives from the same root....
” (i.e., the Khalkhas) with a request for military assistance against Semyonov. More importantly, perhaps, it contained a declaration that the Khalkhas were unanimous in their desire to abolish autonomy and restore the previous Qing system.
Negotiations, with participation of the Bogd Khaan's representatives, began immediately. By October Chen Yi and the Mongolian princes had agreed upon a set of conditions, the “Sixty-four points,” effectively recreating the political and administrative system. The "points" were submitted to the Parliament. The upper house consented to it; the lower house did not. However, in this as in all other matters submitted to the Parliament in the past, the upper house prevailed. Chen Yi sent the draft Articles to Beijing. The Bogd Khaan dispatched a delegation of lamas
Lama
Lama is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru .Historically, the term was used for venerated spiritual masters or heads of monasteries...
to Beijing with a letter stating that the people of Mongolia did not want to abolish autonomy. This was all a contrivance of Chen Yi, he wrote, and he asked that Chen be recalled. The Beijing government was not interested in esoteric arguments whether or not a consensus existed in Mongolia for the abolition of autonomy. The "points" were submitted to the Chinese National Assembly, which approved them on October 28.
Xu Shuzheng and the abolition of autonomy
Political events then unfolding in China were to fundamentally alter Mongolian history. The Beijing government was controlled by a group of warlords nicknamed the “Anhui CliqueAnhui clique
The Anhui clique was one of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang Clique in the Republic of China's Warlord era. It was named after Anhui province because several of its generals including its founder, Duan Qirui, was born in Anhui...
” headed by Duan Qirui
Duan Qirui
Duan Qirui was a Chinese warlord and politician, commander in the Beiyang Army, and the Provisional Chief Executive of Republic of China from November 24, 1924 to April 20, 1926. He was arguably the most powerful man in China from 1916 to 1920.- Early life :Born in Hefei as Duan Qirui , his...
. The government had come under severe public criticism for its failure at the Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
to obtain a just settlement of the Shandong problem
Shandong Problem
The Shantung Problem refers to the dispute over Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which dealt with the concession of the Shandong peninsula....
. There was criticism also of Duan’s “War-participation army,” which ostensibly had been formed for service in Europe in the First World War but in fact was used to maintain Duan’s internal control. To divert criticism, he simply rechristened his office the "Bureau of Frontier Defense" and his army the "Frontier Defense Army". In June 1919 Xu Shuzheng
Xu Shuzheng
Hsu Seu-Cheng or Xu Shuzheng , was a Chinese warlord in Republican China. A subordinate and right-hand man of Duan Qirui, he was a prominent member of the Anhui Clique....
, a prominent member of Duan’s clique, was named “northwest frontier commissioner,” making him the senior Chinese military and civilian officer of Outer Mongolia.
Earlier, in April, Xu had submitted a plan to the Beijing government for the total social and economic reconstruction of Mongolia, proposing, among other things, that Chinese colonization and intermarriage between Chinese and Mongolians be encouraged in order to “transform the customs of the Mongols.” In short, Xu appeared to want nothing less than the total sinification of Mongolia under his authority.
Chen Yi’s Sixty-four points, which guaranteed Mongolia a kind of autonomy, would have compelled Xu to abandon his plans. This may explain the timing of his personal intervention. Xu arrived in Urga in October accompanied by a military contingent. He informed Chen that the Sixty-four points would have to be renegotiated based upon a new set of proposals, his “Eight Articles,” which called for an increase in population (presumably through Chinese colonization) and economic development. Xu presented the Articles to the Bogd Khaan with a threat that refusal to ratify them would result in his deportation and that his closest advisers to China. The Bogd Khaan submitted the Articles to the Mongolian Parliament: the upper house accepted them; the lower house did not, with some of its members threatening to expel Xu by force. Lamas resisted the Xu's plans most of all. Again, the upper house prevailed. On November 17, 1919 Xu accepted a petition—signed by the ministers and deputy ministers but not by the Bogd Khaan himself—for the abolition of autonomy.
Xu returned to Beijing, where he received a hero’s welcome arranged by the Anhui clique. By December, he was back in Urga to organize a formal ceremony for the transfer of authority: soldiers were lined on either side of the road to the Bogd Khaan’s palace; the portrait of the President of China was borne on a palanquin; the flag of the Chinese republic followed, and after it a marching band. Mongols were required to prostrate themselves repeatedly before these symbols of Chinese sovereignty. That night, some Mongolian herdsmen and lamas gathered outside the palace, and tore down the flags of the Chinese Republic hanging from the gate.
Mongolian resistance: Consular Hill and East Urga groups
Between 1919 and early 1920 a few Mongolians came to form what were known later as the “Consular Hill” (Konsulyn denj) and East Urga (Züün khüree) groups. This was the beginning of resistance to Xu and the abolition of autonomy.The first group owed its existence principally to D. Bodoo
Dogsomyn Bodoo
Dogsomyn Bodoo was a Prime Minister of Mongolia from 1921 to 1922. He had been a lama before becoming a clerk and a founding member of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. He became Prime Minister of the provisional parliamentary state from April 16, 1921 to January 7, 1922...
(1885–1922), a highly educated, 35 year-old lama, who worked in the Russian Consulate at Urga during the Bogd Khaan era. Sharing a yurt
Yurt
A yurt is a portable, bent wood-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by Turkic nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. The structure comprises a crown or compression wheel usually steam bent, supported by roof ribs which are bent down at the end where they meet the lattice wall...
with Bodoo was Kh. Choibalsan (1895–1953) (later to be known as the “Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
of Mongolia"). A certain Mikhail Kucherenko, a typesetter in the Russo-Mongolian printing office and a member of the Bolshevik underground in Urga, occasionally visited Bodoo and Choibalsan; conversations, no doubt, turned on the Russian revolution and the political situation in Mongolia. In time, other Mongolians joined Bodoo and Choibalsan in discussions over the abolition of autonomy and the failure of Mongolian princes and senior lamas to put up an effective resistance to the Chinese.
The leaders of the East Urga group were S. Danzan
Soliin Danzan
Soliin Danzan was a Mongolian revolutionary and chairman of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party ....
(1885–1924), an official in the Ministry of Finance, and D. Dogsom
Dansrabilegiin Dogsom
Dansrabilegiin Dogsom was a Mongolian Communist political figure; he served as president of Mongolia from 1936 until 1939.-References:...
(1884–1939), an official in the Ministry of the Army. Another, albeit less prominent at the time, member was D. Sükhbaatar (1893–1923), a soldier in the Mongolian army who, after his death, was canonized by Communist historians as the “Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
of Mongolia". The beginning of the East Urga group may be traced to mid-November 1919, when several of the more militant members of the lower house of the Mongolian Parliament, including Danzan and Dogson, met secretly on the first night following its dissolution by Xu Shuzheng, and resolved to resist the Chinese. Twice they approached the Bogd Khaan to obtain his support for armed resistance; twice the Khaan counseled patience. The group plotted to seize the Mongolian army’s arsenal and assassinate Xu Shuzheng; however, the placement of Chinese guards at the arsenal and a revised travel itinerary for Xu thwarted both plans.
Formation of the Mongolian People’s Party
Russian expatriates in Urga had elected a revolutionary “Municipal Duma,” headed by Bolshevik sympathizers. It had learned of the Consular Hill group. In early March 1920 the Duma was sending one of its members, I. Sorokovikov, to Irkutsk. It decided that he should also take a report with him about these Mongolians. Sorokovikov met with representatives of the two groups. On his return to Urga in June, he met with them again, promising that the Soviet government would provide “assistance of all kinds” to the Mongolian “workers.” He invited them to send representatives to Russia for further discussions.A new sense of purposefulness now animated both groups. They had maintained a wary distance from one another, perhaps because of their different agendas—the Consular Hill group espousing a rather progressive social program while the East Urga group was more nationalistic in its goals—and there had been little cooperation between the two. The Soviet invitation changed that. The two groups met on June 25, and formed the “Mongolian People’s Party” (renamed later the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
The Mongolian People's Party formerly the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party is an ex-communist political party in Mongolia. The party is abbreviated MPP in English and ' in Mongolian...
, adopted a “Party Oath,” and agreed to send Danzan and Choibalsan as delegates to Russia.
Danzan and Choibalsan arrived in Verkhneudinsk, the capital of the pro-Soviet Far Eastern Republic
Far Eastern Republic
The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the Russian Far East...
, in the first part of July. They met with Boris Shumyatskii
Boris Shumyatsky
Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky was the de facto executive producer for the Soviet film monopoly from 1930 to 1937...
, then acting head of the government. Shumyatskii knew little about them, and for three weeks dodged their demands for a speedy Soviet decision whether or not to provide military assistance to the Mongolians against the Chinese. Finally, perhaps at Shumyatskii’s suggestion, they sent a telegram to members of the MPP in Urga with a coded message that they should obtain a letter, stamped with the seal of the Bogd Khaan, formally requesting Soviet assistance. The MPP did succeed in obtaining a letter from the Khaan’s court, albeit with difficulty. Five members of the Party—D. Losol, D. Chagdarjav
Dambyn Chagdarjav
Dambyn Chagdarjav was one of the “first seven” leaders of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and was later prime minister of Mongolia’s provisional government from March to April 1921....
, Dogsom, L. Dendev, and Sükhbaatar—brought it to Verkhneudinsk. When the seven men met with Shumyatskii, he told them that he had no authority to make a decision on their request; they must go to Irkutsk.
On arriving in Irkutsk in August, the Mongolians met with the head of what was later to be reorganized as the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International (Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
), and explained that they needed military instructors, 10,000 rifles, cannon, machine guns, and money. They were told that they must draft a new letter, this time in the name of the Party, not the Bogd Khaan, stating their objectives and requests. Such a petition would have to be considered by the Siberian Revolutionary Committee in Omsk.
The Mongolians divided themselves into three groups: Danzan, Losol, and Dendev left for Omsk; Bodoo and Dogsom returned to Urga, where they were to enlarge the party’s membership and form an army; and Sükhbaatar and Choibalsan proceeded to Irkutsk to serve as a communication link between the others. Before separating, the group drafted a new appeal with a more revolutionary message: The Mongolian nobility would be divested of its hereditary power, to be replaced by a democratic government headed by the Bogd Khaan as a limited monarch. The document also contained a request for immediate military assistance.
Ungern-Sternberg
After several meetings with Soviet authorities in Omsk, the Mongolian delegation was told that such an important matter could be decided only in Moscow. Danzan and his compatriots left for Moscow, arriving in about mid-September. For over a month they met frequently but inconclusively with Soviet and Comintern officials.A White Guard invasion of Mongolia under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg
Roman Ungern von Sternberg
Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg was a Russian Yesaul , Lieutenant-general, and a hero of World War I...
, however, forced the Soviet government into action. In late October to early November 1920 Ungern with about 1,000 troops had laid siege to the Chinese garrison in Urga numbered about 7,000. On November 10 or 11 the three Mongols were hurriedly summoned to a meeting with Soviet authorities. They were told that the Party would be supplied with all the weapons it needed, but they must quickly return to Mongolia, and there increase the Party’s membership and raise an army. At the same time, Moscow ordered the Soviet Fifth Red Army to cross the Mongolian border, and destroy Sternberg.
The Chinese garrison in Urga, however, had successfully repulsed Ungern’s attack. This altered the Soviet strategy. The army of the Far Eastern Republic was exhausted. Only the Fifth Army of the Reds was left on the eastern front, and already by late 1920 many of its more experienced units had either been demobilized, or sent west to fight in Poland, or assigned to the labor front, where they were needed to repair the badly damaged Siberia economy. Thus, when the Chinese repulsed Ungern, the Soviets on November 28 withdrew their order for an invasion.
However, Ungern launched a second attack in early February 1921. This time he was successful. Chinese soldiers and civilians fled the city in panic. With the fall of Urga, the Chinese administrations and military garrisons at Uliastai
Uliastai
Uliastai is a city in Mongolia. It is located in the western part of the country, 1,115 kilometers from the capital Ulaanbaatar. Uliastai is the capital of Zavkhan Province and was the 10th most populous city in the country with a population of 24,276 , now this city has 16,240 population and is...
and Khovd departed quickly for Xinjiang. The Bogd Khaan was restored as Mongolian monarch by Ungern. Mongolian Bogd Khaan and his government were also restored, and a solemn ceremony held on 22 February.
Growth of the Mongolian People’s Party
News of Ungern’s seizure of Urga again influenced Soviet plans. A plenary session of the Comintern in Irkutsk on February 10 passed a formal resolution to aid the “struggle of the Mongolian people for liberation and independence with money, guns and military instructors.” With Soviet support, the MPP was now a serious contender for power. The Party, hitherto rather amorphous and loosely connected, required better organizational and ideological definition. A party conference (subsequently regarded as the first congress of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party) met secretly on March 1–3 at Kyakhta. The first session was attended by 17 persons, the second by 26. The Party approved the creation of an army command staff headed by Sükhbaatar with two Russian advisers, elected a central committee chaired by Danzan with one representative from the Comintern, and adopted a party manifesto composed by the progressive Buryat Ts. Zhamtsarano.On March 13 a provisional government of seven men was formed, soon to be headed by Bodoo. On March 18 the Mongolian guerrilla army, its ranks now enlarged to 400 through recruitment and conscription, seized the Chinese garrison at Kyakhta Maimaicheng
Kyakhta
Kyakhta is a town in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Kyakhta River near the Russian-Mongolian border. Population: The town stands directly opposite the Mongolian border town of Altanbulag.-History:...
(the Chinese portion of Kyakhta). A new confidence now animated the Party. It issued a proclamation announcing the formation of the government, the expulsion of the Chinese, and the promise to convene a congress of “representatives of the masses” to elect a permanent government. A propaganda war of sorts between the provisional government and the Bogd Khaan’s court followed: The Party saturated the northern border with leaflets urging people to take up arms against the White Guards; the legal Bogd Khaan's government barraged the same area with warnings that these revolutionaries were intent upon destroying the Mongolian state and shattering the very foundations of the Buddhist faith.
The new Soviet government, isolated as it was by international community, was anxious to establish diplomatic relations with China. It had sent a representative to Beijing; the Chinese government reciprocated with its own to Moscow. Perhaps the principal reason that the Soviets had hesitated to aid the Mongolians too openly was fear of prejudicing those negotiations. But by early 1921 whatever restraints there were upon open Soviet support for Mongolia had ended: China suspended talks with the Soviet government in January 1921; the Chinese government appeared to be incapable of dealing with Ungern; and in early March it had refused Soviet military assistance against the White Guards. It was then that the Russians became firmly committed to the Mongolian revolution.
The material expression of this commitment was an increase in the flow of Soviet advisers and weapons in March to the MPP. In March and April, Soviet and Far Eastern Republican units were transferred to Kyakhta, while the Mongols doubled the number of their guerrillas to 800. Ungern's forces attacked Kyakhta in early June. He encountered a Red Army troops army several times larger his size. The White Guards were thrown back with losses. On June 28 the main Soviet expeditionary corps crossed the border into Mongolia, and on July 6 the first Mongolian and Russian units entered Urga.
The Mongolian revolutionaries went to work immediately. On July 9 they sent a letter to the Bogd Khaan’s court, announcing that power was now in the hands of the people: “The disorder which reigns presently is as much due to the shortcomings of the [hereditary] leaders as to the fact that the existing laws and situation do not correspond any longer to the spirit of the times. Everything, therefore, except religion, will be subject to gradual change.” On the next day the Party’s Central Committee issued a resolution declaring the formation of a new government headed by Bodoo, with the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu as a limited monarch. On July 11 he was ceremoniously installed on the throne of Mongolia.
The aftermath
Ungern-Sternberg’s army, now defeated, began to crumble. His men come in conspiracy, and then left him. Ungern was seized by a Red Army detachment. The Soviets executed him later in the same year. Fighting shifted to western Mongolia, and by the end of 1921 the White Guards had either been destroyed or expelled.The Chinese government was not indifferent to Ungern’s invasion. It appointed Zhang Zuolin as commander of an expeditionary army to deal with him. However, the occupation of Urga by Red forces in July and internal Chinese warlord politics forced him to abandon his plans.
On the diplomatic front, the Soviets had proposed to the Chinese the convening of a tripartite conference, similar to that of 1914-15, to discuss Mongolia’s relationship with China. The Chinese government, however, emboldened by the prospect of Zhang’s expedition, responded that Mongolia was part of China, and thus could not be the subject of international negotiations. It was not until 1924 that a Chinese-Soviet treaty was concluded, by which the Soviet Union recognized Mongolia as an integral part of China, and agreed to withdraw its troops. The treaty notwithstanding, the death of the Khutuktu in that same year provided an opportunity for the MPP to dispense with the theocratic rule; the Party announced the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic. In 1945 the Chinese Nationalist government recognized the full sovereignty of the Mongolian People’s Republic (Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
was to withdraw that recognition a few years later).