Stalinist repressions in Mongolia

Great Repression

Over the next three years, Soviet mentors in the Ministry of Internal Affairs guided Choibalsan in planning and carrying out the impending purges. Under the direction of his Soviet handler Matvey Petrovich Chopyak, Choibalsan had the Internal Affairs Committee rules amended in May 1936 to facilitate the detention of high-ranking politicians without first consulting political superiors. Soon thereafter, 23 high-ranking lamas were arrested for participating in a "counter-revolutionary center." Following a yearlong trial they were publicly executed in early October 1937. When Mongolia's procurator general protested the lamas' prosecution, he too was arrested and then shot.

On 22 August 1937 Marshal Gelegdorjiin Demid, whose popularity Choibalsan had always resented, died under suspicious circumstances, resulting in Choibalsan's promotion to the dual role of sole commander-in-chief of the Mongolian People's Army and Minister of Defense. On 4 September Choibalsan issued Order 366, which declared that many in Mongolia "had fallen under the influence of Japanese spies and provocateurs." Alarmed by Japanese military movements in Manchuria, Stalin ordered that month the stationing of 30,000 Red Army troops in Mongolia and had dispatched a large Soviet delegation to Ulaanbaatar under Soviet Deputy NKVD Commissar Mikhail Frinovsky.

Charged with starting the violent purges that he had so effectively carried out in the Soviet Union under the NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov, Frinovsky delivered a list of 115 counter-revolutionaries and Japanese collaborators to Choibalsan, recommending they be purged. Working through Soviet advisers already embedded within the Ministry of Interior and with a compliant Choibalsan providing symbolic cover, Frinovsky built the purge framework from behind the scenes. He produced arrest lists and assembled an Extraordinary Purge Commission, an NKVD-style troika (headed by Choibalsan, with Minister of Justice Tserendorj and former MPRP Secretary Dorjjavyn Luvsansharav). They presided over arrest cases, investigations and show trials involving “lamas, espionage and counterrevolution.”

The arrest of 65 high-ranking government officials and intelligentsia on 10 September signaled the launch of the purges in earnest. All were accused of spying for Japan as part of a Genden-Demid plot and most confessed under intense torture. The first two-day show trial was staged at Ulaanbaatar's Central Theater, ending on 20 October. Of the 14 persons accused, 13, including former prime minister and chief abbot of the Manzushir Monastery Sambadondogiin Tserendorj, were sentenced to death.

What followed was a spasm of violence that lasted nearly 18 months. Choibalsan's troika approved and carried out the execution of more than 18,000 counter-revolutionary lamas. Monks that were not executed were conscripted into the Mongolian armed forces or otherwise forcibly laicized while 746 monasteries were liquidated. Thousands more dissident intellectuals, political and government officials labeled "enemies of the revolution," as well as ethnic Buryats and Kazakhs were rounded up and killed. Some 25 persons from top positions in the party and government were executed, 187 from the military leadership, 36 of the 51 members of the Central Committee.

Following the Russian model, Choibalsan opened gulags in the countryside to imprison dissidents, while others were transported to gulags in the Soviet Union. As the NKVD effectively managed the purge by staging show trials and carrying out executions, a frequently intoxicated Choibalsan was sometimes present during torture and interrogations of suspected counterrevolutionaries, including old friends and comrades. Choibalsan rubber-stamped NKVD execution orders and at times personally directed executions. He also added names of political enemies to NKVD arrest lists simply to settle old scores. Nevertheless, even when he attempted to spare victims by recommending leniency in certain cases, NKVD officers often overrode his decision.

End of the Great Repression

Racked with stress, Choibalsan spent six months (August 1938 – January 1939) recuperating and consulting with Kliment Voroshilov, Yezhov, and Stalin in Moscow and Sochi while NKVD agents and Interior Ministry officials carried on purge operations from Ulaanbaatar. When he returned to Mongolia, Choibalsan followed Soviet directives and had the highly popular Prime Minister Anandyn Amar purged. Choibalsan claimed he "had helped anti-government plotters, opposed their arrest, and neglected the defense of the borders. He betrayed his own country and was a traitor to the revolution." After a coordinated propaganda campaign, Amar was arrested on 7 March 1939 and sent to the USSR, where he was tried by a Soviet Troika and executed.

With Amar's removal, Choibalsan became Mongolia's uncontested leader, simultaneously holding the office of prime minister, minister for internal affairs, minister of war, and commander-in-chief of the Mongolian armed forces. Secured in his position, Choibalsan brought the terror to an end in April 1939 by declaring that the excesses of the purges had been conducted by overzealous party officials while he was away in the USSR, but that he had overseen the arrests of the real criminals. Official blame for the purges fell on Nasantogtokh, the deputy minister of internal affairs, and his former Soviet handler Kichikov. Later, other henchmen of the purge were arrested and executed, including Luvsansharav, Bayasgalan, Dashtseveg, and Luvsandorj. Dansranbilegiin Dogsom and Darizavyn Losol, the last two living members (besides Choibalsan himself) of the original seven founding members of the MPRP, were also arrested. Dogsom was executed in 1941. Losol died in a Soviet prison before his case came to trial.

Legacy

By the time the purges ended in early 1939, an entire stratum of Mongolian society had effectively been exterminated while much of Mongolia's cultural heritage lay in ruins. Approximately 18,000 lamas were condemned to death while thousands more were forcibly laicized and conscripted into the Mongolian People's Army. More than 700 Buddhist monasteries were destroyed. The old guard revolutionary class, viewed as heavily nationalist, was eliminated; 25 persons from top positions in the party and government were executed, 187 from the military leadership, and 36 of the 51 members of the Central Committee. Choibalsan became Mongolia's unquestioned leader backed by Soviet advisors, a growing Red Army presence in the country, and by younger apparatchiks who were more closely aligned with the Soviet Union, such as future leader Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal.

In the 50 years following the repressions, any public discourse on the matter was discouraged or condemned. At the time of his death in 1952, Choibalsan was widely mourned as a hero, a patriot, and ultimately a martyr for the cause of Mongolian independence. Remnants of his strong personality cult, as well as successful efforts by his successor Tsendenbal to obstruct "de-Stalinization" efforts that could have shed light on the purges, helped solidify the positive regard many Mongolians held of their former leader. Some scholars have suggested the inclination of Mongolians to avoid blaming Choibalsan for the purges is in effect an attempt to exonerate themselves for what happened. Public anger over the violence of the purges falls predominantly on the Soviet Union and the NKVD, with Choibalsan viewed sympathetically (if not pathetically) as a puppet with little choice but to follow Moscow's instructions or else meet the fate of his predecessors Genden and Amar.

With the end of communist rule in 1990, however, re-examination of the Socialist Era—and particularly the Great Repression—has occurred, and there does seem to be an attempt by some Mongolians to come to terms the country's past in a more general context. In 1991, mass graves of monks executed during the repressions were uncovered near Mörön, Khövsgöl Province and in 2003 in Khambyn Ovoo, Ulaanbaatar. The corpses of hundreds of executed lamas and civilians were unearthed, all killed with a single shot to the base of the skull. At the same time, there have been concerted efforts by various groups to restore many of the temples and monasteries that were destroyed during the purges.

Notable victims

• Peljidiin Genden, Mongolian head of state from 1924 to 1927 and Prime Minister of Mongolia from 1932 to 1936
• Anandyn Amar, prime minister of Mongolia from 1928 to 1930 and 1936 to 1939, Mongolian head of state from 1932 to 1936
• Darizavyn Losol, revolutionary and founding member of the MPRP
• Gelegdorjiin Demid, Marshal of the Mongolian People's Republic from 1936 to 1937
• Dansranbilegiin Dogsom, Mongolian head of state from 1936 to 1939 and founding member of the MPRP
• Sambadondogiin Tserendorj, prime minister of Mongolia, 1921, chief abbot of Manjusri Monastery
• Shirnengiin Ayuush, musician, novelist, and art historian
• Ölziitiin Badrakh
• Jamtsangiin Damdinsüren, Mongolian head of state from 1927 to 1929
• Khas-Ochiryn Luvsandorj
• Losolyn Laagan, Mongolian head of state from 1930 to 1932
• Dorjjavyn Luvsansharav
• Tserendondovyn Navaanneren, 20th and last Setsen Khan
• Genepil, last Queen consort of the late Bogd Khan
• Zolbingiin Shijee
• Banzarjavyn Baasanjav, MPRP leader from 1936 to 1940

Buryats

A number of prominent Buryats connected to Mongolia were imprisoned and killed during the purges in the Soviet Union, among them:

• Jamsrangiin Tseveen
• Rinchingiin Elbegdorj
• Dashi Sampilon
• Erdene Batkhaan