The Comintern and Revolution in Mongolia

This monograph deals with issues of concern in the rewriting of the 20th century history of Mongolia. It provides interpretations of the activity of the Third Communist International (the 'Comintern') in Central Asia and of the politics of Soviet Russia towards the East, using original research based on previously inaccessible material from the Comintern archives. The book covers the 1920s and 1930s, when Mongolian society was in transition from a theocratic monarchy to a republic. It describes the strategies of non-capitalist development undertaken in order to build socialism, and illuminates the political, military and economic aspects of Mongol-Soviet relations. Particular emphasis is placed on the way the Comintern and Moscow interfered in the political struggles among the Mongolian elite, and determined the policy of social transformation in this nomadic society. The emergence of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, its coming to power, and its complete domination of the capital city and peripheral regions is decribed in detail. The politics of the MPRP towards the Buddhist monasteries and lamas is also given special attention. The central issue of the work is the problem of Mongolian nationalism and the tactics employed by the Comintern in dealing with it. A wide and useful bibliography is included and the book is illustrated with contemporary photographs of Mongolian revolutionaries and of Comintern activists in Mongolia. This book is No.3 in the Inner Asia Book Series, published for the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge under the general editorship of Professor Caroline Humphrey. The Series is an adjunct to the journal Inner Asia from the same Unit.