Khorloogiin Choibalsan (8 February 1895 – 26 January 1952) was a Mongolian revolutionary and politician who served as the leader of the Mongolian People's Republic as the chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1939 until his death in 1952. He was also the commander-in-chief of the Mongolian People's Army from 1937, and the chairman of the Presidium of the State Little Khural (head of state) from 1929 to 1930. His rule was maintained by a repressive state and cult of personality. Choibalsan led a dictatorship and organized Stalinist purges in Mongolia between 1937 and 1939 as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Choibalsan was one of the 1921 Mongolian revolutionaries and held several political and military roles in the 1920s. Mongolia's economic, political, and military ties to the Soviet Union deepened, though after World War II, Choibalsan supported pan-Mongolian unification with Inner Mongolia. He died of cancer in Moscow in 1952 and was succeeded as leader by his protégé, Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal.
Early life Choibalsan was born on 8 February 1895 in Achit Beysiyn, near present-day Choibalsan, Dornod Province. He was the youngest of four children born to a poor, unmarried herdswoman named Khorloo (the name Khorloogiin is a matronymic). His father was likely a Barga tribesman, Daur Mongol from Inner Mongolia called Jamsu, but Choibalsan claimed to be unaware of his identity.
Named Dugar at birth, he assumed the religious name Choibalsan at age 13 after entering the local Buddhist monastery of San Beysiyn Khüree,Atwood 2004, p. 103. where he trained to be a Lamaist monk. Five years later he and another novice fled to Khüree (also known as Urga—present-day Ulaanbaatar), where he worked odd jobs. In part to prevent him from being returned to the monastery, a sympathetic Buryat teacher named Nikolai Danchinov had him enrolled in the Russian consulate's Russian-Mongolian Translators' School. A year later he was sent on, at public expense, to study at a gymnasium in Irkutsk, Russia from 1914 to 1917.
Mongolian Revolution of 1921
Formation of the Mongolian People's Party
Choibalsan and fellow Mongolian students in Russia were called back to Khüree by the Bogd Khaan government following the 1917 October Revolution. Exposed to Bolshevism while living among Irkutsk's radicalized student population, Choibalsan joined the revolutionary Consular Hill or Konsulyn Denj (Консулын дэнж) group, heavily influenced by Bolshevist philosophy and established to resist the Chinese occupation of Outer Mongolia after 1919. Original members of the group also included Dambyn Chagdarjav and Darizavyn Losol.
Dogsomyn Bodoo, the group's leader, was a former teacher and mentor of Choibalsan's at the Russian-Mongolian School for Translators.Baabar 1999, p. 198 With his serviceable Russian, Choibalsan served as the group's translator with contacts at the Russian Consulate. Those contacts later encouraged Konsulyn Denj to join forces with the more nationalist-oriented resistance group Züün Khüree (East Khüree), which counted Soliin Danzan, Dansrabilegiin Dogsom, and Damdin Sükhbaatar among its members. On 25 June 1920,Kh. Choibalsan, D. Losol, D. Demid, Mongolyn ardyn ündesnii khuv'sgal ankh üüseg baiguulagdsan tovch tüükh [A short history of the Mongolian revolution] (Ulaanbaatar, 1934), v. 1, p. 56. the new body adopted the name Mongolian People's Party (MPP). In 1924 the party renamed itself the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, after the death of the Bogd Khaan and the formal proclamation of the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR).
Contact with Soviets and the first MPP Congress
In late June 1920, Choibalsan and Danzan embarked for Irkutsk (they were later joined by Losol, Chagdarjav, Dogsom, L. Dendev, and Sükhbaatar—the infamous "First Seven") to establish contacts with the Soviets and seek assistance in their struggle for independence. Choibalsan and Sükhbaatar remained together in Irkutsk for several months raising awareness of Mongolia's plight and receiving military training. During this period Sükhbaatar gradually became a second mentor to Choibalsan.Bawden 1989, p. 215
While the group of seven continued their lobbying efforts in Soviet Russia, forces commanded by the anti-Bolshevik Russian warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg invaded Mongolia from the east and ejected occupying Chinese garrisons from Khüree in February 1921. No longer faced with directly confronting the Chinese in Mongolia, the Soviets finally threw their backing behind the Mongolian revolutionaries. Choibalsan and Sükhbaatar relocated to Troitskosavsk (modern-day Kyakhta on the Russian-Mongolian border) to coordinate revolutionary activities and recruit Mongolian fighters. Choibalsan secretly ventured as far as Khüree to consult with MPP supporters, enlist fighters, and spirit members of Sükhbaatar's family back to Troitskosavsk.
At a Soviet-organized MPP conference held secretly in Troitskosavsk from 1 to 3 March 1921 (subsequently regarded as the first congress of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party), Choibalsan was elected a member of the provisional revolutionary government. He was also appointed Political Commissar (Deputy Chief and chief propagandist) of the Mongol Ardyn Huv'sgalt Tsereg (Mongolian: Монгол Ардын Хувьсгалт Цэрэг), or the Mongolian People's Army, commanded by Sükhbaatar.Sanders 1996, p. 42.
Defeat of Ungern-Sternberg Within days, Sükhbaatar's Mongolian partisan army (now numbering 400 men) defeated the larger but demoralized Chinese garrison that had fled to Kyakhta Maimaicheng (modern-day Altanbulag). Joint Mongol and Red Army forces directly confronted Ungern's troops in a series of battles near Troitskosavsk from late May to mid-June. Choibalsan took command of a Mongolian detachment based in Tariat, in modern-day Arkhangai provinceBagaryn Shirendyb et al 1976, p. 137 and, together with the Russian forces commanded by Petr Efimovich Shchetinkin, fought right guard actions in western Mongolia in support of the main Russian-Mongolian advance through modern-day Selenge and Töv provinces.
After small skirmishes with Ungern's remaining guard units, the joint Russian-Mongol force entered Khüree unchallenged on 6 July 1921. Choibalsan pursued remnants of Ungern's army and was likely on hand at Ungern's capture by Shchetinkin on 22 August 1921.
Rise to power After the revolution, Choibalsan remained Deputy Chief of the Mongolian People's Army, while also being elected Chairman of the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League (MRYL). Despite his credentials as one of the MPP's founding members, he failed to advance beyond second-tier government posts throughout the 1920s.Bawden 1989, p. 292 His heavy drinking, womanizing, and violent temperament alienated him from party leaders and at one point in the early 1930s he was temporarily demoted from being Minister of Foreign Affairs to the role of simple Museum Director.
While he often gravitated towards the leftist faction of the party, he was suspected of being a rightist in what little mention is made of him in Soviet and Mongolian reports of the era. Choibalsan himself did not include many of his own speeches from this period in his collected works, indicating his role during this period was not a prominent one. It was not until members of the Soviet security apparatus such as Soviet Commissar for Defense Kliment Voroshilov took note of Choibalsan's political usefulness in the late 1920s and early 1930s that his career prospects began to improve.Baabar 1999, p. 351
Purge of Bodoo In late 1921, Choibalsan's MRYL foot soldiers carried out Prime Minister Bodoo's modernization campaign of forcibly cutting off "feudal" ornaments from Mongolian clothing (large cuffs, women's jewelry, long hair etc.).Baabar 1999, p. 231 The angry public backlash led to Bodoo's purge and eventual execution in August 1922, while Choibalsan was stripped of both full party membership and his position as deputy commander of the Mongolian military. Only Sükhbaatar's intervention saved him from Bodoo's fate.Atwood 2004, p.104.
Choibalsan was sent to a Moscow Russian Military Academy after Sükhbaatar's death in 1923. When he returned to Ulaanbaatar a year later was offered his old mentor's former position as Commander in Chief of the People's Revolutionary Troops. He also held positions as a member of the Presidium of the State Great Khural from 1924 to 1928 and as a member of the MPRP Central Committee.
Right Opportunism (1925–28) At the Third Party Congress in 1924, Choibalsan sided with the leftist leader Rinchingiin Elbegdorj as left and right-wing factions of the MPRP called for the arrest and execution of moderate party leader Danzan, who was accused of protecting bourgeois interests and engaging in business with Chinese firms.Sanders 1996, p. 52. Following Danzan's death, Choibalsan and Rinchino's political influence diminished as the party's right-wing, led by Tseren-Ochiryn Dambadorj, assumed control.
Leftist Period 1928–1932
The rise of Josef Stalin and termination of Lenin's New Economic Policy influenced political developments in the MPR with the 1928 MPRP Seventh Party Congress ushering in the "Leftist Period." Soviet advisors arranged for Choibalsan to be "kicked upstairs" to be Chairman of the Little Hural (i.e. titular head of state) from where, in 1929 and 1930, he supported implementation of Soviet-backed leftist policies of more rapid collectivization, land expropriation, and persecution of the Buddhist faith.
At the Eighth Party Congress in 1930 Choibalsan contributed to a ramping up of leftist socialist reforms when, again encouraged by Soviet agents, he introduced personally formulated decrees that intensified land confiscation and forced collectivization measures.Bawden 1989, p. 293 His appointment in 1931 as Minister of Livestock and Agriculture (a position he held until 1935) gave him even greater authority to enforce the policies. Traditional herders were forced off the steppe and into badly managed collective farms, destroying one third of Mongolian livestock. Over 800 properties belonging to the nobility and the Buddhist faith were confiscated and over 700 head of mostly noble households were executed. Under Stalinist influence in the Mongolian People's Republic, an estimated 17,000 monks were killed, official figures show.
The government's aggressive measures ultimately lead to brutal armed uprisings in Khövsgöl, Arkhangai, Övörkhangai, and Zavkhan provinces in 1932. In reaction, Moscow ordered a temporary curtailment of economic centralization efforts. Comintern agents counted on Choibalsan to be a strong advocate for its New Turn policy to correct the "excesses" of "the Left Deviation" when it was introduced in an extraordinary plenum of the MPRP Central Committee in June 1932. Later MPR histories would credit Choibalsan with being the first to criticize the leftist period and propose reforms, but these were mere fabrications meant to build up Choibalsan's cult of personality.Bawden 1989, p. 292-293
Lkhümbe Affair See also: Lhümbe Case
The invasion of neighboring Manchuria by Japanese forces in 1931 had raised fears in Ulaanbaatar and Moscow alike of possible Japanese military expansion into Mongolia and the Soviet Far East. In the summer of 1934, Choibalsan's name surfaced during interrogations of party members arrested as part of the "Lkhümbe Affair," a manufactured conspiracy in which MPRP General Secretary Jambyn Lkhümbe and other MPRP elements, particularly Buryat-Mongols, were falsely accused of conspiring with Japanese spies. Over 1,500 people were implicated in the purge and 56 were executed.