U469  Mongolia:  Theocracy, Communism, Democracy
(formerly Mongols of the 20th Century)
Week 8:  Tuesday
 

 

  1. The "Left Deviation": International Context
    1. The Great Depression
      1. Caused general atmosphere of crisis
      2. Reduced wool market in capitalist countries; autarchy new ideal
    2. The advent of Stalinism
      1. From 1923 on, jockeying for power among Lenin’s successors
      2. Stalin: right hit on Zinoviev, Kamenev (to 1926), left hit on Bukharin (1929)
      3. Stalinism:
        1. Soviet regime IS the revolution; hated by Versailles victors
        2. Aim: use ethnicity, satellites >> "socialist encirclement"
          1. Periodic war scares essential to internal struggle
        3. Scissors dilemma. Hostile peasantry, backward industry
          1. Where will the money for industrialization come from?
          2. From the peasants. But will they accept it?
        4. Solution: collectivization increases control >> peasants impotent
        5. Surge of city enthusiasm: long hours, low pay, big dreams
        6. Widespread resistance, livestock slaughter, famine, exile
        7. Stalin is the true successor of Lenin, "father of peoples"
    3. Nationalist Regime in China
      1. May 1928-Sept. 1931: Unified Nationalist China, fiercely anti-Soviet
      2. Pro-Anglo-American factions, pro-fascist, "Third way" factions
      3. Rhetoric of moving north: Mongolia fears subversion, attack
      4. Repeated party crises, several brief civil wars: Chiang Kai-shek wins
    4. Manchuria and Japan
      1. Radical Japanese blow up Zhang Zuolin/Chang Tso-lin
      2. His son, allies with Chiang Kai-shek, upsets balance in Manchuria
      3. August 1929, attack on Soviets’ Chinese E. railway; crushed
      4. Tensions with Japan; Japan seizes Manchuria, Sept. 1931
      5. Slow Soviet response: 1933 abolishes Inner Mongolian party
  2. "Left Deviation"
    1. Retrospective term: Right (’25-8) then Left (’28-32) then New Turn (’32-36)
    2. Party leadership: new generation, mostly joined in mid-1920s
      1. PM: Amur: 1928-1930; Jigjedjab: 1930-32: turns more radical
      2. Party leaders: rural and students in leadership, 3 secretaries
        1. rural: Badarakhu (Dörbed), Gendün (’ 28-32)
        2. students: Eldeb-Wachir (’28-30--KUTV), Shijiye (’30-32–Tver)
        3. Eldeb-Wachir, Shijiye switch in OIS (security)
      3. No one man in control, but a whole generation suddenly promoted
      4. Purge of rightists, then huge expansion of the party to build support
    3. Policies: Left, left, left!
      1. Confiscation of feudal ‘estates’; property of nobility, monasteries
        1. Monastery holdings: 1929: 3.2 million head; 1930: .24 million
      2. Nationalization of trade:
        1. Foreign trade limited to Soviet Union, decline in trade volume
      3. Industrial, educational expansion: handicrafts collectivized, Mongolized
      4. Deficits: paid by paper-money inflation. Tögrög not convertible, 1928 on
      5. Collectivization: proclaimed in summer 1930
        1. Late 1930: 29.7 % of poor and middle herdsmen collectivized
      6. Latinization: Mongolian alphabet to use Latin script
      7. Start of modern Mongolian literature
        1. 1929, Jan.-Feb: convened "Writers Group"; stories for revolution
        2. Chimed, Buyannemekhü, Damdinsüren, Rinchen Bimbaev
        3. Closed down by Badarakhu in 1930 for being too literary