Khorloogiin Choibalsan: The Stalin of the Mongolian Steppes #sponsored

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When the topic of Mongolian history is addressed,

it is easy to succumb to the pole of

that massive center of gravity

and attention,

Genghaskhan or Djangghaskhan, and his formidable empire.

But this country's more recent history is equally rich in intrigue with titanic existential

conflicts and unfortunately despotic rule

and massacres.

From the early 1920s to the years of World War II

and the onset of the Cold War,

the present and future of Mongolia were shaped by a littleknown figure.

One who maneuvered in the shadows for much of his political career before forging

an ironclad alliance with Moscow's man of steel

and emerging as the undisputed leader of the Mongolian flatlands.

This is the story of Harloin Chibbasan,

the communist ruler who became known as the Stalin of the steps.

Welcome back to Biographics.

I'm your host, Eric Malikite, and today's script was provided by Arnaldo Tiodroni.

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Let's get to it.

A quick note about pronunciation.

I'm probably going to butcher most of these Mongolian pronunciations

because Mongolian is hard

and quite frankly,

misprononunciations on Biographics is a timehonored tradition.

And if you don't believe me,

go check the comment sections on our earlier videos.

Very little is known about the early years of Harloin Chibalsson.

The little boy was born out of wedlock on February 8th,

1895 from a poor herdsswoman named Kolu and a father whose identity remains uncertain.

As a means to escape poverty and the harsh life on the steps,

Coru and her boy join a Buddhist monastery at the age of 13.

Chrobbasan was not suited for a monk's life, however,

and at the age of 17, he escaped to the capital city of Mongolia,

Kira, today called Ulmbatar.

It was an exciting time to be an ambitious teen in the capital city

as the country had just declared its independence from the Chinese Empire.

But let me give you some more context.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the ChineseQing Empire,

following decades of foreign interference, sought to reestablish control across its vast territories.

One of its provinces in particular had always enjoyed considerable autonomy from central power,

Outer Mongolia, today simply known as Mongolia.

When theQing attempted to curb such autonomy,

the Mongols responded by declaring their independence in 1911 under the leadership of the

living Buddha Bogding Khan,

also known as the Hutuktu.

Mongolian elites sought to forge foreign alliances to protect their independence,

and the Russian Empire came to the four,

happy to create a buffer state between them and China.

In 1915, the Russians sponsored an agreement which restored China's formal susaranti over Mongolia,

but which essentially granted deacto autonomy for the territory.

The friendship with Russia provided a great opportunity for Chibbasan

as he enrolled in a school for Russian Mongolian language interpreters.

Troybasan continued his studies in Kutska, Siberia.

Here in late 1917,

he first heard about

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In 1917, the Russian Empire was rocked by two revolutions with Lenin's Bolevixs eventually

rising to power.

The new government however enforced the previous agreement

and in August of 1919 Soviet Russia recognized the independence of Mongolia.

But almost immediately Chinese troops occupied the capital city of Kyura,

now Ulen Betar and removed the Hutuktu, the living Buddha from power.

It was at this stage that several Mongolian independent forces started to assemble.

These included nationalist and communist groups,

both of whom sought to make contact with Russian Bolsheviks for military

and material support.

The two main groups were those led by Tamtin Sukpata and our hero Chbasan.

The former was a man of action,

a former military officer motivated by nationalist ideals whose main aim was simply to

expel the Chinese.

Chbasan, on the other hand, was closer to the Bolevixs and their ideology.

His dual goal was to defeat the Chinese,

but also reform Mongolian society according to communist ideals.

This sounds like the setup for an epic ideological struggle like the civil war

which would later oppose the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to the communist helmsman Mao

Sedong in China.

But in reality, when Chibbasan and Sukpara met,

they got on like wildfire

and decided to work together for the liberation of their country.

The two allies escaped Chinese occupied Mongolia to enter Siberia

and make contact with Russian revolutionaries,

which they saw as key allies in defeating the invaders.

Then in June 1920,

they returned to Curia in secret where they participated in the foundation of the

Mongolian People's Party or MPP.

Before they could even organize their partisan forces,

the Chinese were attacked by a new unpredictable contestant in this complicated game of

chess.

This was Baron Unern Sternberg, aka the Mad Baron or the Buddhist Baron.

This aristocratic adventurer had been leading his fearsome cavalry units in the Civil War

that pitted white Russians against red Russians.

In October 1920, the Mad Baron swept into Mongolia with barely 900 men looking

to oust the Chinese

and take control of the country.

His meager force was soon joined by many of the Mongol elites

and he even received the Hutuktu's backing.

In February 1921, Unger Sternberg had taken Kiora

and reinstated the Hutuktu on the throne.

The Chinese were not entirely defeated, however, and still occupied the region around Kiata,

now part of Russia.

It was finally time for Sukpata and Chibbasan to get into the action.

The two revolutionaries rallied a partisan force consisting of 400 troops

that were illequipped and poorly trained.

But thanks to their earlier talks with the Bolsheviks,

they received a reinforcement of 10,000 Soviet troops.

That was more like it.

The Soviet Mongolian forces defeated the Chinese in March 1921

and then marched toward the capital,

ready to take on the Mad Baron.

While all the parties involved had one enemy in common, the Chinese,

let's not forget that the Red Army was a mortal enemy to white officers

like Unern Sternberg.

Moreover, the Mad Baron had proven himself to be a ruthless leader.

After seizing the capital, Curia, he had established a violent reign of terror,

immediately alienating support from the Mongols.

So yeah, it was time to get rid of him.

As Sukpata and Chibbasan's communist partisans and Soviet allies approached Curya,

the Hutuktu attempted to prevent their advance by using a dwey,

a sort of magical structure meant to repel demons.

It did not work because magic isn't real.

On July 9th, the Mongolian People's Party established a new government

which retained the Hutuktu

as head of state.

Sukpata bagged an appointment as Minister of War,

but his pal Chbasan was still a figure in the background,

waiting for the right moment to emerge to the forefront.

In 1924, following the death of the Hutuktu,

Mongolia became a people's republic and its capital, Curia, was renamed Oolan Batar,

which means that I no longer have to butcher it

and I can butcher a ton of other words instead.

You're welcome.

In the years following this proclamation, Moscow certainly had a growing influence.

Mongolia's exports to China and Western countries declined dramatically,

while exports to the Soviet Union increased from 13.7% of total to 85.5% by

the end of the 1920s.

But the Soviets still had to extend their full political grasp over the Young

Republic.

In other words, the political system had not fully converted to socialism with much

of the economy still in the hands of private businesses run by wealthy

and mostly conservative elites.

Some of these elites managed to hold positions of power in the government

and even the people's party.

As they feared a complete turn towards a socialist economic model,

they sought a reproachment with their old Chinese connections and even with the Japanese,

seeking to extend their sphere of influence over continental Asia.

This conservative faction labeled right deviationist was led by the chairman of the central

executive committee of the people's party Sarin Oiran Damodor

and I probably butchered

that but I could not find a pronunciation for this guy's name anywhere.

He resented the growing influence of the Soviet Union

and favored an alliance with the quality the Chinese nationalist party.

The opposition to Damodor was led by Chbasan

and this was his time to shine.

Whereas the right deviationists were supported by merchants, traders, the Buddhist clergy,

and educated elites, Troybasan sought support amongst the lower classes, soldiers, poor herders,

and workers.

According to American orientalist Owen Latimore, yes, that is a very dated term.

Trobbasan gathered support by exploiting his natural charisma and by embracing Mongolian traditions.

So, he was a populist.

For example, he showed up at traditional games rallies,

participating in archery and horse riding contests.

He spent time with herdsmen in their tents drinking mar's milk

and talking about their needs

and problems.

Often he replaced milk with alcoholic beverages for

which he had a particular fondness

which is a euphemism to say he was a heavy drinker,

a habit that would later take a toll on his health,

but which also took him closer to the people he wanted to convert to

his cause.

Trobbasan's effort paid off in 1928 at the 8th Congress of the Mongolian People's

Party.

A 25-day debate resulted in a victory for Trobbasan's leftist faction.

What followed was a purge of the party ranks in pure Soviet style.

The right deviationists were removed from office positions

and a commission headed by Troy Boston expropriated the assets of 669 noble families.

If only they had three less noble families.

That would be a funny number.

In 1931, Troy Bosan continued the collectivization of Mongolian society,

confiscating the goods of further 837 households.

The People's Party was also particularly harsh against the Buddhist clergy.

Some 200 llamas had their properties entirely confiscated.

The remaining clerics were driven out of their monasteries

and had to suffer high taxes.

Excessive taxation also struck small traders and handiccraft workers regardless of their actual income.

What was worse, these levies were applied also to livestock,

the backbone of the Mongolian economy.

Herders were now aware that their animals could be confiscated at any time,

either to pay for a rear taxes

or to be assigned to collective state-owned farms.

As a consequence, herders lost any incentive to competently manage their stock,

leading to the death of huge numbers of animals.

These were not the only recorded deaths in the 1930 to 1932 period

as the people's party carried out the imprisonment

or execution of 711 heads of household accused of opposing the state.

This period was later known by Soviet observers as the left deviation.

Mongol writers preferred to use the term left mistake

as indeed it was counterproductive to the cause of communism in the country.

First of all, the harsh treatment of Buddhist clergy led many opponents of communist

ideology to rally around the llamas for leadership.

Then uprisings broke out, mainly in the western half of the country.

Even members of the party, its youth league,

and detachments of the army joined the rebels,

leading to a large-scale civil war with thousands of casualties.

Let's return to Chroy Boston for a second.

The party official was arguably responsible for the unrest.

By leading the purges and expropriations against the right deviation,

he had fan the flames of the left deviation,

resulting in the escalation of violence.

But as he observed that his country was descending into chaos, he soon backtracked.

He rejected his own policies,

claiming that the taxation and collectivization measures had been applied too early, too harshly,

and with little competence.

Once again, he appealed to Moscow for help and Premier Joseph Stalin obliged.

First, he dispatched a motorized army corps to Western Mongolia,

thus quelling the rebellion and restoring order.

Then, on May 29th, 1932,

the Soviet Communist Party drafted a report in

which they heavily criticized the left deviation.

In June, armed with this document,

Chroybasan convened a central investigative committee which denounced the left deviation, reversed its policies,

and announced a new plan called the new turn.

With this move, Chrobosan had established himself

as an undisputed rising star within the People's Party.

His new turn shared the same objectives as the left deviation,

i.e. a rapid shift towards a fully socialist economy.

But instead of espousing coercive methods, it placed the emphasis on persuasion, propaganda,

and education.

The new policy worked, further propelling Chibbasan's rise to the top.

While Tribosan was dealing with internal tensions in Mongolia,

an external threat was building up on its borders.

On September 18th, 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army staged the Mukden incident,

widely believed to be a false flag attack to justify their occupation of Manuria

in northeastern China.

The following year, Japan established the puppet state of Manuka,

right on the border with Mongolia.

Japan continued their encroachment of Mongolian territory, annexing the Jahul province south of Manuka.

In 1933, the Mongolian government felt threatened

and after a border incident with Japanese troops in 1935,

they signed a mutual aid protocol with Moscow in March 1936.

As early as 1934,

the Japanese threat had created an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia,

a staple of Soviet style regimes.

In that year, the leader of the Mongolian People's Party,

and I'm going to butcher this

because I could not find a pronunciation guide anywhere for it.

Jambin Lumbi, was arrested following orders from Moscow.

Go ahead, complain about it in the comments.

I know you want to.

Your fingers are just itching.

The official was accused of consorting with Japanese spies,

a charge which resulted in his arrest and execution.

Troybasan also came under suspicion in the same period

and was taken to Moscow for interrogation by the NKVD,

Stalin's feared secret police.

Not only was Troybasan cleared of all charges,

but he enthusiastically offered to cooperate with the NKVD to root out other FloJapanese

molds.

Upon his return to Ulmbatar,

Chibbasan had become a trusted asset and ally for Stalin.

On the insistence of the Soviet leader,

Chibbosan was appointed minister of the interior in deputy to Prime Minister Pelgadine Gendon.

This may have been a calculated move to keep tabs on Gendon,

whom Stalin did not trust.

You see, the Soviet premiere feared

that Chiang Kaishek's Chinese nationalists may stage an invasion of Mongolia,

aided by a Buddhist fifth column.

To preempt this eventuality, Stalin demanded for an all-out anti-BDist repression.

Gendon, who had a habit of antagonizing Stalin, staunchly refused.

It is reported that on one occasion,

the gutsy Gendon grabbed Stalin's pipe out of his mouth

and smashed it on the floor.

Unsurprisingly, in 1936, Gendon was arrested, deported to the Soviet Union, and executed.

In February of the same year,

Stalin appointed Chibbosan as the new leader of the Mongolian People's Party.

And by the start of 1937,

Chroy Bosan had also bagged an appointment as Minister of Defense.

With this collection of job titles,

he now had the authority to carry out the anti-bddhist repression,

which Stalin craved so much.

In October 1937, he staged a Soviet style show trial against 23 llamas

as main defendants.

In 1938, some 800 monasteries were destroyed and thousands of clerics arrested or executed.

The purges extended also to ethnic minorities such

as the Kazaks and Buretss accused of sympathy for Japan.

In early 1939, Soviet people's commasar for defense Veroschilof ordered Tribosan to round up

all the officials responsible for carrying out the 1937

and 1938 purges.

They were all arrested, effectively decapitating the People's Party of its historical leadership.

In March 1939, Trabosin completed the purge of the purges by arresting the Mongolian

Prime Minister Anadin Amar.

Following an established tradition, Amar was deported to Moscow, tortured, and executed.

The next natural step was for Chroy Bosan to be appointed prime minister.

He had become the uncontested strongman of Mongolia.

The Stalin of the steps.

Hey, I said the title of the thing.

The first test for the newly appointed prime minister was an undeclared war,

the Battle of Kulling.

Between May and August 1939,

border skirmishes with the Japanese army escalated in fullon military conflict.

The Japanese were eventually beaten back by a Soviet Mongolian force led by General

Zhukov and Troybasan himself.

This contributed enormously to Chrobosan's strong cult of personality.

Taking a leaf from his chief ally and protector,

the prime minister's image became ubiquitous

and unavoidable as he was worshiped

as a sort of demigod.

But unlike his chief ally and protector,

Trobbasan did not have to fight an existential war.

In fact, by the early 1940s,

the Soviet Union was busy repelling the Axis invasion.

Meanwhile, Japan was slugging it out against the allies in China, Southeast Asia,

and the Pacific.

As a result, the Mongolian front was mostly quiet.

Okay, mostly, but not entirely.

Stalin would declare war against Imperial Japan only in 1945.

After Kulkin Gaul and prior to that date,

his main concern in East Asia was to damage Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese nationalists by

extending control over the Shing Jang region rich in valuable minerals.

To do so, in cooperation with Trobbasan,

he fermented the separatist movements of the Weigor and the Kazaks in the area,

providing military support via Mongolia.

On January 22nd, 1944,

Tribosan met with Stalin

and foreign affairs commasar Molotov to discuss the situation in Shing Jang.

During the meeting, Stalin encouraged Tobyan to attack the Chinese nationalists.

Are you afraid of China?

Why don't you strike a good blow to

which Tybasan replied that he'd rather support a Kazak independentist leader called Ospen?

Stalin agreed to the plan,

ordering for weapons and military instructors to be sent via Mongolia.

On February 22nd, Chbasan was the guest of honor at a dinner reception at

the Kremlin.

As the Mongolian prime minister started coughing, Stalin offered him a bottle of vodka.

This is pitrofka.

It is good for cough. if you drink three glasses of it,

the cough will go away.

The Soviet dictator then offered him another treat, the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.

Or rather, he clearly stated, "Troybasan is not only the leader of outer Mongolia,

but also of Inner Mongolia," hinting

that the Soviet Union would support Mongolian expansionism at the expense of Chiang Kaishek.

But in the spring and summer of 1945,

Stalin had a change of heart

and sought a peaceful settlement with Chinese nationalists in preparation for an attack against

the Japanese in Manukua.

As part of the agreement,

Stalin would cease interfering with Shing Jang

and promise to not support Mao Zidong's communist faction.

In exchange, Chang Kaishek would formally renounce any plan to take over Mongolia

and recognize the independence of the country.

The settlement pulled the plug on Tribosan's dreams to annex Inner Mongolia,

but he was happy with the deal nonetheless,

as he stated to the Soviet ambassador in Ulen Batar.

Yes, this is what we want,

but we will not have friendship with the Chinese.

These are very, very bad people,

said the guy who killed over 800 households apparently.

Ever the faithful ally,

Chibbasan even committed a large army to the Soviet attack in Manuka. 80,000 troops,

more than 10% of the entire Mongolian population at the time.

This force fought alongside the Red Army in a spectacularly quick

and successful campaign in August of 1945,

a decisive contributor to Japanese surrender in World War II.

After the end of the war in Asia, Tribosan looked again beyond the border,

seeking to annex once and for all Shing Jang and Inner Mongolia.

As usual, he hoped to gain Moscow's backing.

After all, Stalin had supported similar territorial claims in the past.

But the premier had little appetite for another war so soon.

In February 1946, he refused to help Chibbasan,

allowing him only to conduct separatist propaganda.

This had little effect,

and Chibbasan's schemes were dealt a decisive blow by the communist victories in the

ongoing civil war against the Chinese nationalists.

Communist leader Mao Zadong had secured an alliance with Stalin

and therefore the Soviet leader could not favor the annexation of Chinese lands by

Chbasan.

In February 1949, Mao asked the Soviets to relinquish their influence on Mongolia.

In fact, he wanted for the country to be annexed to his new communist

China.

Pressured from both sides, Stalin also rejected Mao's petitions, eventually maintaining the status quo.

This was not enough for Troybasan,

who still had hopes of uniting a greater Mongolia.

Gradually, he lost confidence in the man who had been his main ally, protector,

and mentor.

Relations between the two leaders deteriorated to the point

that Tribosan refused to attend Stalin's 70th birthday celebrations in Moscow.

Meanwhile, Chbosan's health had been deteriorating, strained by years of war, political tension,

and heavy drinking.

At the end of 1951,

the prime minister was visited by a Soviet doctor who diagnosed him with kidney

cancer and insisted that he travel to Moscow for treatment.

Trabosan initially resisted the idea

but eventually relented and underwent surgery at the Kremlin hospital on January 25th,

1952.

The operation had been a success apparently, but the next day,

Prime Minister Tribosan suddenly died of complications from surgery.

According to Mongolian news outlet Soninn,

Chbasan's death may have been the result of intentional poisoning ordered by Stalin himself.

And no one would be surprised if that were the case.

That is a very Russian thing to do. looking at you, Vladimir Putin.

According to their December 2020 article,

Trabosan may have been exploring a non-aligned stance similar to the one of Marshall

Tito in Yugoslavia,

a political move which Stalin could not tolerate.

Regardless of the cause of death,

Tribosan remained a looming presence in Mongolian politics and society,

as he was remembered as a champion of independence, a defender of the motherland,

and an energetic force who drove the country into the 20th century.

It is an undisputed fact

that the prime minister achieved great success in modernizing Mongolia.

Thanks to the aid negotiated with the Soviets, Chibbasan greatly diversified the country's economy,

developing the mining, industrial, and transportation sectors.

The prime minister dedicated special attention to the education system.

To quote just one statistic, at the dawn of Tribosan's political career in 1921,

there was only one elementary school in all of Mongolia.

At the time of his death, the number of schools had grown to 426,

just six less. and it would be a funny number.

But just like it happened to his main backer, Joseph Stalin,

Tbasan's successors eventually denounced and rejected the most brutal aspects of his legacy,

the purges, the massacres, and the oppression of ethnic and religious groups.

As early as February 1962,

the central committee of the Mongolian People's Party issued a resolution to take decisive

measures to ensure complete liquidation of the harmful consequences of Chibbosan's cult of personality

in all spheres of life.

The process of dismantling the remnants of Troybasan's ego was protracted until August 2005

when Mongolia's democratic government decided to remove his monumental mausoleum.

Chbasan's memorial has since been replaced with a colossal statue dedicated to another ruthless

yet unquestionably legendary ruler of Mongolia,

Genghaskhan or Changangaskhan, whatever you prefer.

Pronounce it however you like.

They're both accepted.

And then complain about it in the comments.

That's a biographics tradition, too.

I hope you learned something today.

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and share this video with someone who loves learning about history's most important people.

I'm Eric Malikite and we'll see you next