Stalinist repressions in Mongolia

Great Repression
Их Хэлмэгдүүлэлт
Part of History of Mongolia
LocationMongolian People's Republic
Date1937–1939
TargetBuddhist clergy, aristocrats, intelligentsia, political dissidents, and ethnic Buryats and Kazakhs
Attack type
Deaths20,000–35,000
PerpetratorsKhorloogiin Choibalsan, the NKVD Mikhail Frinovsky, Extraordinary Purge Commission members Dorjjavyn Luvsansharav and Minister of Justice Tserendorj, Internal Affairs Committee head D. Namsrai, deputy minister of internal affairs Nasantogtoh, Bayasgalan, Dashtseveg, and others
MotiveElimination of political opponents, consolidation of power, Anti-Buddhist sentiment

The Stalinist repressions in Mongolia (Mongolian: Их Хэлмэгдүүлэлт, romanizedIkh Khelmegdüülelt, lit.'Great Repression') was an 18-month period of heightened political violence and persecution in the Mongolian People's Republic between 1937 and 1939.[1] The repressions were an extension of the Stalinist purges (also known as the Great Purge) unfolding across the Soviet Union around the same time. Soviet NKVD advisors, under the nominal direction of Mongolia's de facto leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan, persecuted thousands of individuals and organizations perceived as threats to the Mongolian revolution and the growing Soviet influence in the country. As in the Soviet Union, methods of repression included torture, show trials, executions, and imprisonment in remote forced labor camps, often in Soviet gulags. Estimates differ, but anywhere between 20,000 and 35,000 "enemies of the revolution" were executed, a figure representing three to five percent of Mongolia's total population at the time.[2] Victims included those accused of espousing Tibetan Buddhism, pan-Mongolist nationalism, and pro-Japanese sentiment. Buddhist clergy, aristocrats, intelligentsia, political dissidents, and ethnic Buryats were particularly impacted.[3]

  1. ^ Kaplonski, Christopher. "Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire". Inner Asia. 7: 209. ISSN 1464-8172.
  2. ^ Kuromiya, Hiroaki (July 2014). "Stalin's Great Terror and the Asian Nexus". Europe-Asia Studies. 66 (5): 787. doi:10.1080/09668136.2014.910940. S2CID 154720143.
  3. ^ Sablin, Ivan (2019), Hokkanen, Markku; Kananoja, Kalle (eds.), "Tibetan Medicine and Buddhism in the Soviet Union: Research, Repression, and Revival, 1922–1991", Healers and Empires in Global History: Healing as Hybrid and Contested Knowledge, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 81–114, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15491-2_4, ISBN 978-3-030-15491-2, retrieved 3 September 2024