Mongolian Revolution of 1921

In 1921 Mongolian revolutionaries with Soviet Red Army support expelled White Russian and Chinese forces and created the second communist state in history.

Overview

Mongolia declaration of independence in 1911 ended Qing rule, but Chinese warlord troops occupied the country in 1919, and in early 1921 the White Russian baron Ungern von Sternberg took Urga in a wave of anti-Bolshevik and anti-Jewish violence. The Mongolian People Party under Damdin Sukhbaatar and Khorloogiin Choibalsan allied with Soviet Russia, and Red Army and Mongolian units took Urga in July 1921. The People Republic proclaimed in 1924 became the first Soviet satellite, collectivizing herding, breaking the power of the Buddhist monasteries, and enduring the purges of the 1930s. Mongolia held its first free elections in 1990 after nearly seven decades as the Soviet bloc second oldest state.