Peljidiin Genden

Early life and career

Peljidiin Genden was born in present-day Khujirt district of Övörkhangai Province in either 1892 or 1895 (sources differ). In 1922 he joined the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League (MRYL) and a year later he was appointed acting head of his local cell. He attended the first session of the Mongolian Great Khural in Ulaanbaatar in November 1924 as a delegate from Övörkhangai. There, Prime Minister Balingiin Tserendorj took notice of his outspokenness and based on his recommendation Genden was elected chairman of the Presidium of the State Small Khural or Baga Khural, the small assembly that controlled day-to-day matters of state. This made him the effective head of state of Mongolia, a position he would hold from November 29, 1924 to November 15, 1927, and served concurrently as the Chairman of the Central Bureau of Mongolia's Trade Unions.

Leftist Deviation

Genden served as one of three secretaries of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party's Central Committee from December 11, 1928 to June 30, 1932. Together with fellow secretaries Ölziin Badrakh and Bat-Ochiryn Eldev-Ochir (and later Zolbingiin Shijee) Genden pushed for rapid and forced implementation of socialist economic policies such as compulsory collectivization, the abolition of private enterprises and the closure of monasteries and the confiscation of church property. The policy proved disastrous as 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 church were confiscated and over 700 head of mostly noble households were executed. As a result, open revolt broke out in several provinces between 1930 and 1932. In response, Moscow ordered the suspension of what it termed the “Leftist Deviation” policies of the Mongolian government and in May 1932 several party leaders (including Badrah, Shijee, and Prime Minister Tsengeltiin Jigjidjav) were purged for trying to implement socialist measures “prematurely”.

Prime Minister

Genden deftly survived the purge by meeting with Joseph Stalin in 1932 and securing his favor. Moscow then had Genden appointed prime minister (chairman of the Assembly of People's Commissaries) on July 2, 1932, replacing the purged Jigjidjav. Genden was charged overseeing execution of “New Turn” or "New Reform" policy, a relaxation of communist economic principles closely modeled on Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy in the USSR. Under the new policy, taxes were reduced, private enterprise grew, and religious institutions were left generally unmolested. Genden's popularity increased as the general economic situation improved and shortages were reduced. For the first time since the revolution the government was in a more dominant position vis-à-vis the MPRP.

The Lkhümbe Affair

In 1933 a personal feud between two party functionaries led to trumped up accusations of widespread conspiring within the party with Japanese spies, especially among Buryats. Several of those arrested and interrogated by Soviet agents in Ulaanbaatar fingered Jambyn Lkhümbe, then secretary of the MPRP Central Committee, as their leader. Genden, party leader Eldev-Ochir, and Security Directorate Chief D. Namsrai backed the subsequent investigation that saw several hundred innocent persons, including Lkhümbe, arrested. 56 were eventually executed (including pregnant women), 260 were jailed for three to ten years and 126 were sent to the USSR. The vast majority of those persecuted were Buryats. Public opinion at the time held that Genden and D. Namsrai, head of the Internal Affairs Committee, had initiated the affair to purge political enemies, but there is evidence that the affair was driven in large part by Soviet agents looking to weaken the Buryat population in Mongolia.

Resisting Stalin

Ties between Stalin and Genden began to fray as early as 1934 when, at a meeting with Genden in Moscow, Stalin pressured him to destroy Mongolia’s Buddhist clergies by exterminating more than 100,000 of the country’s lamas, which Stalin called “the enemies within”. Genden, a deeply religious man who once said “On earth there are two great geniuses – Buddha and Lenin," had openly declared his desire in 1933 “not to fight against religion” and allowed lamas to practice their faith openly in defiance of Stalin's instructions.

Weary of growing Soviet domination in Mongolia, Genden worked to postpone both a 1934 bilateral Gentlemen’s Agreement in which the USSR promised the Soviet protection of Mongolia in the event of an invasion as well as the 1936 “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” that allowed Soviet troops to be stationed in Mongolia. Genden’s hoped to stave off Soviet domination by exploiting USSR-Japanese tensions to Mongolia’s benefit, but the policy would later backfire as accusations in 1936 that he was working with the Japanese would lead to his downfall. Genden likewise hesitated on Stalin’s recommendations that he elevate Mongolia’s internal affairs committee to a fully independent ministry and that he increase the size of Mongolia’s military.

In December 1935, Genden was called back to Moscow where Stalin again rebuked him for failing to act on his guidance. Later, a heavily intoxicated Genden publicly scolded Stalin at a Mongolian Embassy reception, shouting “You bloody Georgian, you have become a virtual Russian Czar”. Genden then allegedly snatched Stalin’s pipe and smashed it, while hinting that Mongolia was considering an alliance with Japan.

Purged

Upon Genden’s return to Mongolia, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, acting under Stalin's orders, organized the second plenary meeting of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party in March 1936 in Ulaanbaatar to remove him from office irreversibly. Party members led by Dorjjavyn Luvsansharav heavily criticized Genden for his actions in Moscow and accused him of sabotaging Mongol-Soviet relations. He was subsequently removed from his offices of the prime minister and the foreign minister and placed under house arrest. Anandyn Amar was appointed as the prime minister for the second time in his place. With the purge of Genden, Choibalsan became Stalin’s new favorite in Ulaanbaatar and was named head of the new Internal Affairs Ministry, becoming de facto the most powerful person in Mongolia.

Death

Genden was "invited" to the USSR, ostensibly for medical treatment, in April 1936. He then spent a whole year at the Black Sea resort town of Foros. In summer 1937, he was arrested as part of Stalin's Great Purge and under interrogation admitted to conspiring with "lamaist reactionaries" and "Japanese spies" He was executed in Moscow on November 26, 1937 by the order of Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR for 'his attempt to political coup and being a spy of Japan'.

Rehabilitation

Genden was declared a non-person. He was rehabilitated by the order of Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in 1956. However, his history remained obscured until the country's democratic revolution in 1990.

His daughter Tserendulam opened the "Memorial Museum for Victims of Political Repression" in his house in 1993. It offers information on the victims of the political prosecutions, which according to some estimates affected up to 14% of the population.