Khorloogiin Choibalsan

Chairman of the Council of Ministers

Khorloogiin Dugar February 8, 1895 Achit Beysiyn, Outer Mongolia, Qing dynasty

January 26, 1952(1952-01-26) (56) Moscow, Soviet Union

24 March 1939 – 26 January 1952

Mongolian leader and general For other uses, see Choibalsan (disambiguation). In this Mongolian name, the given name is Choibalsan. Khorloogiin is a patronymic, not a family name. Khorloogiin Choibalsan (Mongolian: Хорлоогийн Чойбалсан , spelled Koroloogiin Çoibalsan between 1931 and 1941 and before 1931, (February 8, 1895 – January 26, 1952) was the leader of Mongolia (Mongolian People's Republic) and Marshal (general chief commander) of the Mongolian People's Army from the 1930s until his death in 1952. His rule marked the first and last time in modern Mongolian history that an individual had complete political power. Sometimes referred to as the Stalin of Mongolia, Choibalsan oversaw Soviet-ordered purges in the late 1930s that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 Mongolians. Most of the victims were Buddhist clergy, intelligentsia, political dissidents, ethnic Buryats and Kazakhs and others perceived as "enemies of the revolution." His intense persecution of Mongolia's Buddhist monks resulted in the near-eradication of a clergy class that had numbered over 100,000 monks (13% of the population); by 2000, only 200-300 monks live in Mongolia, though a majority of the population continue to identify as Buddhist. While Choibalsan's alliance with Joseph Stalin helped preserve his country's fledgling independence during the early years of the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR), it also brought Mongolia closer to the Soviet Union. Throughout his rule, Mongolia's economic, political, and military ties to the USSR deepened, infrastructure and literacy rates improved, and international recognition of Mongolia's independence expanded, especially after World War II.