Mongolia
Country in East Central Asia, bounded North by Russia and South by
China.
Government
The 1992 constitution provides for a 76-member parliament, the People's
Great Hural (assembly), elected by a simple majority voting system
for a four-year term. Parliamentary deputies must obtain the support
of at least 50% of the electorate in their constituencies. The
president is popularly elected for a four-year term.
History
Inhabited by nomads from N Asia, the area was united under Genghis
Khan 1206 and by the end of the 13th century was part of the Mongol
Empire that stretched across Asia. From 1689 it was part of China.
After the revolution of 1911-12 Mongolia became autonomous under
the Lamaist religious ruler Jebsten Damba Khutukhtu. From 1915
it increasingly fell under Chinese influence and not until 1921,
with the support of the USSR, were Mongolian nationalists able
to cast off the Chinese yoke.
In 1924 it adopted the Soviet system of government and, after
proclaiming itself a people's republic, launched a programme of
`defeudalization´, involving the destruction of Lamaism. In 1931,
when two provinces revolted against the Communist Party, religious
buildings were destroyed and mass executions carried out on the
orders of the Soviet dictator Stalin. An armed uprising by antigovernment
forces 1932 was suppressed with Soviet assistance. Marshal Horloogiyn
Choybalsan, a former independence fighter, was the effective ruler
of the nation until his death in 1952. China recognized its independence
1946, but relations deteriorated as Mongolia took the Soviet side
in the Sino-Soviet dispute. In 1966 Mongolia signed a 20-year
friendship, cooperation, and mutual- assistance pact with the
USSR, and some 60,000 Soviet troops based in the country caused
China to see it as a Russian colony.
Isolated from the outside world during the 1970s, under the
leadership of Yumjaagiyn Tsedenbal (1916-1991) - the nation's
dominant figure from 1958 - Mongolia underwent great economic
change as urban industries developed and settled agriculture on
the collective system spread, with new areas being brought under
cultivation. Tsedenbal was deposed 1984 by Jambyn Batmuntch.
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