Army History - 1960s-1970s
Soviet military support greatly increased during the 1960s and the 1970s, following the Sino-Soviet split and increased Mongolian concern over the Chinese threat. Although Soviet military support decreased significantly in the 1980s, when Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian relations improved, exclusive defense ties with the Soviet Union continued, as did Soviet military training and the acquisition of Soviet military equipment.
The 1960s saw quite altered prospects for the army. The Sino-Soviet rift occurred in 1960, and China adopted an increasingly hostile policy toward the Soviet Union and Mongolia. As the new threat from China was perceived and then grew more ominous, the Soviet Union and Mongolia again became militarily close. Soviet troops once more entered Mongolia in strength. Military, and other, national celebrations provided opportunities for the exchange of top-level military delegations, for consultations on defense matters, and for public hymns of praise, loyalty, eternal friendship, and cooperation. Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovskiy and other top Soviet military leaders, together with senior Chinese generals, visited Ulaanbaatar on People's Army Day, March 18, 1961. The Soviets were honored with high Mongolian decorations, whereas the Chinese were snubbed, receiving none.
Significantly, while Mongolia and the Soviet Union reacted to the perceived Chinese threat much as they had to the Japanese threat in the 1930s--that is, by deploying Soviet troops and strengthening Mongolia's defenses--the magnitude of the measures taken in the 1960s was not so great. This circumspection probably reflected the policies of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Tsedenbal, versus those of Stalin and Choybalsan, as well as the strengthened internal and global positions of Mongolia and the Soviet Union. Soviet assistance enabled the Mongolian army, while continuing to equip and train for modern war, to carry on with its construction projects at Darhan and elsewhere. Chinggis and ancient Mongol warriors were used as symbols to inculcate patriotism and a military tradition as early as 1927. Feeling pride and confidence in their new national viability, Mongolian leaders, despite Soviet disapproval, celebrated the 800th anniversary of the birth of Chinggis on May 31, 1962, with ceremonies and the unveiling of a monument at his purported birthplace.
The Soviet Union took exception to this display of nationalism with its pan-Mongol overtones, and the Soviet press vehemently attacked Chinggis as a reactionary and an evil person. Whether connected or not with this demonstration of independent thought and the Sino-Soviet rift, a bloodless purge of a number of top Mongolian defense officials took place. Those replaced were the commandant of Ulaanbaatar, the minister of public security, the chief of the general staff, and the head of the army's political department.
Just as past purges had missed Choybalsan, this one passed by Colonel General Jamyangiyn Lhagbasuren, longtime minister of people's army affairs and commander in chief of the army. Again, suspected nationalists and those with pro-Chinese leanings were purged. The military tradition to be fostered was not that of ancient Mongol military heroes, but that of the 1921 revolution and the battles against the Japanese in the 1930s and the 1940s. These events always stressed the cooperation and close comradeship in arms of the Soviet army.
Chinese border incidents, though not serious, continued through the 1960s, and they were accompanied by a strengthening of the Mongolian troop presence in border areas. China, in turn, charged that reconnaissance flights from Mongolia and Siberia had violated its airspace. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and Mongolia continued their public display of political and military affinity. In 1966 the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance was renewed for another twenty years; it was extendable for an additional ten. It included a clause permitting the stationing of Soviet troops in Mongolia. A parade in Ulaanbaatar in 1967 honored the fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and showed off new weapons, including Mongolian army-manned SA-2 surface-to-air and SNAPPER antitank guided missiles. In his address, Lhagbasuren gave high praise to Soviet military aid.
In May 1968, at the forty-seventh anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian People's Army, Lhagbasuren spoke similarly of the "fraternal disinterested" aid of the Soviet Union. These panegyrics, while intended to instruct Mongolians in the current policy and to reassure the Soviets of Mongolian solidarity, nevertheless amply demonstrated the degree of Soviet influence and the subordinate Mongolian position in the Soviet mutual defense agreement.
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