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Democracy Comes to Mongolia

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Democracy Comes to Mongolia ᭿ First published in Truth, history and politics or Mongolia: the memory of heroes, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004 49 DEMOCRACY COMES TO MONGOLIA Christoper Kaplonski y most accounts, it was the very solidarity that was a trademark of socialism that Bbrought about its end in the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) in the winter of 1989–90. Following the Soviet Union in policy, as it had for almost seventy years, the leadership of the MPR faithfully followed it into the confusion and upheaval of reform and democracy. Sending students to study abroad in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the socialist regime had unwittingly sown the seeds of its own destruction on fertile ground. The students came back from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union not only with university degrees, but, having been exposed to the fledgling opposition, they also brought back ideas of democracy and freedom. Ganbaatar, one of the founders of the MSDN (Mongol Sotsial Demokrat Nam – Mongolian Social Democratic Party) recalled the impact this had: From the beginning of the 1970s, the people who brought back true information about the world were always students. During this period, I was a student. [The real situation] was completely opposed to what we had learned about European culture. During the seven years I studied [in Eastern Europe], my view of the world changed . When people of that time learned about European culture, they weren’t satisfied with the Mongolian condition. They didn’t sympathize with the one-party ideology.1 This exposure to the situation in Eastern Europe was limited, but powerful in its effect. It was no coincidence that most of the key opposition leaders had been educated outside of Mongolia. In an ironic twist of fate, it was often their very positions as the children of intellectuals or Party functionaries that offered them the opportunity to study abroad. Drawing in part upon the expectations of the former students, during the winter of 1989–90 the reform process that had been started by MAHN at the 19th Party Congress in 1986 erupted into open and vocal discontent. It was a heady time, but a frightening one as well. The protesters, led by young intellectuals and students, were not sure what would happen as they stood in the bitter winter cold, when temperatures of −20°F or colder are common. Tiananmen Square surely came to mind to some. Ganbat, a member of the Foreign Ministry in 1993, recalled the feelings of the time: “People were not used to this sort of thing. Almost everybody had [some] hesitation whether this government will arrest anybody. Everybody used to have some fear.”2 Despite their fears, and the fact that the army was indeed called out to confront the protesters later in 1040 THE HISTORY OF MONGOLIA the spring, democracy came relatively peacefully to Mongolia, and ultimately with the support of the ruling party. No shorts were fired, and no lives were lost. From the earliest stages of the process, the links between reform and the past were made clear. MAHN sought to distance itself from the excesses of the recent socialist past and new approaches to Mongolian history became not only permissible but even desirable. As most Western observers were quick to point out, the opposition also made early and visible use of historical symbols, especially Chinggis Khaan. While MAHN had opened the way for such discussions, they did not take decisive advantage of many of the opportunities afforded them, ultimately leaving it to the opposition to do so. Given the simple fact that Mongolia had no history of multiparty politics, it was far from clear who could and would most effectively lay claim to the past. MAHN was by no means to be written off at this stage. Indeed, given their power, influence and existing organizational structures, one would have been forgiven for expecting they would wield the symbolic upper hand. Oddly enough, most works on Mongolia dealing with the post-socialist political and economic landscape pay scant heed to the democratic revolution itself. Bruun and Odgaard, in “A society and economy in transition,” reduce the first five or so months of the democratic revolution to three sentences, which note the formation of the Mongolian Democratic Association, “a series of demonstrations in the capital,” and the amendation of the constitution (1996: 28). The introduction to the section “Mongolia today” in Kotkin and Elleman’s edited volume, Mongolia in the Twentieth Century, sums up the tension, fear and excitement of the democratic revolution by noting that “In 1990, Mongolia broke with the USSR, eliminated one-party rule, and embarked on a revolutionary path of political and economic liberalization” (1996: 183). Bulag’s work on nationalism and identity (1998), which includes a discussion of the new national symbols and issues surrounding the adoption of the new constitution in 1992, only refers in passing to the “protests” of 1990. Yet the scope and importance of the democratic revolution cannot be under- estimated. The revolution was more than just “a series of demonstrations in the capital,” although these were the most visible and prominent aspect. There was a storm of activity, uncertainty, debates, demands and counter-demands that took place during those few months of late 1989 and early 1990. While Ulaanbaatar was the focus of the activity, as the seat of the national government, the democratic organizations soon had branches in other parts of the country. The hunger strike in Sühbaatar Square in March is well known, but what is almost unknown outside of Mongolia (and probably not well known there, either) is that another hunger strike was staged in the city of Mörön, in the western province of Hövsgöl a few weeks later.3 For an understanding and a timeline of the events, one has had to either piece one together from various articles or be able to read Mongolian. I will thus spend some time discussing the democratic revolution itself, as it serves as a key point in Mongolian conceptions of history and identity. In doing so, I shall focus on the first few months. The first public protest took place in early December 1989, and by mid-March 1990, the reigning Politburo had resigned, and soon after, the first multi-party elections were announced. The key elements in the collapse of the old socialist system thus occurred within a four-month time-span. There was still much to be done after the spring of 1990, including actually holding the elections, the establishment of the new government and the writing of the new constitution. These events, however, are.
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