Cold War politics (1945–85)[edit]
Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal
Secure in its relations with Moscow, the Mongolian government shifted to postwar development, focusing on civilian enterprise. Mongolia was at this time one of the world's most isolated countries, having almost no contact with any nation outside of the Soviet Union. After the war, international ties were expanded and Mongolia established relations with
North Korea and the new
Communist states in
Eastern Europe. Mongolia and the
People's Republic of China (PRC) recognized each other in 1949, and the PRC relinquished all claims to Outer Mongolia. However, Mao Zedong privately hoped for Mongolia's reintegration with China. He raised this question before the Soviet leadership as early as 1949 (in meeting with
Anastas Mikoyan at Xibaipo), and then, having been firmly rebuffed by Stalin, in 1954, a year after his death. In 1956, following Nikita Khrushchev's
denunciation of Stalin, the Chinese leaders attempted to present Mongolia's independence as one of Stalin's mistakes in meetings with Mikoyan. The Soviet response was that the Mongols were free to decide their own fate.
[16]
In 1952, Choibalsan died in Moscow where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by
Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal. Unlike his predecessor, Tsedenbal was enthusiastic about incorporating Mongolia as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. The idea met with strenuous opposition from other MPRP members and was abandoned.
In the 1950s relations between the MPR and the PRC improved considerably. China provided much needed economic aid, building up entire industries in Ulaanbaatar, as well as apartment blocks (. Thousands of Chinese laborers were involved in these projects until China withdrew them after 1962 in a bid to pressure Mongolia to break with Moscow at the time of worsening Sino-Soviet relations.
After the beginning of the Sino-Soviet dispute, Mongolia briefly vacillated, but soon took a sharply pro-Soviet stand, being one of the first socialist countries to endorse the Soviet position in the quarrel with China. Military build-up on the Sino-Mongolian border began as early as 1963; in December 1965 the Mongolian Politburo requested the Soviet Union to station its military forces in Mongolia. In January 1966, with Leonid Brezhnev's visit to Mongolia, the two countries signed a mutual assistance treaty, paving way to Soviet military presence in the MPR. In February 1967, following weeks of worsening Sino-Soviet tensions, Moscow officially approved the stationing of the reorganised
39th Soviet Armyin Mongolia.
