Before the victory of the People's Revolution, Mongolia was very far behind in its socio-economic development from the advanced countries. At the beginning of the XX century, serfdom, feudal duties were preserved here, and medieval orders prevailed. For more than two centuries, the country was under the yoke of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The situation of the Mongols, as well as other peoples of the Manchu Empire, especially worsened with the penetration of foreign capital into China. Mongolia's rich natural resources and important strategic position have long attracted the attention of imperialist powers, each of which sought to secure a local market. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the country was divided into spheres of influence between capitalist states and turned into an agricultural and raw materials appendage of world imperialism.

In 1911, as a result of the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in China and the rise of the national liberation struggle of the Mongolian people, Outer Mongolia was declared an independent state. It was headed by Bogdo-gegen, the head of the Lamaist Church in the country. However, the independence of Outer Mongolia proved illusory. In fact, its fate was decided by two neighboring powers-tsarist Russia and Yuanshikai China. Tsarism, by means of enslaving agreements, succeeded in securing its key positions here. The Beijing Declaration of 1913, signed by Russia and China, and the Kyakhta Triple Agreement of 1915 between Russia, China and Mongolia formalized the international legal status of Outer Mongolia, which became an autonomous state under the suzerainty of Yuanshikai China.

The economy of the country, which was dominated by feudal-theocratic nobility and foreign colonizers, degraded. It was based on nomadic cattle breeding. There was no national industry. Despite the fact that there was enough raw leather for dozens of factories, leather was imported from abroad. Hundreds of thousands of herds grazed on the steppes, but dairy farming was so backward that butter was also imported. Passing unwashed wool to a Chinese or Russian merchant, the Mongol was then forced to pay for every meter of imported fabric at three times the price. The subordination of the economy to foreign capital, the reactionary political system, the domination of serfdom, the dominance and oppression of the Lamaist clergy - all this hindered the development of the country's productive forces. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the era of steam and electricity, even round wheels could not be made in Mongolia (they were made polygonal and without a single iron part), during the era of long-range artillery and the birth of aviation, the Mongolian army was armed mainly with bows and arrows; instead of money, cattle, tea and other goods were used in calculations. Hard work and a half-starved existence were the lot of hard workers-

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arats (pastoralists). Poverty and ruin, high mortality, widespread tuberculosis and venereal diseases, outbreaks of plague and smallpox-all this led to a catastrophic extinction of the population.

The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution opened a new page in the history of Mongolia. In the face of the young Soviet state, the Mongolian people have acquired a loyal and disinterested friend. The Soviet Government renounced the extortionate enslaving treaties imposed on Mongolia by tsardom, annulled its loan debts, recognized the inalienable right of its people to State independence, and declared its readiness to establish relations with Mongolia based on full equality of rights. But the country's ruling circles were hostile to the birth of Soviet power in Russia. They closed the Soviet-Mongolian border, cut off trade with the Soviet Republic, and refused to receive its diplomatic representatives. Fearing the influence of the Great October Revolution on the Arat masses, the Bogdo-gegen government embarked on a path of betrayal of the country's national interests. With his consent, in 1919, Chinese militarists-proteges of the Japanese military-occupied the country. The Mongolian government was dissolved, the army was disarmed, the Chinese administration was introduced, and the military dictatorship of Xu Shu-cheng was established.

In the autumn of 1919, amid the growing indignation of the masses at the oppression of foreign enslavers, two underground revolutionary circles emerged in Urga under the leadership of D. Sukha-Bator and Kh. Choibalsana, which included advanced representatives of aratstvo and progressive elements from other strata of the population. In the middle of 1920, these circles united in an illegal revolutionary group, whose members set out to liberate the country from foreign invaders and create a democratic system. The United Party Group became the combat headquarters of the Mongolian revolutionary Aratstvo in the preparation and conduct of the people's revolution. The group's activities unfolded in the context of the occupation of the country by Chinese militarists, with a lack of experienced cadres of revolutionaries, the strongest ideological influence of the Lamaist Church on the population, in an environment when the feudal lords tried in every possible way to use the Arat movement in their class interests. Under these circumstances, its connections with representatives of the Comintern, its familiarity with the activities of the Bolsheviks, as well as with the Russian workers who worked in Urga played a major role in strengthening the revolutionary organization. "From its very beginning," wrote X. Choibalsan, - The Mongolian People's Party was closely connected with the Russian proletarian revolutionaries, who daily helped it in its work and gave their lives for the cause of the Mongolian revolution " 1 .

Through contacts with representatives of the Comintern and leading figures of the RCP (b), acquaintance with the life of Soviet Russia and its heroic struggle, studying the theoretical foundations and practical experience of the Bolshevik Party, Mongolian revolutionaries began to more clearly define the tasks and concrete ways of implementing the people's revolution in Mongolia. The First Congress of the Mongolian People's Party (since 1925 - the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party), held on March 1, 1921, organized it and defined the tasks of the people's revolution. At the congress, the first program document of the party was adopted - a political platform that put forward demands for national independence, the establishment of people's power, and the transformation of the country's public life into new, more democratic ones.-

1 X. Choybalsan. Essays on the history of the Mongolian Revolution. Ulaanbaatar, 1950, p. 33 (in Mongolian).

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based on legal principles. In a colonial country, the formation of a Marxist-Leninist party was fraught with enormous difficulties. Economic and cultural backwardness, the absence of a working class, and the strong influence of the reactionary ideology of Lamaism created great obstacles to building a new type of party. These difficulties were overcome with the active support of the international proletariat. The assistance of the Comintern and, above all, of the Bolshevik Party was of great importance for the ideological and organizational strengthening of the MPRP on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, for determining its strategy and tactics at the most important stages of the people's revolution. Shortly after the First Congress, the MPRP was admitted to the Comintern as a sympathetic organization. This showed that it shared the ideological principles of the international communist movement and recognized the leadership of the Comintern. Meanwhile, the revolutionary situation continued to grow in the country. In October 1920, White Guard bands under Ungern's command, retreating under the crushing blows of the Red Army, fled to Mongolia. The excesses of the invaders have filled the cup of people's patience. The popular masses of the country opposed the foreign enslavers. In implementation of the decisions of the First Party Congress on March 13, 1921, the Provisional People's Government was established, which took direct control of the preparation and conduct of the armed uprising, and the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army was formed. On March 18, the Chinese invaders were defeated in the area of Maimachen. In June and July, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army, together with units of the Red Army that came to its aid at the request of the Provisional People's Government, fought fiercely against the common enemy of the Mongolian and Soviet peoples - the Ungern White Guard gangs. On July 6, Urga (later renamed Ulaanbaatar-the city of the red hero) was liberated, the permanent people's government started working on July 10, and July 11 was declared the official victory day of the people's revolution.

When deciding on the nature of state power in Mongolia, the MPRP could not ignore the level of development of the country and the consciousness of the people, the complexity of the external and internal situation, and the huge ideological influence of the Lamaist Church. Therefore, it considered it necessary to allow a constitutional-monarchical form of State power at first. Bogdo-gegen was left on the throne, but with the right to deal exclusively with church affairs; all the fullness of state power passed into the hands of the people's government and local people's khurals. After the death of Bogdo-gegen I, the Great People's Hural, held in November 1924, proclaimed Mongolia a people's republic, in which the highest state power belongs to the working people in the person of the Great People's Hural and the government elected by it.

The primary task of the people's revolution was to liberate the country from the yoke of imperialism and strengthen its national independence. At the same time, from the very first days of the revolution, the MPRP linked the struggle for the liberation of the country from foreign oppression with the struggle for the social emancipation of the Arati masses, for the destruction of the feudal-theocratic system. The revolution was designed to eliminate the feudal relations of production, which hindered the development of the productive forces. However, feudalism in Mongolia was not replaced by capitalism. The most important feature of the Mongolian revolution was that it took place in a new historical era and was supported by the international working class. The guiding star of the people's revolution was the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism about the non-capitalist development of underdeveloped countries towards socialism. Based on the statement made by K. Mark-

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com and F. Engels ' hypothesis about the possibility of the transition of backward countries to socialism, bypassing the capitalist system, and summarizing the experience of the revolutionary movement in the new historical era, V. I. Lenin developed the doctrine of the national-colonial revolution as an integral part of the world revolutionary process; he considered the peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies as natural allies of the proletariat of developed countries in the common struggle against world imperialism.

At the Second Congress of the Comintern, Lenin formulated the thesis: "With the help of the proletariat of the advanced countries, the backward countries can pass to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development."2 . On the basis of proposals developed under the leadership of V. I. Lenin, the Second Congress of the Comintern decided that for the underdeveloped countries "the most important and necessary task is to create a communist organization of peasants and workers so that they can lead them to the revolution and the foundation of the Soviet Republic. Thus, in the backward countries, the masses of the people will be introduced to communism not through capitalist development, but through the development of class consciousness under the leadership of the class-conscious proletariat of the advanced countries."3 In the report of the commission on national and colonial questions to the Second Congress of the Comintern, V. I. Lenin stressed that it is impossible to say in advance what means are needed for this - only practical experience can tell. 4
The MPRP led the Mongolian people along the path indicated by V. I. Lenin. Already in its first program documents, the idea of a non-capitalist development of the country towards socialism was expressed. The" Oath of Party Members "adopted by the united organization of Mongolian revolutionaries in 1920 stated: the organization aims to" put an end to the suffering of the working masses and the oppression of man by man. " 5 The political platform (first program) adopted by the First Congress of the MPRP, which defined the tasks of the people's revolution, stated: "The establishment of the power of the working people... the party will carry out revolutionary socialism on firm foundations. " 6 Of great importance for the MPRP and for the historical destinies of the Mongolian people were the provisions on the conditions for the country's transition to a non-capitalist path, formulated by V. I. Lenin in a conversation with the Mongolian delegation in November 1921. The main condition for a successful movement towards socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage, V. I. Lenin considered strengthening the work of the People's revolutionary party and the government, "so that as a result of this work and the strengthening of the influence of parties and authorities, cooperatives would grow, new forms of economic management and national culture would be instilled, so that aratstvo would rally around the party and government for economic and cultural development countries. Only from the islands of the new economic order created under the influence of the party and the government will a new non-capitalist economic system of Arat Mongolia be formed. " 7 Lenin's Soviets armed the MPRP with the prospect of a non-capitalist development of the country. They were the basis for the practical activities of the party. The third Congress of the MPRP, held in 1924, formulated its general line: "Since the ultimate goal of the party should be to build communism, the party and the government should be able to do so.-

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 41, p. 246.

3 " The Communist International in documents. Decisions, theses and Appeals of the Comintern Congresses and ECCI Plenums, 1919-1932", Moscow, 1933, p. 131.

4 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 41, p. 246.

5 x. Choybalsan. Op. ed., p. 37.

6 Cit. by: B. Shirendib. Mongolia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Ulaanbaatar, 1963, p. 260.

7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 44, p. 233.

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At the present time and in the near future, the government will pursue a policy of struggle against the emergence of a bourgeois class in our country, against the accumulation in private hands of large capitals and means of production... The foundation of our economic policy should be the creation of state-owned and cooperative trade and industry. " 8 The Congress also answered the question of which forces and classes should lead the country along the non-capitalist path to socialism: "Unless our party wants the Mongolian working masses to become the prey of our Mongolian bourgeoisie, various panzachins, "fur" and "bull" kings, then we must now raise the question of passing over to the class point of view: the Democrats, the middle peasants and the poor must be declared the main support, the main social base of our party. " 9
Thus, the main task of the revolution was to open the way for Mongolia to create a socialist system and ensure its victory. However, the implementation of this task was extremely complicated by the socio - economic situation within the country, the correlation of class forces, and the machinations of international imperialism. The extremely low level of development of the productive forces, the stability of pre-capitalist forms of economy, the multi-structured economy, the absence of a national working class, and the almost universal illiteracy of the population made it impossible for the people's government to raise the question of a direct transition to the construction of socialism. First of all, the party had to carry out a huge preparatory work for the construction of a new economy and culture. The development of the revolution in Mongolia confirmed the conclusion of Marxism-Leninism that the transition to socialism in backward countries is possible only through certain stages of the revolutionary transformation of the feudal and colonial system: these countries must pass through a number of intermediate links between pre-capitalist relations and socialism. In the conditions of Mongolia, such links were in the socio-political sphere: the establishment of the power of the working people, based on an alliance with the international proletariat with the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, the elimination of the feudal class, the formation of the working class and people's intelligentsia, the strengthening of the people's democratic state, the gradual transformation of peasant khurals into khurals of workers, Arats and intellectuals of the dictatorship of the proletariat; in the economic sphere; elimination of the economic power of the feudal lords, ensuring the country's economic independence from foreign capital, transforming the natural Arat economy into small-scale production and encouraging at a certain stage the private economic initiative of individual Arat labor farms while limiting and ousting the emerging capitalist elements, creating and strengthening the state and cooperative sectors of the economy; in ideological areas: the struggle for the liberation of the consciousness of the masses from the influence of the Lamaist religion, for the establishment of a new, socialist ideology in all spheres of the spiritual life of society.

These tasks formed the main content of the first, democratic stage of the revolution (1921 - the end of 1939). Its peculiarity lay in the fact that, along with solving the problems of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution, this stage simultaneously created prerequisites for the country's movement along the non-capitalist path. At the same time, it should be emphasized that some socialist transformations began to be carried out in the MNR not after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but immediately after the victory of the people's revolution: this is on-

8 "The Third Congress of the Mongolian People's Party". Full edition of the Congress materials. Ulaanbaatar, 1966, pp. 47-48 (in Russian).

9 Ibid., p. 46.

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the nationalization of industrial enterprises owned by foreign capital, the destruction of the old state apparatus and the creation of a new one that serves the people and expresses their will; the use of state power as a lever to create and strengthen the socialist way of life in the economy. Of course, so far these were only islands of the socialist system, the first bricks laid in the foundation of the future edifice of socialism, and only at the second stage of the revolution, which began in 1940, did the Mongolian people directly begin to build the foundations of socialism.

The central problem of the democratic stage of the revolution in the MNR was the struggle against feudalism. In 1924, 35% of the country's livestock - the main wealth of the country-was in the hands of feudal lords .10 The revolution could not immediately change the socio-economic structure that had prevailed for centuries. Without the necessary socio-economic conditions, private ownership of the means of production and the old relations of production could not be quickly destroyed. The Party and the Government took consistent measures to weaken the economic and political positions of the feudal lords. In 1921-1924, their class rights and privileges were abolished, feudal levies and duties were abolished, serfdom was abolished, land was nationalized, income tax was introduced, tax on monastic farms was introduced, local feudal administration was replaced by democratic authorities - people's khurals. After extensive preparatory work, 1,300 feudal farms were expropriated in 1929-1932, with the value of livestock and property amounting to about 10 million tugriks11 . Cattle and property were transferred to the labor aratstvo.

However, there were still numerous monastic farms in the country. The agrarian question could not be resolved without undermining their economic positions. According to the data of 1930, the monasteries had more than 3 million head of livestock 12 - almost 18% of its population in the country. The People's democratic State took considerable effort to organize an offensive against the spiritual feudal lords, since the monastic possessions were a more powerful and deeply rooted feudal institution than the possessions of secular feudal lords. The party set a course for the gradual weakening of the economic power of the monasteries, for the class stratification of the lamas, for the isolation of the top of the church from the mass of ordinary lamas. Among the latter, a great deal of political, cultural and educational work was carried out, and the state strongly encouraged them to switch to a secular lifestyle and engage in socially useful work. This was crucial for the development of the country's productive forces, given that lamas made up almost half of Mongolia's male population before the revolution. At the same time, the people's government launched a decisive struggle for the elimination of illiteracy in the country, carried out a large-scale cultural work among the population. By the end of the 1930s, the monasteries had finally exposed themselves in the eyes of the working people as nests of counter-revolution and betrayal of the country's national interests. In 1938-1939. at the request of the Aratian masses, many of them were closed, and the feudal property of the Lama elite was confiscated. This meant the complete elimination of the feudal lords as a class, which was a major revolutionary conquest of the Mongolian people. The elimination of feudal relations of production, which hindered the development of productive forces, opened up opportunities for accelerating the pace of economic construction in the republic.

10 " Brief essays on the history of the MPRP. Ulaanbaatar, 1967, p. 35 (in Russian).

11 Ibid., p. 141.

12 P. Purevzhav, d. Dashzhamts. Solving the monastic problem in the MNR. Ulaanbaatar, 1965, p. 168 (in Russian).

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Along with the struggle against feudalism, another difficult task was being solved - the elimination of economic dependence on foreign capital. In the first years of the revolution, more than 2,000 foreign firms operated in the country, accounting for about 70% of Mongolia's trade turnover .13 Foreign capital continued to exploit the population and siphon off the country's wealth. It was a serious obstacle to non-capitalist development and hindered the construction of the national economy. In the struggle against foreign capital, such measures of the people's government as the cancellation of debts to foreign states and merchants, the introduction of the national currency in 1925, the implementation of the foreign trade monopoly in 1930, the development and strengthening of consumer cooperation, and the creation of the state sector of the economy played an important role.

Of great importance was the policy of restricting the nascent national capitalist elements in agriculture, trade, and handicraft production. The Party and the government fully supported the initiative of each arat in the development of his economy, if it was carried out by the personal labor of the arat and his family members. At the same time, the People's Democratic State has consistently pursued a policy of restricting and ousting capitalist elements. The state blocked the development of capitalist elements and weakened the process of differentiation of small commodity producers by various means - through the system of state supplies, tax policy, credit, legislation on hiring labor, etc. All this prevented the emergence of conditions under which capitalist elements could develop into an exploiting class.

The state and cooperative sectors of the economy were a reliable support of the state in solving general democratic tasks. From the first years of the revolution, small industrial enterprises for processing livestock raw materials began to be created in the country. Although their role in the national economy was still very small, they were important in the sense that the first detachments of the national working class, the bearer of socialist relations of production, began to form here. The public sector played a special role in the monetary system. By creating the national bank, the state has gained a strong lever of control over the economy, an important economic tool in the fight against the positions of foreign capital and national private entrepreneurship. Strengthening the public sector in the sphere of circulation and production expanded the opportunities, forms and methods of state influence on the development of small-scale agriculture, as well as on the development of the economy as a whole. It was the creation of the public sector that made it possible to mobilize national resources, ensure their centralization and direct them to the most important areas of the national economy. As the public sector has strengthened, it has become increasingly important in addressing the problem of accumulation, one of the most acute and difficult problems for every liberated country. Mongolia's experience has clearly shown that the public sector, which in the context of a people's democratic State from the very beginning had a socialist character, is the most important tool in the struggle for accelerating the pace of economic development, for restructuring and improving the structure of the economy.

In the struggle for the solution of the general democratic tasks of the people's revolution, the alliance of the labor aratstvo with the international communist movement and its vanguard, the working class of the USSR, was strengthened. This alliance has gone far beyond the usual political relations and political support, and it has found its vivid manifestation.

13 "Brief essays on the history of the MPRP", p. 96.

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not only in the material assistance of the Soviet Union, in the ideological arming of the cadres of Mongolian revolutionaries, but also in the assistance of the Soviet Armed Forces in defending the gains of the revolution from the machinations of world imperialism. "In essence," emphasizes the First Secretary of the MPRP Central Committee Yu. Tsedenbal was the class alliance of the victorious working class of Russia and the Mongol Aratstvo, which ensured the victory of our people's revolution, and then the country's entry into the non-capitalist path of development towards socialism, and its successful progress along this path. " 14 Always, when the fate of the people's revolution and the state independence of the republic were being decided, Soviet people came to the aid of the Mongolian people. So it was in 1921, when Red Army units took part in the defeat of Ungern's White Guard gangs on the territory of Mongolia, and so it was in 1939, when the Japanese invaders, who had encroached on the independence of the MNR, were completely defeated by Mongolian and Soviet troops who came to their aid in the area of the Khalkhin-Gol river. The support of the Soviet Union was crucial for consolidating the revolutionary gains of the Mongolian people, the sovereignty of the MNR, and consolidating its international standing. By protecting the young republic from being enslaved by imperialism and actively assisting it in its struggle against internal counterrevolution, the Soviet State significantly contributed to the maturation of the socio - economic and political prerequisites necessary for its successful progress along the non-capitalist path.

If at the first stages of the revolution the alliance of the Soviet working class and the Mongolian Aratstvo was mainly of a military-political nature, then with the transition to economic construction it took the form of broad economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation. From the very first years of the people's revolution, the Soviet Union began to provide significant financial support to the MNR, which was expressed in multiple soft loans, assistance in organizing the Mongol Bank and the national monetary circulation, and in other forms. Since the mid-1930s, all large industrial enterprises (the industrial plant and power plant in Ulaanbaatar, the wool washing factory in Khatgala, etc.) were built with the material and technical assistance of the USSR. Thanks to their commissioning, the country was able to abandon the purchase of a number of goods on the foreign market, was able to save currency and increase on-farm savings. These industrial enterprises were built on a modern technical basis. Therefore, they were the conductors of advanced technical thought, the base for training qualified national personnel, which was of great importance for improving the efficiency of the national economy as a whole. Modern modes of transport and communications were also created with the direct participation of the USSR. Foreign capital was forced out with the assistance of Soviet trade organizations. Mixed Mongolian-Soviet enterprises and organizations in industry, transport, and commodity - money circulation played an important role in the MNR's economic development. With the training of personnel and the development of enterprises, they became the complete property of the Mongolian people. At the end of the 1930s, large agricultural enterprises were established in the country-state farms and horse-haymaking stations, equipped with advanced equipment with the help of the USSR. In general, the Soviet state's economic assistance allowed the MNR to break out of the system of world capitalist economy painlessly, and helped accelerate the internal economic processes leading to socialism. The Soviet Union helped the Ministry of Education and Science-

14 Yu. Tsedenbal. From feudalism to socialism. Selected Articles and Speeches, vol. II, Moscow, 1962, p. 278.

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help the Polish people build and equip hospitals, schools, and other cultural institutions. Soviet doctors, teachers, and other specialists were systematically sent to the MPR. The Soviet Union's assistance in training national cadres, in developing national education, and in reviving national culture deprived the counterrevolutionary forces of important levers of spiritual influence on the country's social life, and helped to establish the ideas of scientific communism in the minds of the working people.

The most important problem of non-capitalist development is the formation of a national working class. The experience of People's Mongolia shows that in the process of radical socio-economic changes, when modern production is significantly developed and the national working class begins to form on this basis, its political, organizational and ideological role naturally increases, and it is becoming the leading and determining force of revolutionary transformations. If the history of the working class in the developed capitalist countries goes back more than 350 years, then behind the Mongolian working class - only about three decades. Hired workers in Mongolia began to appear in small artisanal and semi-artisanal enterprises in the early years of the revolution .15 They were very small in number, poorly organized, and had not yet completely broken with petty property, patriarchal customs, and the rural environment. The working class was formed due to the release of free workers from Arat farms as a result of the introduction of new, more advanced methods of animal husbandry and the deployment of cooperation of Arat farms. He grew up and was tempered in the struggle against the forces and traditions of the old society, in the struggle to strengthen the people's democratic system. In the future, its rapid growth was associated with the development of the factory industry, created with the help of the USSR. Soviet cadre workers were very helpful in the industrial training and political education of the Mongolian working class. By the time the development of the productive forces had reached a level at which the question of building socialism could be raised directly, the working class was already a significant political force and played a leading role both in the field of material production and in the political life of society. In 1966, the number of workers and employees of the MPR was 87.7 thousand 16 . Being the most conscious and organized part of society, the working class is the main driving force behind the country's progress, its industrialization, the socialist transformation of agriculture, and the cultural revolution.

The process of socialist industrialization of the MNR is very specific, because it unfolded in conditions of non-capitalist development. Since Mongolia was not at all affected by capitalist industrialization and the country did not know machine production, industrial construction here had to begin with the preparation of the elementary conditions necessary for the further implementation of socialist industrialization. This process, therefore, took a long time to complete; it began in the 1930s, but only developed significantly in the 1960s. The country had neither sufficient sources of internal savings, nor a cadre of industrial workers and specialists, which made it necessary to attract material and labor resources from outside, mainly from the Soviet Union. The industrialization of the MNR was not directly related to the tasks of strengthening the defense capability of the republic and the socialist Republic.

15 See B. Tudev. Formation and development of the working class of the MNR. Moscow, 1968.

16 "National economy of the MNR for 1967". Statistical collection. Ulaanbaatar, 1968, p. 49 (in Russian).

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collectivization of Arat farms, because the material base for solving these problems was the heavy industry of the USSR, and then of other socialist countries. Therefore, People's Mongolia did not need to go through all the stages of the industrial, scientific and technological revolution in order to use electricity, machinery, and modern technology in the interests of national revival. The help of the Soviet Union gave it the opportunity to develop its industry on the basis of new technology from the very beginning. Along with new machinery and equipment, Mongolia's workers also gained advanced manufacturing experience.

First of all, the country began to develop those industries that were associated with the processing of livestock raw materials: meat and dairy, leather and footwear, wool processing. The development of light industry and agriculture made it possible to accumulate the necessary funds for further industrialization and at the same time to meet the material and spiritual needs of the people more and more fully. The socialist concept of industrialization rejects both narrow specialization (monoculturalism) and autarky. Currently, the industrialization of the MNR includes the creation of light and heavy industries that are economically justified under the conditions of the international socialist division of labor. The Party and the Government strive to establish the production of certain products with the least expenditure of social labor, so that in exchange for them they can receive industrial products from other socialist countries, the production of which in Mongolia is not economically justified. The development of some industries, mainly light and food, is carried out in such a way that they not only meet the domestic needs of the country, but also allow for the export of some products. The creation of domestic industry in a relatively short period of time is an important achievement of the people's revolution. The main role in industrial production continues to be played by industries related to the processing of livestock raw materials. At the same time, the mining, coal, and electric power industries have developed significantly in the MNR, and the production of simple machinery and equipment for industry and agriculture has begun to improve. Before the Second World War, the share of production of means of production in the gross output of industry was 24%, in 1970-51.3%17 .

The share of industry in the production of gross social product in 1968 was about 30%, in the total national income - 22%, and its share in the total output of industry and agriculture exceeded 50%. This means that Mongolia turned from a country of backward, primitive cattle breeding to an agrarian-industrial country by the end of the 50s. The average annual growth rate of industrial output in the first five - year plan (1948-1952) was 0.7%, in the second five - year plan (1953-1957) - 12.5%, in the three-year plan (1958-1960) - 16.3%, in the third five-year plan (1961-1965) - 10.5%, in 1966-1969. - 8.3%18 . A number of large enterprises equipped with modern equipment have been established in the republic: an industrial complex in Ulaanbaatar, which unites nine factories and plants for processing livestock raw materials; thermal power plants in Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan, Choibalsan and other cities; coal mines in Nalaikhi, Sharyn Gol, Choibalsan; a construction materials plant, as well as a cement and cement plant. brick factories in Darkhan; woodworking enterprises

17 "News of Mongolia", 21. X. 1970.

18 "National Economy of the MNR for 1967", p. 51; "Modern Mongolia", 1970, N 4, p. 23.

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in Sukha Bator and Toson Tsengel; mining enterprises in Khentei, Vostochny and other aimags; large flour mills in Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan, Sukha Bator and other localities; meat processing plants in the capital and Choibalsan; dairy plants in Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan; bakeries and food processing plants in aimach centers and towns. etc.

Until recently, the population's needs for manufactured goods were met almost entirely by imports. Everything was imported, from sewing needles to sophisticated machines and mechanisms. Now the enterprises of the republic produce a fairly wide range of goods, some of which also enter the foreign market. The MNR now does not need to import butter, sausage products, soap, alcohol, beer; the import of ready-made clothing, shoes, paper, glass and porcelain dishes, leather goods, wool fabrics, lumber and a number of other goods has decreased. In a country where the population did not know any other shoes than boots, the production of model shoes began. If only recently the Mongols processed wool only to make felt from it, now excellent quality gabardine, boston, drapes, carpets, blankets, plaids and other products are made from wool, which are in great demand not only in the domestic but also in the foreign market.

However, as noted in the Report of the Central Committee of the MPRP to the 15th Party Congress (1966), industry is still significantly inferior to agriculture in terms of its share in national income. It will take about three more five-year plans for it to produce more than half of the total national income. This means that the MNR will turn into an industrial-agrarian country by about the end of the 70s .19 But even now, in terms of its industrial development, it has overtaken many developing countries, which were at a higher stage of economic development than pre-revolutionary Mongolia.

Since the Mongolian people began to create the material and technical base of socialism virtually from scratch, the MNR, despite all its achievements in the field of industrial construction, still lags behind the advanced socialist countries in terms of the overall level of industrial development, in the production of industrial products per capita, and in the level of labor productivity. Overcoming this historical gap is carried out with the fraternal help of the socialist countries, in the conditions of their closest and most comprehensive economic cooperation. The leaders of the MNR repeatedly stressed in their speeches that the republic does not have a large and capacious domestic market, does not have sufficient material, financial and labor resources, and that the level of national accumulation lags behind the growth of new construction, especially when it comes to the development of capital-intensive branches of modern production. Therefore, further expansion of economic cooperation with the socialist countries is of vital importance for the MNR.

During the years of the revolution, fundamental changes also took place in the Mongolian countryside. The labor aratstvo is firmly on the path of collectivization. The creation of social forms in the agriculture of the MNR was an extremely difficult task. Especially difficult in comparison with other countries was that the basis of the Arat economy was nomadic cattle breeding. The nomadic way of life has been developing for thousands of years. Extremely stable forms of its existence were developed, which made it very difficult for Arats to develop habits and skills of collective farming. It took a long search for the most appropriate forms and methods of cooperation and organization

19 "XV Congress of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party", Moscow, 1966, p. 6.

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social production in the conditions of nomadic economy, where cooperation meant, first of all, the socialization of livestock and the creation of public livestock farms. A significant feature of the collectivization of agriculture in the MNR was that it was carried out under the conditions of nationalization of land. However, the nationalization of land in Mongolia, with its vast expanses and primitive nomadic economy, was not as important as in other countries where agriculture is the main branch of agriculture. But even in Mongolia, the nationalization of land blocked the development of capitalism in agriculture and became the most important prerequisite for the emergence of a socialist way of life in the economy. The state was able to actively influence the process of creating Arat industrial associations by regulating land relations. Great difficulties on the way to collectivization were associated with the fact that after the revolution, the natural way of life prevailed in agriculture, remnants of pre-capitalist relations were preserved, and commodity-money relations were not developed.

The MPRP and the People's Government were extremely cautious about introducing social forms in agriculture. Arat associations were created on the basis of complete voluntariness. Unlike other socialist countries, where there were several forms of cooperatives, the cooperative movement in the MNR developed in a single form of agricultural associations, which passed through two stages. The first cooperatives were still semi-socialist in nature. Their income was distributed both in accordance with the labor spent, and depending on the number of livestock that arat transferred to the public herd when joining the association. Consequently, public ownership of livestock was not yet the basis of production, and the principle of distribution by labor was not the only way to distribute income, and this meant that some members of associations could receive non-labor income. The peculiarity of the cooperative process in Mongolia was, further, that along with the poor and middle peasants, well-to-do Arats also joined cooperatives on a strictly voluntary basis. As a result, cooperation was carried out without expropriating the capitalist elements of the countryside. This turned out to be possible thanks to the strength of the people's democratic system and the authority of the MPRP among the broad Arati masses. From 1954-1955, a new stage in the cooperative movement began, when agricultural associations were transformed into truly socialist farms, where public ownership of the means of production became dominant, and income was distributed according to the quantity and quality of labor spent by each member of the association. The State provided all possible assistance to these associations. They were granted loans for the purchase of breeding cattle, agricultural machinery, construction of cattle yards and wells, benefits for agricultural tax and state supplies, technical assistance, assistance in training specialists, etc.The process of cooperation was completed in conditions when the country's industrialization was not yet developed on a large scale, in the absence of domestic mechanical engineering. The creation of the material and technical base of agriculture in the MNR is now being successfully implemented with the help of industrially developed socialist countries. It should also be noted that the cooperation of agriculture was accompanied by the transition of the population to sedentarism. This process has significantly increased in recent years due to the successful development of agriculture as an independent branch of agriculture and the further intensification of animal husbandry.

In 1969, there were 281 agricultural associations in the MNR. More than 80% of the republic's livestock was concentrated in them. Most of them are cereals-

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private farms: in 1967, on average, there were 945 members of agricultural associations, or about 500 peasant households, and more than 60.5 thousand heads of public livestock .20 Individual associations have more than 100 thousand heads of livestock. Along with animal husbandry, agricultural enterprises are beginning to engage in agriculture on a significant scale. On average, more than 460 thousand hectares of land are assigned to each collective farm for permanent free use, which are used as pastures, as well as for haymaking and sown areas. In 1969, on average, there were more than 13 tractors (in 15-strong terms) for each agricultural enterprise, and 6-8 vehicles each. Each SHO has a diesel power plant, telephone and radio communication with aimag centers. Agricultural associations are the main producers and suppliers of agricultural products to the state. Since 1959. they produce and supply almost 3/4 of commercial livestock products to the state. In 1968, the share of agricultural enterprises in state centralized procurement of agricultural products was 81.6% for meat, 74.5% for milk, 74% for wool of all kinds, and 10.8% for grain .21 The increase in the volume of state procurements after the socialist perestroika of agriculture, the increase in the marketability of animal husbandry - an important achievement of young agricultural associations, the result of the advantages of large-scale socialist farming over small-scale individual farming. From year to year, the cash income of agricultural organizations increases. If in 1960 84% of agricultural organizations had less than 1 million tugriks of annual income each, then in 1969 10.7% of agricultural organizations had incomes of more than 3 million tugriks per year, and 32.3% of agricultural organizations-from 2 to 3 million tugriks each .22 An increasing number of agricultural organizations receive 4-5 million tugriks of annual income.

State-owned farms are also developing successfully. In 1970, there were 34 of them. These are large multi-industry highly mechanized farms. The main focus of many of them is agriculture. On average, one state farm accounts for 178 thousand hectares of land, 26 thousand heads of livestock, 11.5 million tugriks of basic income 23 . State farms have become the main producers of grain, potatoes and vegetables, as well as breeding centers for highly productive breeding cattle. In the last decade, about 600 thousand hectares of virgin land have been developed in the republic. Every year, state farms supply the state with an average of 270 thousand tons of grain, or about 4/5 of the agricultural crop yield in the country. For the first time in the entire centuries-old history, the Mongolian people provide themselves with their own bread. Moreover, in recent years, the republic has been able to export grain abroad, whereas before the development of virgin land, the MNR annually imported up to 100 thousand tons of flour. At the beginning of 1970, the republic's agriculture had 5,125 tractors, 1,767 grain combines, and 2,456 trucks .24 These figures show that agriculture is also becoming an increasingly important target for the introduction of industrial production methods. Every year, the pace of mechanization of labor-intensive processes in agriculture and animal husbandry is increasing, electric sheep shearing and electric cow slaughtering are being introduced, complex mechanization in feed production is being applied, complex mechanized hay harvesting teams are being created, and a significant part of livestock premises is being built using industrial methods.

One of the major obstacles to the further development of productive forces in the MNR agriculture remains the nomadic way of life

20 "National Economy of the MNR for 1967", p. 57.

21 "Unen", 21. XII. 1969.

22 "National Economy of the MNR for 1967", p. 112; "News of Mongolia", 3. IX. 1970.

23 See Problems of Peace and Socialism, 1971, No. 4, p. 59.

24 Ibid.

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aratov. The republic is forced to solve a difficult task: the transfer of tens of thousands of people to a sedentary lifestyle. The solution to this problem is closely linked to the further intensification of animal husbandry, the creation of a solid feed base for livestock, and the further increase in labor productivity in agriculture. Of course, the country gets the cheapest meat and wool from year-round pasture keeping of livestock. Pastures are a giant natural factory of wool and meat, and provide an opportunity to obtain valuable livestock products at the lowest cost of money and labor. However, pasture maintenance of livestock does not provide a guaranteed planned increase in the number of livestock and increase its productivity. In favorable climatic years, the number of livestock increases, and in some years, due to natural disasters, it decreases. It should also be taken into account that the development of agricultural societies as settled farms, the construction of modern settlements in rural areas require huge material resources, In addition, the transition to sedentarism means the reworking of the entire way of life of the rural population, the breaking of age-old customs and habits, and a decisive struggle with all the remnants of the old feudal past. The Party and the Government are taking consistent measures to solve this difficult problem. Settled centers of agricultural cooperatives with schools, clubs, medical and veterinary points, shops, and other cultural and consumer services are being created. Vigorous measures are being taken to build cattle yards, water pastures, strengthen the food supply, expand the veterinary service, and introduce scientific methods of farming. This is a long process that requires not only large material resources, but also intense efforts on the part of the entire cooperative aratstvo and the socialist state.

In 1967, the number of livestock in the MNR was 22.4 million. Mongolia ranks first in the world in terms of total livestock per capita. It is becoming an increasingly large supplier of livestock products to COMECON member countries. As of 1965, it provided 20% of their imported meat and meat products needs and 10% of their wool needs. At the same time, as noted in the decisions of the congresses and plenums of the Central Committee of the MPRP, the republic still has a lot to do to improve the efficiency of animal husbandry, to turn each farm into a highly profitable enterprise.

With the strengthening of the country's economy, the material and cultural standard of living of the people is steadily increasing. For the first time in a thousand-year history, concern for the material well-being of the people, their health, and the development of culture has become the main law of public life. The Mongolian people have long been unaware of hunger and poverty. The wages of workers and employees, as well as the income of the cooperative aratstvo, are steadily increasing. In 1960 - 1968, the average salary of workers and employees increased by 15.4%. The MPR has adopted a law on pensions, which significantly expands the range of persons entitled to a pension and increases its size. The task has been set to fully provide the population with comfortable housing in the near future. MNR workers now have the opportunity to eat and dress better, better equip their apartments and yurts, and spend their leisure time culturally. Great progress has been made in the field of healthcare. Currently, there is not a single locality in the republic that does not have a hospital or other medical institution. In 1970. one doctor in the MNR served 504 people, while, according to the World Health Organization, at the end of the 60s, there were an average of 3 thousand people per doctor in the world, in Africa-20 thousand, in South - East Asia-41 thousand.

During the years of people's power, a real cultural revolution took place in the country. People's Mongolia is the first Asian country where the

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in the most difficult conditions of nomadic life, universal primary education of children was carried out. If before the revolution the number of literates in the country did not reach even 1%, now everyone can read and write in their native language. The task is to implement universal incomplete secondary education in the near future and prepare the conditions for the transition to universal full secondary education in the future. For every 10 thousand people in the MNR, there are more than 80 students of higher educational institutions. A new, popular intelligentsia has been created in the republic, and an army of scientists, literature, and artists has appeared.

The international prestige of the MNR is growing day by day. At the end of 1961, after 15 years of discrimination, the Western powers were forced to agree to accept the MNR in the UN. The Mongolian People's Republic maintains diplomatic relations with more than 50 countries: with all socialist countries; with many developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America; with England, France, Austria, Sweden and other capitalist countries. Together with other socialist States, the MNR is actively fighting for general and complete disarmament under strict international control, for the solution of disputed problems through negotiations. The voice of a free Mongolia in defense of peace and security of peoples is heard today from the rostrum of international conferences and forums. The MPRP, being one of the fighting units of the international communist and labor movement, makes an important contribution to further strengthening the unity of its ranks, actively fights for the ideological purity and creative development of the theory of Marxism-Leninism.

The XIV Congress of the MPRP, held in 1961, stated that the MPRP had entered a new period of its development - the period of completion of the construction of a socialist society. The Congress recognized the need to develop a new party program that would determine the prospects for completing the construction of socialism in the MNR. The new program adopted by the 15th Party Congress in 1966 states: "The main task for the period of completion of the construction of socialism in the MNR is the full development of the productive forces of socialist society on the basis of the achievements of modern scientific and technological progress, ensuring high rates of growth of the country's economic power and the rise of socialist culture, improving socialist social relations, strengthening communist education working people, achieving on this basis a further increase in the material well-being and cultural level of the people " 25 .

So, the main result of the development of the Mongolian People's Republic during the years of the revolution is that the Mongolian people solved in a short time the gigantic tasks of transforming social, economic and cultural life on a new, socialist basis. In this short period of time, it has gone through a path of economic and cultural development that would otherwise have taken centuries for a backward country like pre-revolutionary Mongolia to overcome. Relying on the daily fraternal assistance of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the MNR is confidently moving towards completing the construction of socialism.

The experience of non-capitalist development of the MNR is now gaining important international significance, especially for the newly liberated countries that have chosen the same path.

25 "XV Congress of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party", Moscow, 1966, p. 177.

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