Oriental Studies (Apr 2018)
Military and Political Cooperation between the USSR and the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1930s
Abstract
An important step in strengthening the military-political alliance and legal basis of relations between the two countries became to be the Gentleman›s Agreement on mutual assistance between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Mongolian People›s Republic dated November 27, 1934. It provided that the two parties would assist each other in the case of external military attack on one of the two sides. Its provisions had been supplemented and elaborated in the Protocol on mutual assistance, signed in Ulaanbaatar on March 12, 1936, which contributed to the failure of the aggressive plans of the Japanese militarists against the MPR in 1939. In accordance with the Protocol on mutual assistance between the USSR and the MPR, Soviet military troops were brought into Mongolia and quartered along the South-Eastern boundary of the republic in September 1939. At the same time, the Soviet Union built a number of critical facilities necessary for the development of the Mongolian economy, and strengthening the defense power of the republic. The military-political alliance of the USSR and the MPR in the 1930s proved to be stable enough to defeat Japan at Khalkin-Gol in 1939. The Soviet-Mongolian troops under the leadership of the corps commander G.K. Zhukov who had developed a brilliant strategy for defeating the Japanese armed forces, managed to implement a successful offensive operation. So, the victory at Khalkin-Gol in 1939 showed the relevance and timeliness of creating the military-political alliance of the USSR and the MPR.
