Mongolia in the Writings of Elbek Dorji Rinchino

• In Event: Buddhists, Marxists, and Nationalists: Buryat-Mongol Intellectuals in History

Abstract

Elbek Dorji Rinchino (1888–1938), a Buryat nationalist revolutionary, played significant roles in the establishment of Buryat Soviet autonomy and the Mongolian Revolution of 1921. During the 1920s, alongside other Buryat national leaders, Rinchino held a prominent position in the early political development of the Mongolian People's Republic. In Soviet-backed Mongolia, he assumed the role of the head of the Mongolian army training and education department and established the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League. Rinchino's close ties with Moscow granted him considerable influence over the political orientation of Mongolian revolutionary policy. However, due to his outspoken Buryat-Mongolian nationalist sentiments and even more so to the internal struggles within the party, Rinchino faced accusations of being a bourgeois nationalist and a Pan-Mongolist. Consequently, he was recalled to Moscow in 1928. While there, Rinchino trained numerous young members of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. During the Stalinist Purges, Rinchino, along with many other Buryat national and cultural leaders, was arrested and executed in Moscow in 1938. This paper examines Rinchino's writings during his time in Mongolia and delves into his ideas regarding the social and political modernization of the Buryats and Mongols. It also highlights his understanding of Mongolia's role in regional politics and his perspective on the relationship between communism and nationalism in Inner Asia. This study not only recognizes the significant role played by Elbek Dorji Rinchino during this critical period of Mongolian history, but also emphasizes the importance of Buryat indigenous understanding of communism’s role and function in Inner Asia.

Author

• Tatiana Linkhoeva, New York U