Extractive Assistance: Copper Mining, Socialist Development, and Urban Planning in Cold-War Mongolia

• In Event: Spaces and Imaginaries of Socialist Extractivism

Abstract

Extraction of natural resources was the foremost priority in the vision of socialist industrialization. While literature recognizes the urbanisation of remote regions and the establishment of cities in the Far North and Central Asia as responses to resource extraction, it often overlooks the international dimension of socialist extractivism. This paper proposes an examination of socialist development assistance through the prism of mineral resource extraction. By centering on the Erdenet mining-processing plant, a case-study developed with the support of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in Mongolia in 1976, this paper delves into the extensive extractive infrastructure created in Mongolia for copper extraction and transportation. This infrastructure includes a growing network of storage and transportation centres, logistical and power infrastructure, and associated urban spaces. Viewing Erdenet as a multilateral project collaboratively developed by several socialist countries, this paper argues that resource extraction motivated Soviet leaders to seek integration between Eastern Europe and the Global South. Facing Western embargoes on raw materials, the Soviet Bloc was compelled to establish its own resource markets, leading to the exploitation of Mongolia and other former colonies in the Global South to serve the interests of the Northern socialist countries.

Author

• Nikolay Erofeev, U of Kassel (Germany)