Activities and affiliations

Government and administration Mongolia state institutions 1868–1928 ○ Died of illness in office, (13 Feb or 13 Nov)

First prime minister of the Mongolian People's Republic, diplomat of the old regime

On 23 September 1924 a constitution-drafting commission chaired by Prime Minister Tserendorj was set up, and on 26 November 1924 the first Great Hural unanimously adopted its 6-chapter, 50-article constitution declaring Mongolia's first republican order.

Born in 1868 at Kherlen Bayan Ulaan as a subject of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu's Great Shabi, he learned Mongolian, Manchu, Chinese and Russian and worked as a scribe and translator in the Manchu administration in Khüree from 1885 to 1911. After the 1911 independence he entered the Foreign Ministry, serving as deputy foreign minister in 1913-1915 and first-ranked minister in 1915-1919. He signed the 1919 renunciation document under Chinese occupation and became deputy foreign minister in the revolutionary government of 1921. Appointed prime minister in 1923, he headed the 1924 constitution-drafting commission and became the republic's first prime minister. After 1926, as Moscow tightened control, he resisted the abolition of private property and the persecution of the Buddhist Church, and he died of illness in office in 1928; sources give his death as 13 February or 13 November 1928.

Government and administration Mongolia state institutions 1869–1924 ○ Natural death

The Tibetan-born reincarnate lama enthroned as the last great khan of Mongolia

'The princes feared him, the common people loved him.'

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu was, after the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, the highest living incarnation in Mongolian Buddhism. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, Mongol nobles enthroned him on 29 December as the 'Bogd Khan' ('Holy Ruler') of a new theocratic state. Stripped of power when China abolished autonomy in 1919, he was reinstated as a limited monarch after the 1921 revolution and died of throat cancer on 20 May 1924, ending the monarchy. The first and last great khan of Outer Mongolia since the late 17th century, he held Mongols together amid upheaval through his religious charisma.

Political and party leadership Mongolia state institutions 1888–1938 ✕ Executed (details of sentence disputed)

Buryat revolutionary, drafter of Mongolia's 1924 constitution, victim of the Great Terror

At the third party congress in August 1924, as leader of the leftist faction he joined the rightists led by Dambadorj in accusing Danzan of representing bourgeois interests and dealing with American and Chinese firms; Danzan and Bavaasan were sentenced and shot within twenty-four hours.

A Buryat from Transbaikalia, he was elected first chairman of the Buryat-Mongol Central National Committee (Burnatskom) in April 1917 and helped lay the foundations of Buryat autonomy. In 1920 he became secretary of the Mongol-Tibet section of the Comintern's Far Eastern Secretariat. After the 1921 revolution he served until 1925 as chairman of Mongolia's Revolutionary Military Council, a government adviser, a member of the MPRP Central Committee presidium and a deputy in the Great and Small Khural. He helped draft the 1924 constitution and argued for the non-capitalist path at the third party congress, where he also joined in denouncing Danzan. Arrested in Moscow on 19 June 1937 (custody records date it 19 July), he was sentenced in 1938; sources disagree on the sentencing date and on when and where he was executed. A review of his case began in 1955 and he was rehabilitated in 1957.

Military command Mongolia state institutions 1893–1923 Unconfirmed: poison or illness

Military leader of Mongolia's 1921 revolution, posthumously canonized as its 'father'

Appointed commander-in-chief of the people's partisans in February 1921, he took Kyakhta in March and entered Khüree on July 6; on July 11 he became minister of the army in the new government. Mongolian-language records date that appointment to July 1922.

A Mongolian revolutionary and founding member of the Mongolian People's Party, he led the people's partisans that entered Khüree (now Ulaanbaatar) in 1921. Of a poor arat family, he worked as a typesetter and a relay-station rider, and joined Urga's underground anti-Chinese group in 1919. He went to Soviet Russia in 1920, was confirmed commander-in-chief at Kyakhta in 1921, became minister of the army that July and met Lenin in Moscow in November. The cause of his death is unconfirmed, and his posthumous canonization is itself a central dispute.

Political and party leadership Mongolia state institutions 1895–1952 ○ Natural causes

Mongolian revolution and consolidation

In an August 1945 telegram to Stalin he vowed that the friendship of the Mongolian and Soviet peoples would remain indestructible forever.

A military and political participant in Mongolia’s 1921 revolution. He consolidated power through close Soviet ties and directed major purges in the late 1930s. State-building and political and religious repression are inseparable parts of his leadership period.