Tserendorj

After 1926, as Moscow tightened its control over the Mongolian political process, Tserendorj was pressured to include Russian nationals in high-ranking posts: the ministers of finance and war, the chairmen of the economic council and the military council, the head of Mongolian construction and the head of the domestic trading organization. A Russian also headed the secret police, alongside six Russian advisers.

Tserendorj did not simply give way. To offset Soviet influence, he sought recognition of Mongolian independence beyond Russia, from other nations as well, and hoped Mongolia would become a neutral state, akin to an Asian Switzerland. Those overtures to Europe, Japan and the United States were stifled by Moscow and by Comintern agents inside the Mongolian government. He rejected the ensuing accusations from pro-Soviet MPRP members that such efforts were counterrevolutionary, and resisted what he saw as heavy-handed pressure to abolish private property rapidly, introduce cooperatives and state industries, and persecute the Buddhist Church, holding that these policies conflicted with the country's nomadic culture and Buddhist traditions. He also grew uncomfortable with Comintern efforts to divide and control the MPRP by backing the radicalized Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League and promoting younger hard-line members, particularly from rural areas, against an "old guard" the Soviets suspected of conservatism.

That resistance rested on an institutional foundation he had already helped build. On 23 September 1924 he became chairman of the constitution-drafting commission established by the People's Government, which prepared Mongolia's first constitution, adopted unanimously by the first Great Hural on 26 November 1924. It had six chapters and fifty articles, disposed of the limited monarchy, and vested supreme state authority in the Great Hural and the government elected by it. A Mongolian state account records that, while prime minister, he took part in drafting more than sixty laws and regulations, and that his domestic line was to draw the old nobility into state economic work and support private capital rather than move against them, while pursuing relations with capitalist countries and not the USSR alone.

Weary of the Comintern's growing influence, he attempted to resign in 1927, saying he was too "old and sick" to continue, but both the MPRP Central Committee and the Soviets forced him to remain. His health continued to decline and he died in office in 1928. Sources disagree on the date: the English account and several Mongolian sources give 13 February, while the Mongolian historical dictionary gives 13 November. The Mongolian Wikipedia article is even inconsistent within itself, giving his birth as 2 May in one place and 25 May in another. No source records that he was executed. Deputy Prime Minister Anandyn Amar was appointed prime minister on 21 February 1928.