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.
Also known as: Rinchingiin Elbegdorj · Elbeg Rinchino
Activities and affiliations
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1921–1924
Mongolian People's Party / Mongolian People's Revolutionary PartyMember of the Central Committee Presidium
Social movements and organizing -
1921–1925
Mongolia state institutionsChairman of the Revolutionary Military CouncilMain
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1917Elected first chairman of the Buryat-Mongol Central National Committee (Burnatskom)
- 1918Elected in absentia as education minister of the Provisional Siberian Government
- 1920Secretary of the Mongol-Tibet section, Comintern Far Eastern Secretariat
- 1921–1925Chairman of Mongolia's Revolutionary Military Council, government adviser, member of the MPRP Central Committee presidium, deputy in the Great and Small Khural
- 1924Helped draft the constitution; joined in denouncing Danzan at the third party congress
- 1926–1930Studied at the Red Professors' Institute
- 1927–1934Research and teaching at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV), professor of political economy from November 1934
- 1937Arrested in Moscow
Related historical events
- 1921–1924Mongolian revolution and establishment of the republicfounding revolutionary who drafted the constitutionOf Buryat origin, he effectively drafted the founding documents and the 1924 constitution, and at the Third Party Congress pushed the non-capitalist development line and had Dantsan purged.
- 1937–1938The Great Purgevictim arrested and sentenced to deathHe was arrested in Moscow in 1937 and sentenced to death in 1938.
Language, Script and Ethnographic Research
Rinchino's political career began in Buryat language, script and ethnographic research well before the Burnatskom of 1917.
Entering the law faculty of St Petersburg University in autumn 1908, he gathered material on the Buryat language and folklore while a student, publishing part of it under the pen name Alamzhi-Mergen in the second issue of the Collection of Mongol-Buryat Folk Poetry in 1911. Around the same time he joined the teacher Nikolai Amagayev of Bokhan in refining the Buryat alphabet created in 1905 by Agvan Dorzhiev; after reworking individual letters and grammatical forms they issued the New Mongol-Buryat Alphabet in 1910.
After leaving his studies he took part in a scientific expedition to Mongolia in 1915-1916, producing Shamanism in Mongolia and Economic Regions of Mongolia. He continued to write on Mongolian script reform, publishing 'On the Reform of the Script of the Mongolian Tribes' and 'On the Reform of the Mongolian Literary Language' in 1930.