Rachel Lu
In 1908, a 13-year-old boy named Khorloogiin Dugar entered a Buddhist monastery in Achit Beysiyn, Mongolia, a region under the control of the Qing Dynasty. He took the religious name “Choibalsan” and began studying to be a lama, but spirituality, it would seem, was not his forte. In 1913, the boy fled from the monastery and found his way into the Russian education system. He marinated in Marxist ideology, made Russian friends, and, following the October Revolution, returned to his native Mongolia (now an independent Buddhist khanate) to help spread communism there. Mongolia was ultimately established as a supine Soviet surrogate, with Choibalsan ideally situated to befriend Stalin and rise through the ranks. In 1936, he became the Minister of Internal Affairs, then Prime Minister.
Dictatorial power enabled him to pursue a cherished goal: the eradication of his childhood faith in Mongolia. This turned out to be a formidable job, since Buddhism was deeply embedded in Mongolian culture. At the outset of the twentieth century, roughly a third of adult Mongolian men were lamas of some grade, while monasteries had enormous significance as cultural and economic centers, the mainstays of both spirituality and education. At first, the state tried to quash the influence of the lamas through government propaganda, heavy taxation of monasteries, and stringent restrictions on speech and religious education. However, Buddhist influence remained strong, and a frustrated Choibalsan resorted to an approach he openly described as “liquidation.” Of more than 82,000 lamas connected to monasteries in 1937, about 18,000 were murdered by the state, while the rest mostly fled or went to ground. Monasteries were razed, along with their sacred objects and religious texts, while the remaining few were re-outfitted for secular purposes. Buddhist rituals and festivals were banned, and dissenters rapidly executed. In the space of just a few years, a thriving Buddhist culture was all but eradicated.
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