The nexus of Mongolia lies at the heart of three revolutions and the subsequent civil wars, all happening in a small window of time from 1911 to 1949, which reshaped the modern world. The 1911 overthrow of the Qing Dynasty by Chinese revolutionaries (eventually culminating in the establishment of the Mao Zedong led People's Republic of China in 1949), the subsequent 1911 Mongolian revolt against their weakened Qing rulers, and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution against Nicholas II's Czarist autocracy (which established the Soviet Union). While western Europe was mired in World War I and St. Petersburg had been taken over by the Lenin-led Bolsheviks, the Russian Civil War raged between the Red and White armies across five time zones and involved the armies of several seemingly disparate countries. The new Beiyang government in China emerged in 1919 to wrest back control of Mongolia, only to be ousted by the warlord Roman Nickolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg (what a great name!), a Baltic nobleman who fought for the Russian Czar in World War I and led the remnants of a ragtag White army to-oddly enough-try to reestablish the Qing Dynasty. It's a long, bloody story.Imagining himself a new-age Genghis Khan, and equal parts religious mystic and sadistic war criminal, Ungern-Sternberg drove the Chinese out of Mongolia and then forced the Bolsheviks–wary of any White-backed power on their border–to come and take over the once strong country. Despite the Mongolians perpetually fighting the Chinese, James Palmer, author of The Bloody White Baron argues that it was Ungern that made the difference, largely by accident and in doing so, Mongolia missed ending up like Tibet and Xinjiang in 1949, retaken by China.Under no circumstances do I endorse the majority of the draconian tactics used by megalomaniacal warlords and the former Soviet Union under Stalin nor its overarching tendency toward ideological control of the surrounding satellite states it absorbed after the conclusion of World War II. Yet despite thousands of unnecessary deaths, countless wanton destruction of irreplaceable landmarks and the suppression of indigenous cultures, can it be said that there could be some silver lining to the forty-five year Soviet occupation of Mongolia?Palmer writes: “Russian rule meant horrendous slaughter and oppression in Mongolia, but the Mongolians always maintained their nominal autonomy. The Chinese, on the other hand, wanted to absorb and settle Mongolia, as they did to Inner Mongolia. The Mongolians are, according to Chinese nationalism, one of the 'five peoples of China,' something which most Mongolians–like Tibetans and Uighur–would vigorously contest. They’d be in the same position as Xinjiang or Tibet now, watching Han settlers pour into their lands, and any attempts at revising nationalism or independence would be ruthlessly crushed.”Treating Tibet as anything other than completely Chinese will land you in a fierce argument with even the most liberally educated of Shanghai locals. And as Palmer goes on to suggest, even mentioning (outer) Mongolia can make an elderly Chinese person wistfully suggest that they are actually one and the same, or should be. The Chinese think, much like Americans, in terms of vastness, so it can be understood that their eyes are bigger than their stomachs. Yet despite the horrors the Mongolians have withstood, and if we count them at all, do we not count the Mongolians among those other lucky survivors of Chinese domination and Soviet totalitarianism, as coming out of it better than Tibet, currently overrun with Han Chinese, did?I suppose it depends on your point of view. Is it better to idolize statues of dead men and their crusty, impractical ideologies or to sit and break bread with those who still subsist on the fringes of poverty, but are basically free men, have joy in their hearts, and offer what is theirs with an honest smile on their face? As the historian Jack Weatherford points out in the seminal Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, more than the marauding madman he is made out to be, the Great Khan was about bringing cultures together. That is what I take from his legacy and the people who continue to live in his spirit When it's done well, I love this type of lay history, well-sourced but written in a readable, non-academic way, and this book is an excellent example. It's a fascinating story about a truly bizarre historical character, a Russian aristocrat who became one of the last leaders of Mongolia prior to its being engulfed by the Russian revolution and becoming a Soviet satellite. Though a complete moral reprobate, Ungern-Sternberg is apparently still somewhat revered in Mongolia for having liberated them from the Chinese.
What do You think about The Bloody White Baron (2008)?
Not the most balanced presentation of Vajrayana Buddhism, but perceptive about Buddhist modernism.
—waller
Rating: 3.5I am listened to the audio version performed by Stefan Rudnicki.
—Hue
This book gave me a better understanding about Russia after WWI.
—amry
This time and place in history really fascinates me...
—Amanda
