Background
The world's first Constitution came into force in the United States in 1789. The idea that Mongolia's legal development should include a constitution was born in the 1910s. After about 130 years, Mongolians became acquainted with the constitutions and legal experience of foreign countries.1
There were pro-independence movements in 1911 against the colonisation policy of the late Qing dynasty.
Finally, the Mongolian People's Party took power in Mongolia in 1921 with the help of the Soviet Union, after White Russian and Chinese forces had been expelled. In 1924, the party renamed itself the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.2 This ensured that the Mongols would rule their country under the supervision of the Soviet Union and under its influence.Over the following decades, Mongolia was very closely allied with the Soviet Union. Previous constitutions, adopted in 1924, 1940 and 1960, were the site of activities of the former Soviet Union politicians and lawyers trained in socialist legal tradition and Mongolia obeyed their suggestions and regime.
After the resignation of Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal in 1984, and inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union, the new leadership under Jambyn
1 B Bayarsaikhan, Mongol Ulsin Undsen Khuulit Yosni ulamjlal (Ulaanbaatar, 2017) 12.
2 William B Simons (eds), The Constitutions of the Communist World (Brill, 1980) 256.
Batmonkh implemented economic reforms but failed to appeal to those who, in late 1989, wanted broader change.[354]
The ‘wind of democracy' entered Mongolia. In 1956, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held, and a resolution was passed to eliminate the harmful effects of the cult of Stalin. After this meeting, the 4th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party was held and a review was made on the activities of the People's Revolutionary Party of Mongolia.
The congress was held in a principled and critical way, which was completely different from the previous congresses. Creative intellectuals, encouraged by the ideals of the conference, began to criticise the problems and shortcomings of the country and reveal the true face of the leaders of that time. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party decided to freely listen to the opinions of intellectuals of the time and to incorporate them into their future work. Before making such criticism, they promised to speak freely and not make any judgements afterwards.[355]The intellectuals said that the people's life was poor, it was wrong to oppress the wealthy side of farming, and also the transfer of raw materials of animal husbandry to the Soviet Union almost for free. It was highlighted that when developing the industry, it is necessary to process livestock products and use natural resources and minerals. If it is beneficial to develop heavy industries, such as metallurgy, trade with any country should be done. Electoral democracy is not implemented. They also criticised the fact that everything, including history and culture, was crushed under the name of proletarian internationalism and used against the revival of national pride.
However, the leadership of the party was sensitive to these criticisms, and on the direct initiative of Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, in December 1956, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party issued a resolution ‘On the appearance of ideas and speech contrary to the policy of our party' and issued the ‘List of Intellectuals'. The above resolution was discussed at closed meetings at all levels of the party from the middle of December 1956 to the end of March 1957. The party members also criticised the idea of the resolution. At the meeting of the party organisation of the University of Mongolia, Professor Ts Damdinsuren said that ‘This resolution can fill the mouths of intellectuals, but it cannot fill the gap of the people'.[356] However, it was completely wrong to suppress patriotism and tradition in this name.
From this period, the door was opened to ‘bury' pluralism in a part of history until it cannot be revived again.The Perestroika[357] in the Soviet Union and Polish solidarity movements were broadcasted in the Russian and Mongolian press, which interested Mongolians. The majority of the nation supported the idea of democracy.
After this process of ‘the fallacy of intellectuals, those who spoke out and opposed party policies were repressed. Criticism of the party by the masses has been on the rise since the mid-1980s.
Journalists S Tsogtsaikhan, S Amarsanaa, physicist E Bat-Uul, Buddhist monk G Bayasgalan and engineer D Amarbayar founded the underground political group ‘The New Generation' in October 1988. On the night of 2 January 1989 the group distributed hundreds of leaflets throughout the streets of Ulaanbaatar and called the youth to democratic revolution. The leaflet contained the following political demands:
The success of the Perestroika depends on the democracy, publicity and people’s freedom of thinking. Therefore, the following is our demand to the rulers of the Party and the Government:
1. To establish a new principle according to which the Chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Great Khural is elected on the basis of universal, direct and equal elections by secret ballot.
2. To work out a law which guarantees democracy, pluralism of ideas and glasnost, which shall be widely discussed by the cross section of the people before its approval.
3. To disseminate widely the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ proclaimed by the General Assembly of the UN on December 10, 1948 and implement it into life.
We call everybody to understand that the Perestroika is a Revolution against bureaucracy and not to be deceived with the superficial ‘reforms’!
New Generation[358]
Demonstrations started in December 1989 in cities such as Hovd, Ulaanbaatar, and Erdenet. From the demonstration on 10 December 1989 held on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, a demand sheet was written to the 7th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the 8th Session of the People’s Great Khural.
The first part of the demand sheet demanded changes to the Constitution, which said:1. To stop one party direct leadership and influence on the state, government activities and to guarantee the principle of regulating political life of the country on the basis of a multiparty system and to approve the Law on Parties by the People’s Great Khural.
2. To strongly and equally conform to the principles to respect people's and citizens rights which were declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the state, government and party activity.
3. To transform the People's Great Khural into Parliament with permanent activity and to establish at it people's elective council with the duty to protect human rights within it.
4. Issues which affect national interest must be decided on the basis of the national referendum and issues which affect interest of local communities must be decided on the basis of their opinion and to establish this principle as rule of the People's Representative Khural's work.[359]
Publisher Baabar wrote the following about the democratic movement in his work ‘Mongols: Move Seat':
Because they were closed for many years, Tian Anmin's rebellion did not affect the Mongolians much. Being a satellite country of the USSR for a long time, events happening in Moscow and beyond were closer and more familiar to Mongolians. The process intensified as the communist regimes of Eastern Europe fell one after the other. On November 26, 1989, ‘Young Artists II Conference' was organized by the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. The young people who participated in the meeting made sharp criticisms that no one had dared to say since ‘the fallacy of intellectuals'. The young people left there and held a separate meeting, and after several days of such a gathering, they formed a public organization called the ‘Mongolian Democratic Union’. 27-year-old university lecturer Sanjaasurengiin Zorig was elected as its leader.
On December 10, 1989, they organized a public meeting and presented the ‘Eight Demands' to the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party. Three days before that, students and teachers marched in Khovd and demanded the resignation of the Politburo. A similar demonstration was held in Erdenet a day ago. Mongolia began to boil. Rallies took place here and there, many voluntary associations and associations were formed, and tens of thousands of participants were with them.
In December, the ‘Democratic Socialist Movement' was announced, and a few days later, the ‘New Progressive Union' was established.
On March 4, 1990, a large gathering and demonstration took place in Sukhbaatar Square, demanding the resignation of all members of the Politburo. About 100,000 people participated in this protest. The demonstration was organized by four public organizations: the Mongolian Democratic Union, the Democratic Socialist Movement, the New Progressive Union and the Mongolian Student Union. Of these, the Student Union was an official structure established by the communist system and was the first to turn against it. Three days later, in the same square, the Democratic Union announced a hunger strike, demanding the resignation of the entire Politburo. Three days later, the entire Politburo resigned after accepting the demands of the People's Democratic Party.[360]
Since then, there were several demonstrations, and at the end of February 1990, the citizens' anger reached its peak. Several demonstrations took place. As noted by Irja Halasz, ‘Towards the end of February, the political atmosphere was becoming more and more tense. The authorities appeared to want to suppress any protests, and were not cooperative'.[361]
Apart from the capital Ulaanbaatar, there were local demonstrations. On 6 December 1989, a meeting was held in Erdenet which demanded the withdrawal of Russian military units from Erdenet, the non-use of the Toson Zaamar gold mine, the nationalisation of the Erdenet plant, the non-construction of the felt and felt shoe factories under construction, and the immediate closure of the Wood Transfer Plant. This demand was sent to the 5th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party by N Myanganbayar, the head of the People's Party Committee, and D Togooch, the mayor of Erdenet. On 7 December 1989, a group of teachers and students of Hovd Teacher's College held their first political demonstration at Ard Ayush Square. Subsequently, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, as well as the Government, were handed a letter of resignation to be delivered to Ulaanbaatar during the provincial party committee's general meeting.[362]
II.