The Red Mugwump

Buried deep in the heart of the huge Asian land mass, Outer Mongolia is a country of sweeping plains, lake-studded highlands, with an awkward location: it is set squarely between Communist China and the Soviet Union. All but lost to history since the 14th century, when its conquering Khans ruled from Indonesia to the Danube, this ancient heartland has become the newest area in the growing clash between the two Communist rivals. Long an inaccessible province of China, Outer Mongolia became the first Soviet satellite when the Reds pursued the Whites into Urga (later Ulan Bator), and remained to establish the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. For the next generation, Moscow monopolized Mongolia's diplomatic and trade relations to the exclusion of all foreigners, and particularly the Chinese. Mongolia's wool and hides went westward to Russia, in exchange for a trickle of manufactured goods and swarms of political instructors. The Russians introduced their own Cyrillic alpha bet; Buddhist lamas and a few rich herders were persecuted to "free" the masses for membership in the new cooperatives.

This imposed revolution aroused so much resistance and violence that four of the Republic's first six Soviet-picked Premiers were executed or murdered.

Communists Compete. For six years after the Communists took power in China, Peking was too busy and too poor to try to reassert China's influence over its ancient colony and onetime conqueror.

Then, in 1955, the Chinese flung a chal lenge at their Russian competitors. They sent 10,000 Chinese workers and technicians to Ulan Bator, and promised more.

The aroused Russians responded with an increase in their aid and trade with Mongolia, culminating in a sweeping agreement in 1957 "giving" Mongolia two air fields, $25 million worth of assorted industrial equipment already in the country, and promising 2,500 tractors, 550 harvesters and 3,000 trucks.

In 1958 China countered with a $25 million loan to Mongolia.

In 1959 Russia came back with 550 more tractors, 350 harvesters and an appropriate number of technicians for an immense virgin-lands program.

In May 1960, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai himself came to Ulan Bator and signed a treaty providing for $50 million in long-term loans to build a cotton mill, a sheet-glass factory, a 10,000-ton steel mill, an irrigation system, a circus, and a project for 240,000 square meters of apartment housing for Ulan Bator.

Within weeks the Russians upped the ante with $150 million m credits and the necessary labor to build an oil refinery, a wool-carding plant, several power plants and some other industrial projects, along with a moratorium on $60 million of old debts.

All this outside aid has made striking changes in Mongolia. The sweeping mile-high plateau between the snowy Altai mountains and the Gobi desert is now gashed with gang-plowed collective fields, which have yielded so well that last year Mongolia was able to export grain. The trans-Mongolian railroad's locomotives spew sparks among the golden buttercups and tiny scarlet lilies of some of the world's finest pasture land, where for centuries the sturdy Mongolian ponies had been the fastest means of transportation. A quarter of the country's million-odd inhabitants have deserted their hide-covered tents for apartments in modern Ulan Bator (pop. 180,000) and four other 10,000-plus cities. Some 100,000 Mongolian children and adults are in school. Though its 21 million head of horses, camels, goats, yaks and sheep (now nearly 80% collectively owned ) remain the center of its economy. Mongolia is beginning to produce oil, coal, textiles and metals.

Broader Horizons. Mongolia's Premier Yumzhagiin Tsedenbal has dexterously used his pivotal position to try to acquire the status of an independent nation. He sent a Mongolian trade mission to Czechoslovakia last month to buy Czech machinery and equipment. Another delegation in Tokyo concluded a deal swapping Japanese machinery and equipment for animal products. Mongolia has established diplomatic relations not only with all the nations of the Soviet bloc, but also with such neutrals as India. Nepal, Burma. Yugoslavia. Cambodia and Guinea, and is bidding actively for U.S. recognition and U.N. membership.

Undoubtedly, Outer Mongolia is a Communist satellite. The question seems to be: Whose?

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