When Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the USSR had practically no allied states that would unequivocally support the country in the confrontation with German Nazism. Besides the USSR, by 1941 there were only two countries in the world that adhered to the socialist path of development and were closely connected with the Soviet Union. These were the Mongolian People's Republic and the Tuvan People's Republic.
Mongolia, and Tuva by the beginning of the 1940s. were economically underdeveloped and sparsely populated countries that received a lot of assistance from the Soviet Union and were themselves far from the best situation. But they were the first to side with the USSR. On June 22, 1941, the 10th Great Khural of the Tuvan People's Republic unanimously adopted the Declaration of full support for the Soviet Union. Tuva became the first foreign state to enter the war on the side of the Soviet Union. On June 25, 1941, the Tuvan People's Republic declared war on Nazi Germany.
On June 22, 1941, a meeting of the Presidium of the People's Khural and the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party took place, at which the leadership of the MPR made an unequivocal decision to help the Soviet Union in the fight against German Nazism. In September 1941, the government of the Mongolian People's Republic created the Central Commission for Assistance to the Red Army, and its local units appeared in every city, aimak and somon of Mongolia. The work of the commissions involved government officials, party and youth activists. But the main role in collecting aid was undoubtedly played by the most ordinary citizens of the MPR - ordinary working people.
Throughout the war, Mongolia sent horses, foodstuffs to the front, paid for the construction of tanks and aircraft. Her help was enormous, despite the country's limited capacity. First of all, Mongolia helped the Soviet Union with the products of its agriculture - the main branch of the country's economy. Mongolia handed over to the Soviet Union 500 thousand Mongolian horses, distinguished by their strength, endurance and unpretentiousness. Another 32 thousand horses were donated by Mongolian arats - cattle breeders as voluntary donations. Mongolian horses were actively used as a draft force, especially for the needs of artillery units. The excellent qualities of Mongolian horses were noted, in particular, by General Issa Pliev, who emphasized that the unpretentious Mongol horse, together with Soviet tanks, reached Berlin in the spring of 1945. In fact, every fifth horse that participated in the war as part of the Red Army was transferred to the Soviet Union by Mongolia.
Already in October 1941, the first echelon with food and clothing - soldiers' belts, woolen sweaters, short fur coats, fur vests, gloves and mittens, blankets - went to the Soviet Union. Together with the train, a delegation of Mongolian workers arrived in the USSR, headed by Deputy Prime Minister of the MPR Lubsan and Secretary of the Central Committee of the MPR Sukhbataryn Yanzhmaa (widow of the leader of the Mongolian revolution Sukhe Bator). The Mongolian delegation was received by the command of the Western Front, visited the location of units and subunits.
In just four years of the Great Patriotic War, Mongolia transferred to the Soviet Union, in addition to horses, 700 thousand.heads of cattle, 4, 9 million heads of small ruminants. Mongolian aid made a great contribution to the food and clothing supply of the Red Army - almost 500 thousand tons of meat, 64 thousand tons of wool, 6 million pieces of small leather raw materials were supplied to the USSR. Of course, the Soviet Union paid off with Mongolia with the supply of other goods, but in general, the help of the steppe neighbors was very significant. For example, it was Mongolia that was the main supplier of sheepskin, from which officers' short fur coats were sewn for the needs of the commanding staff of the Red Army. Overcoats for soldiers and sergeants of the Red Army were made from Mongolian wool.
After calculations, it turned out that little Mongolia supplied the Soviet Union with more wool and meat during the war years than the United States of America. If we talk, for example, about the supply of wool, then 54 thousand tons of wool were supplied from the USA during the war years, and from Mongolia - 64 thousand tons of wool. This is a very impressive difference, given the colossal gap between the United States and Mongolia in terms of territory, population, and resource opportunities. When they say now that without American help it would be much more difficult for the USSR to win the war, they forget about the discrepancy between the scale of American Lend-Lease and Mongolian supplies. If Mongolia had the scale and capabilities of the United States, then it is possible that Hitler would have been defeated in the very first months of the war.
Dozens of trains from Mongolia went to the Soviet Union. 30,115 sheepskin coats made of fine sheepskin, 30,500 pairs of felt boots, 31,257 pairs of fur mittens, 31,090 fur vests, 33,300 soldiers' belts, 2,011 fur blankets, 2,290 woolen sweatshirts, 316 tons of meat, 26,758 carcasses of gazelles, 12, 9 tons of berry jam, 84, 8 tons of sausage, 92 tons of butter - this is a list of the contents of only one of the echelons traveling from Mongolia to the Soviet Union. Ordinary Mongols - cattle breeders, workers, office workers - collected funds for arming Soviet units, sent food, sweaters or mittens knitted with their own hands. The collection of aid to the Red Army was centralized and was established by the Mongolian government.
Mongolia helped the USSR not only with food and clothing. A fundraiser was organized for armaments for the Red Army. Already in January 1942, the session of the Small Khural of the Mongolian People's Republic made a decision to acquire, at the expense of donations from the Mongol arats, workers and employees, the tank column "Revolutionary Mongolia". Fundraising was very active. By February 1942, a large amount of funds had been collected - 2.5 million Mongolian tugriks, 100 thousand American dollars and 300 kg of gold, which in total corresponded to 3.8 million Soviet rubles. The Mongolian People's Republic transferred this money to the USSR Vneshtorgbank for the needs of building a tank column. On January 12, 1943, the Mongolian government delegation led by Marshal Khorlogiyn Choibalsan, who arrived in the Moscow region, handed over 32 T-34 tanks and 21 T-70 tanks to the command of the 112th Red Banner Tank Brigade. The commander of the 112th Tank Brigade, Andrei Getman, also received a fur coat donated by a teacher from Ulan Bator named Tserenglan. The 112th Tank Brigade was renamed the 44th Guards Red Banner Tank Brigade "Revolutionary Mongolia". It is noteworthy that the Mongolian side also assumed full food and clothing support for the tank brigade "Revolutionary Mongolia".
Mongolia's aid to the Soviet Union did not stop at a tank column. A new fundraiser was organized - this time for the construction of a squadron of Mongolian Arat aircraft. On July 22, 1943, the Prime Minister of the Mongolian People's Republic Choibalsan informed Joseph Stalin that the Mongolian People's Republic was donating 2 million tugriks for the construction of 12 La-5 combat aircraft for the Mongolian Arat aviation squadron. On August 18, Stalin thanked the Mongolian leadership for their help, and on September 25, 1943, in the Smolensk region, at the field airfield of Vyazovaya station, a ceremonial transfer of aircraft to the 2nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 322nd Fighter Aviation Division took place. In addition to the transferred aircraft, Mongolia, according to an established tradition, took on the task of providing food and clothing for the Mongolian Arat air squadron until the end of the war.
Of course, one should not forget that the management system in the Mongolian People's Republic at that time was tough, taking an example from the Soviet one, and such a huge scale of assistance was the result not only of the fraternal impulse of the Mongols, but also of the general mobilization nature of the Mongolian economy. It is known that in some regions of the Mongolian People's Republic the volume of domestic consumption of foodstuffs and other goods has decreased. And, nevertheless, many Mongols not only sent the products of their labor to the USSR, but also volunteered for the Red Army. During the Great Patriotic War, thousands of Mongolian volunteers fought in the Red Army. The Mongols served as snipers and scouts, fought as part of the cavalry units of the Red Army.
In the forefront of Mongolians leaving for the front were Russians - Soviet citizens living in the country. In the north of the country there were 9 Russian villages, in addition, a significant number of Russians lived in Ulan Bator. Of the 22,000 Russian population of Mongolia, including women, old people and children, 5,000 people went to the front - almost all men from 17 to 50 years old. The military commissariat, through which the call for military service in the Red Army was carried out, was located in Ulan Bator. About half of Mongolian Russians did not return from the front, and there is no information about cases of desertion. Assistance to the families of Russians who went to the front from Mongolia was provided by the government of the Mongolian People's Republic, which for this purpose adopted a special resolution on the payment of benefits to the families of military personnel.
Attention should also be paid to another aspect of Mongolian aid to the Soviet Union. It is known that due to the constant threat of Japan's attack on the Far East, the Soviet leadership was forced to maintain a huge armed force in the Far East region, numbering about a million troops. In this situation, Mongolia was the main ally of the USSR in the region, which, if something happened, could provide assistance in repelling the aggression of imperialist Japan. This was well understood by the Mongolian leadership, which quadrupled the size of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army and stepped up the combat training of personnel, including the training of Mongolian command personnel in Soviet military schools.
On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan. Two days later, on August 10, 1945, the Mongolian People's Republic also declared war on Japan. The MNRA units were to act together with the Red Army on the fronts of the Far East. In Mongolia, a general mobilization began, which, given the small population of the country, affected almost all men in the MPR. MHRA units and formations were included in the Mechanized Cavalry Group of the Trans-Baikal Front, commanded by Colonel-General Issa Aleksandrovich Pliev.
As part of the group, positions were introduced for the Mongolian senior officers - Lieutenant General Jamyan Lhagvasuren became the deputy commander for the Mongolian troops, and Lieutenant General Yumzhagiin Tsedenbal became the head of the political department of the Mongolian troops. The Mongolian formations of Pliev's group included the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th cavalry divisions of the MNRA, the 7th motorized armored brigade of the MNRA, the 3rd separate tank regiment and the 29th artillery regiment of the MNRA. In total, the mechanized cavalry formations of the MHRA numbered 16 thousand personnel, brought together in 4 cavalry and 1 aviation divisions, a motorized armored brigade, tank and artillery regiments, and a communications regiment. Another 60 thousand Mongolian servicemen served in other units and formations at the front, and the rest of the forces were in the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic proper - in reserve and in rear operations.
The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army took the most active part in the Manchurian operation, losing about 200 people. On September 2, 1945, Japan signed an act of surrender. For Mongolia, the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II were accompanied by an epochal event - the world officially recognized the independence of the Mongolian state, which was preceded by the consent of China, which had previously claimed Outer Mongolia, to hold a referendum. October 20, 1945 99.99% of the Mongols voted for the political independence of Mongolia. True, China recognized the political sovereignty of the Mongolian People's Republic only four years later, after the Chinese communists had won the final victory in the civil war.
Both countries still keep the memory of how the Soviet Union and Mongolia fought shoulder to shoulder. For a long time, while the veterans of the Great Patriotic War were alive and relatively young, solemn meetings were held for veterans of the tank column "Revolutionary Mongolia" and the air squadron "Mongolian Arat", veterans of military operations in Manchuria. Mongolian delegations take part in the celebration of the next anniversary of the Great Victory in Moscow. Speaking about the scale of assistance from foreign states to the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, in no case should we forget about the contribution that small Mongolia made to the victory over Nazi Germany.
