Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014, 257 p., ill.¹

At the beginning of the XX century. Mongolia was a Buddhist country where the clergy made up a significant part of the population, there were thousands of temples and other places of worship. During the construction of socialism, the church in Mongolia was destroyed, a significant part of the clergy was repressed, and most religious buildings were destroyed.

The author of the book, Christopher Kaplonsky , is a British Mongol scholar who actively studies the topic of political repression during the construction of socialism in the MNR. A peer-reviewed book summarizing the results of his research. It consists of an introduction, three parts, a conclusion, comments, a list of sources, and an index.

The Introduction sets out the methodology of the study, in particular the relationship between the acquisition of legitimacy by the new government of Mongolia and the"Lama issue". Kaplonski notes that this issue has never been precisely defined, but has been understood as the influence of lamas and monasteries on politics, economics, and everyday life. The lack of a clear definition made it possible to apply this designation to very different situations. The author applies the terms "state", "government" and "socialists" to the MPR interchangeably (p. 18). A detailed historical and philosophical discussion of the term "exception" is given (mainly based on the concept of the "state of exception" by the philosopher J. R. R. Tolkien). Agamben), a description of the author's work in Mongolian archives and in the field.

Chapters 3-6 are combined into Part I, "The First Exclusion Technology: Constructing a New One," Chapters 7 and 8 are combined into Part 2, "The Second Exclusion Technology: Ineffective Persuasion and Coordination," and Chapters 9 and 10 are combined into Part 3, "The Third Exclusion Technology: Turning to Violence, Destruction, and Worldliness." Let's briefly review the contents of the chapters.

Chapter 1 "Exclusion, Controllability, and Conditional State Technologies" discusses the theoretical basis of the work, justifies the use of each of these three technologies in different periods. The author uses the term "contingent state" for the MNR, since "socialist Mongolia was not a well-established, undisputed state, widely recognized as legitimate by the majority of the population" (p.28). It's hard to agree with that. In the 1920s and 1930s, socialism was still being built in Mongolia. Apparently, this is what is meant (especially since the author points out that if there were socialists among the early revolutionaries, then very few p.26). Further, although the legitimacy of the MPRP government in the eyes of the population was not indisputable, there was a consensus among the Mongols to recognize Mongolia's legitimacy as an independent State.

Chapter 2, " The Geopolitics of Exclusion, "discusses the geopolitics of the USSR and Japan in the context of the internal factors that determined the" Lama question " in the MNR. The article describes the status of Outer Mongolia in the Qing Empire and briefly describes the structure of society. The author calls the Arats (simple pastoralists) who worked for the church as its students - Shabinars - "serfs of church estates" (p. 47). This is a common but erroneous stereotype: the status of shabinars was radically different from that of serfs, for example, in Western Europe or Russia. The term "living god" widely used in Chinese and Western popular science literature in reference to the reborn lama is also incorrect (p.47, passim). In Buddhism, there are no gods in the European sense, and reborn lamas are reincarnations of prominent religious figures or emanations of bodhisattvas.

Kaplonsky addresses the question of the role of the Soviet leadership in determining the MNR's policy. One of the paragraphs is devoted to why "an old scientist in Mongolia" pointed out to him that Soviet control was underestimated: the Soviets acted so as not to leave traces, their representatives adopted Mongolian names to make it difficult to search in archives, etc. (p. 49). It should be noted that there are many such "traces" - important documents on this topic-in the Russian archives (primarily in the RGASPI, AWPRF, RGVA). However, the author used only Russian-language materials published in English or Mongolian translations. Possible,

¹ Kaplonski K. Lamsky vopros [The Lamsky question]. Violence, sovereignty, and exclusion in early Socialist Mongolia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2014, 257 p., 6 figs.

As a result of this incompleteness of information, he underestimated the influence of the Bolshevik leadership on events in the MNR.

Kaplonski underestimates the role of M. P. Frinovsky in organizing repressions in the MNR, probably because he is not aware of a number of important documents on this topic, for example, about his role in organizing the Troika in Mongolia [RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 22, l. 7].

It is difficult to agree with the author that the" left bias " in the MPR, which began in 1928, "appears to be purely internal in origin" (p. 56). There are documents of the Comintern, which show that it was he who ensured the coming to power of the "leftists" and this "deviation" itself [Kuzmin, Oyunchimeg, 2014, pp. 12-39, 115-128].

At the same time, we can agree with Kaplonsky that shifting all the blame for the repression of Lamas to Stalin allows some Mongols to remove the blame from X. Choibalsan, and with the MNE as "the most repressed party" in that period (p. 51). But the responsibility for repressions lies not only with their main organizers, but also with those forces in the MPR who fulfilled their "wishes".

Kaplonsky points out that the independence of the MNR at that time was also manifested in the fact that the USSR recognized China's sovereignty over the MNR, but kept troops there on the basis of agreements with the latter, entered into other contractual relations with it, bypassing China. We can agree with the author that this was the result of contracts, not directives. But one thing does not exclude the other: the USSR supported independence, which was the choice of the Mongolian people, at the cost of following in line with Soviet policy.

Chapter 3, " Women, literacy, and other dangerous things, "provides an overview of the problems of education (particularly for women) in the 1920s and discusses the relationship of the" Lama question " to culture, politics, and Mongolian society in general. It is noted that the struggle for universal literacy had two goals: building socialism (in which everyone should be able to read and write) and combating the influence of monasteries as centers of power (where education was previously concentrated). It should be noted that it was not "the Socialists who replaced the brief reign of Baron Ungern-von-Sternberg" (p. 66), but the MNE who replaced the absolute theocratic monarchy: The MNP was not a Socialist party in 1921, the baron's name was von Ungern-Sternberg, and when he was in Mongolia, in fact and legally, power there belonged to Bogdo Khan and his theocratic government.

Chapter 4," Counting (on) the living gods " is titled as a pun: the population's hopes for reborn lamas (Kublgans) or their census by the authorities. The author's task here was not to build a chronology and list of measures taken by the authorities, but to study the "limiting conditions of controllability processes". The article discusses the applicability of the concept of "exclusion states" to Mongolia and the "exclusion technologies" derived from it - actions of the authorities in which certain social groups (in this case, the clergy) are deprived of legislative protection. Applying these concepts to Hutukts and Khubilgans, the author believes that their role in the 1920s was too great for "exclusion", and therefore they were included in the system, and later were "excluded"from it.

Chapter 5 "Samdan, the Special Commission and the rule of law". It discusses the trials of Samdan and several other lamas. They were tried in the early 1930s, then released, then arrested again in the late 1930s and shot. The author shows how different "exception" technologies worked. The Samdana process is compared to the well-known Eregdendagva process.

Chapter 6, "Uprisings, War, and Consequences," discusses the uprisings and conspiracies of the early 1930s as a consequence of the"left course." Special attention is paid to major uprisings. The author rightly points out that the largest uprising in the MNR in 1932 was a civil war (p.6, 122), briefly describes its course and the subsequent trial of the rebels. Based on his field research, Kaplonski notes that the brutality of government troops in the suppression of the 1932 uprising was not recorded, while the brutality of the rebels was used by official propaganda.

Chapter 7 " Surveillance and control. Religious Administration and Government Representatives " is dedicated to the system of government control of monasteries. First of all, we are talking about commissions of different levels and different subordination (MPRP and the government), which were engaged in monitoring the activities of monasteries and conducting the party's course there. The chapter contains a number of interesting examples from Mongolian archival data.

Chapter 8, "The Story of Two Lamas: Gonchigjantsan and Agwanjamyan" (Jamyandiva) provides two examples of how the "exclusion technology"was used. Discussing positions

On the "Lama question" of J. V. Stalin and P. Genden, Kaplonsky suggested that the latter was trying to avoid direct confrontation with the church, fearing that in this case the victory would come at too high a price.

Chapter 9, "Chon-hambo and the Central Counter-Revolutionary Group," deals with the largest trial of lamas in the MNR, marking the transition to " violent technology." The biography, interrogations, and trial of Chon-hambo Luvsanhaimchig, a former teacher of Bogdo - gegen VIII and one of the most influential lamas in the MNR in the 1930s, are discussed, and separate testimonies of other high lamas who were defendants in this trial are given. This is preceded by a brief description of the previous trial - over the lamas of the Eguzerkhutukhty monastery.

Chapter 10 " Closed and destroyed monasteries. Consequences " is dedicated to the repression, closure of monasteries and seizure of their property by the state. Kaplonski describes physical violence during the period of repression as the third and final "technology of exclusion". Previously, it was used, but on a smaller scale. A number of valuable archival information about the liquidation of monasteries, as well as some interesting stories, are given.

The conclusion "Violence and the conditional state" contains generalizations and philosophical conclusions from the presented material. One of them is that the inevitability of violence against the Mongolian clergy was not caused either by the lack of any other choice than the pressure of the Soviets, or by the" evil actions " of the Buddhists, who left no alternative.

The author offers a different, rather vague explanation: "Mass murder was resorted to because, given a variety of factors, including external pressure, in the late 1930s accommodation with Buddhists was no longer the same choice as it had been a decade earlier; in any case, Buddhists showed no real desire for compromise, and other forms of violence they didn't work. If the socialists were to achieve their goal of a new society free of what they - like very few Mongols, including the Lamas - saw as the despotic old way, one way or another the ladies ' question had to be answered <...> The Socialists did not turn to physical violence in the first place. Only after everything else failed did they turn to mass murder, and then it was a concrete form of violence wrapped up in the implementation of the rule of law. Even at the end of the ladies 'question, there was an attempt to normalize and curb the exception" (pp. 229-230).

Taking into account the author's philosophical approach, we use Occam's razor: you should not multiply the number of entities unnecessarily. That is, all other things being equal, the best explanation is the simplest. When applied to the MNR, this means that without external support, it would inevitably be captured by China. To avoid this, the MPRP had no alternative to relying on Soviet aid. The price of this in the 1920s and 1930s was meekly following the instructions of the CPSU (b) and the Comintern. The Buddhist religion had no place in the Stalinist system. Therefore, what was needed was not a compromise with the church, but measures to weaken it while the MPRP was still too weak to eliminate it. When the power of the MPRP was sufficiently strong and the church sufficiently weakened, the MPRP authorities, on the instructions and with the direct participation of the Bolsheviks, destroyed the church. Violence was not inevitable because Buddhists rejected compromise. The Bolsheviks considered the church an enemy, and a "compromise" with it could only be made according to the well-known thesis of M. Gorky: if the enemy does not surrender, it is destroyed. This was done in the MPR.

Such a detailed discussion of those conclusions that are difficult to agree with does not detract from the merits of the book. Kaplonski introduces a number of important sources to scientific use for the first time, and a number of unique materials are very useful and interesting. The book is written not as a detailed history of relations between the authorities and the church in the MNR of the 1920s and 1930s, but as a classification and philosophical and sociological understanding of the "technologies" of the struggle between the authorities and the Buddhist Church in the MNR. This is the novelty and undoubted value of a peer-reviewed book.

list of literature

- AVPRF Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. Moscow.

Kuzmin S. L., Oyunchimeg Zh. Социализмын эсрэг 1932 оны Монгол дахь бослого. Улаанбаатар: Монхийн Усэг, 2014.

- RGASPI Russian Archive of Socio-Political History. Moscow.

RGVA - Russian State Military Archive. Moscow.

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