Outer Mongolia originally included present-day Mongolia, the Republic of Tuva, the former Kobdo region in northeastern Kazakhstan, most of the Altai Territory of Russia, the Republic of Khakassia, and parts of the Kemerovo Oblast.
Overall, the whole of Outer Mongolia should have more than 1.8 million square kilometers. However, with the continuous encroachment of Tsarist Russia, only 1.56 million square kilometers of Mongolia remained in our stereotyped impression of Mongolia.
Other areas are less sophisticated, but the 170,000-square-kilometer Tangnu-Ulianghai region was a large piece of land that was illegally incorporated by the Soviet Union in 1944. The Soviet Union seized the land without signing any treaty with China, so it was completely illegal.
So the question is, since the Soviet Union could eat Tangnu Ulianghai, why didn't it just eat Outer Mongolia next door? Anyway, they all did such shameless things, and it was not impossible to be shameless at all, right?
There are quite a few settlements of ethnic Russians in the Tangnu-Ulianghai
Beginning in 1896, Tsarist Russia gradually began to implement the Yellow Russian Plan, that is, it intended to gradually Russify the territory north of the Great Wall. In order to do this, it is necessary to move a large number of Russians to these areas.
With the successful case of the Outer Northeast region, Tsarist Russia did the same and began to transfer ethnic Russians to the Tangnu-Ulianghai region in batches. These ethnic Russians gradually established a series of settlements in the Tangnu-Ulianghai region.
By 1911, there were at least 5,000 Russians in Tangnu-Ulianghai. These people had a huge amount of money in their hands, bought land in the local area, and gradually became local landlords.
In addition, the Tsarist authorities also used coercion and inducement to force some local nobles to turn to Tsarist Russia, and Tsarist Russia thus obtained the right to open mines in Tangnu Ulianghai.
For this reason, Tsarist Russia gradually had control over Tangnu Ulianghai, which also made the life of the local people in Tangnu Ulianghai gradually inseparable from trade with Tsarist Russia.
Although the foundation laid here during the Tsarist period did not allow Tsarist Russia to truly own the Tangnu-Ulianghai before 1917, it laid the foundation for the Soviet Union to seize this region in the future.
After the fall of Tsarist Russia in 1917, the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union gradually replaced its dominant position and slowly took control of the entire territory of Russia. In the eyes of the Soviets, there were many Russian settlements in the Tangnu-Ulianghai, so this was the inherent territory of Russia, and naturally it was under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union.
However, the direct annexation did damage the image of the country, so the Soviet Union has been de-sinicizing the Tangnu-Ulianghai and changing its appearance.
- In 1921, with the support of Soviet Russia, Tangnu Ulianghai declared independence, and at the same time, Soviet Russia declared that it would not annex the region. But the region has been renamed the Republic of Donutua.
- In 1925, the USSR established so-called diplomatic relations with the Republic of Donutova, and at the same time signed a treaty of friendship. In fact, the region has always been under the rule of the Soviet Union.
- In 1926, the Republic of Tangutova officially announced that it would be renamed the Tuva People's Republic after a vote. By this point, the region had completely lost the shadow of the Chinese-style place name of Tangnu Ulianghai under the command of the Soviet Union.
- In 1941, the Tuva People's Republic took part in the Great Patriotic War of the USSR. In 1944, the Tuva People's Republic held a meeting in the strong hope that the Soviet Union would accept them. As a result, in 1944, the Soviet Union "reluctantly" took the region into its pocket.
In the decades that followed, the Tangnu-Ulianghai region was largely in the hands of the Soviet Union and Russia.
On the other hand, the situation in Outer Mongolia is more special, there were no large number of Russians immigrating to Outer Mongolia during the Tsarist period, they only funded some nobles in Outer Mongolia and let them go out to work alone. Therefore, during the Soviet period, there was no local mass base, so naturally Outer Mongolia could not be compared with the Tangnu-Ulianghai region.
Outer Mongolia is a buffer between China and the Soviet Union, and it is also a bargaining chip for the East
In 1911, Outer Mongolia also received the support of Tsarist Russia and embarked on the road to independence. Although Xu Shuzheng briefly recovered this place during the Beiyang period, due to the civil strife in Beiyang, Xu Shuzheng hurriedly withdrew his troops, which led to the fact that this place was exploited by Soviet Russia.
In 1921, with the support of Soviet Russia, Outer Mongolia also announced that it would go it alone. But before 1945, the independence of Outer Mongolia was never recognized by the international community, except for the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union's management of Mongolia is very mysterious. During those decades, Outer Mongolia became almost a region of seclusion, with no contact with other countries.
In 1945, the situation changed, and as World War II drew to a close, the Soviet Union was definitely the big winner in the European theater, and it was time to share the cake.
But they did not declare war on Japan in Asia, and on the Asian battlefield, the Chinese side had just experienced a major defeat, and at this time the Soviet Union had plans to go to the East to reap some benefits.
At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin set out a series of conditions for declaring war on Japan. One of the most important is to maintain the status quo in Outer Mongolia.
In other words, even if China becomes a victorious country after the end of World War II, it will not be able to recover Outer Mongolia, but will maintain the status quo of Outer Mongolia's independence and let it continue to act as a client state of the Soviet Union.
Stalin admitted that this was done for one purpose, to make Outer Mongolia a buffer zone between China and the Soviet Union. Because once there is a powerful force that goes north from Outer Mongolia into the hinterland of the Soviet Union and cuts off the Trans-Siberian Railway, won't the Soviet Union be finished?
The Soviet Union's consideration was to look at the problem entirely from its own point of view. Therefore, for them, Outer Mongolia may be a buffer between China and the Soviet Union, but for us, Outer Mongolia has become a base for the Soviet Union to move south at any time.
Because on the so-called buffer ground, 100,000 Soviet troops are stationed in peacetime, and at the most critical time, hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops are even stationed, and there is a plan for the army to go south at any time.
It can be seen from this that the so-called buffer zone of Outer Mongolia has become an important weight for the Soviet Union to control the East. If the East is obedient, then there are only 100,000 Soviet troops in Outer Mongolia to deter it, and if it is not obedient, then hundreds of thousands of millions of Soviet troops have gone south from here.
The Soviet Union was also worried about pushing the East into a hurry
Although the Soviet Union reached its peak of international standing after World War II and became one of the two superpowers. But after all, it's only one of them, so they also need to give Britain and the United States enough face.
If the Soviet Union rashly eats all of Outer Mongolia, it will first offend China, and secondly, it will cause panic in the international community, including Britain and the United States, and it will suffer all kinds of condemnations and even sanctions. At that time, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were still allied, and the Soviet Union did not want to easily undermine this alliance.
For China, the Soviet Union's devouring of Outer Mongolia was a simple and crude act of aggression against its own territory. Once China completely broke with the Soviet Union for the sake of this territory and completely fell in favor of the United States, it would be more than worth the loss for the Soviet Union. I can't beat you, can't I call someone to help beat you?
For this reason, the Soviet Union felt that the independence of Outer Mongolia from the Soviet Union was a relatively desirable result. After all, this independence is relative, and the Soviet Union has absolute control over Outer Mongolia, which is incomparable to any other country.
Isn't it enough to have actual control, so why should we care about those false names? Besides, if we eat Outer Mongolia, can't we spend a lot of money to support the development here? Looking at the vast desert of Outer Mongolia, the Soviet leaders let out a long sigh: I can't make it, I can't make it at all.
The focus of the Soviet Union's work is still in the West
During the Tsarist era, they always wanted to expand their territory in the West, they marched to the Baltic Sea, to the Black Sea coast, to the heart of Europe. The aim was to gain territory for all of Eastern Europe and all of Europe.
However, its strength was limited, and when it marched into the Balkans on the western shore of the Black Sea, Tsarist Russia suffered a major defeat. In 1856, after the defeat of the Crimean War, Tsarist Russia had to turn to the east and began to focus on occupying the lands of the east.
The effect was obvious, and in just 30 years, Tsarist Russia acquired more than 5.5 million square kilometers of land in the East. By 1881, Tsarist Russia had become a vast empire with 22.88 million square kilometers of land, of which the Asian part contributed about three-quarters.
However, Tsarist Russia has always been concerned about the West, and they feel that it is good to forcibly occupy land in the East, but it is a dimensionality reduction attack. The land in the east can be occupied at any time, but the land in the west is too difficult to grab.
During the Soviet period, although they also seized Tangnu Ulianghai and Outer Mongolia in the east, they still focused their work on the west.
They successively occupied the three Baltic states, most of Poland, part of Finland, and part of Romania. This was not enough, and after World War II, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact to counter NATO.
Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and other countries in the Warsaw Pact were all younger brothers of the Soviet Union.
To do this, the Soviets needed to spend a lot of manpower, material resources and energy, so they could not shift their focus to the East.
They are satisfied with holding Outer Mongolia as a strategic location, and if there is another incident here, then they may not be able to continue to expand their sphere of influence in the West. In other words, they have always believed that since ancient times, the East has only been their supply depot and has no threat to them. And the West is the core of their interests, and if they are not careful, they may be harmed by these Western guys.