Yumjagiyn Tsedenbal; Mongolia’s Ex-Stalinist Leader

Mongolia’s former Stalinist leader, Yumjagiyn Tsedenbal, has died in Moscow, where he lived in exile and disgrace, the Foreign Ministry said last week.

He died April 20 at 74 of an unspecified illness.

A ministry official said Tsedenbal, son of a shepherd, was a teacher at Ulan Bator financial college before entering government service at 23.

Tsedenbal first ran Mongolia as premier in 1952. In 1958, he combined this with the post of Communist Party leader and 15 years later became head of state as well.

He was overthrown in 1984. He and his Russian-born wife spent the last seven years in Moscow as his health failed.

Tsedenbal was nicknamed by Mongolians “The Khan of Stagnation” for his disastrous economic policies. His rule was marked by almost total obedience to former Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Mongolia, nestled between China and the Soviet Union, had long been a Soviet client state with a strictly communist government until perestroika reforms began shaking the sleepy republic in the last several years.

Mongolia ended the Communist Party’s monopoly on power last year, opening up the political system to opposition parties and calling free elections. It has since tried to distance itself from the Soviet Union.

Most Mongolians say they resented Tsedenbal for allowing Soviet troops to use their vast land to confront the Chinese army along the southern border.