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Soviet involvement in regime change

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Soviet involvement in regime change

Soviet involvement in regime change entailed both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments. In the 1920s, the nascent Soviet Union intervened in multiple governments primarily in Asia, acquiring the territory of Tuva and making Mongolia into a satellite state. During World War II, the Soviet Union helped overthrow many puppet regimes of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, including in East Asia and much of Europe. Soviet forces were also instrumental in ending the rule of Adolf Hitler over Germany.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet government struggled with the United States for global leadership and influence within the context of the Cold War. It expanded the geographic scope of its actions beyond its traditional area of operations. In addition, the Soviet Union and Russia engaged in foreign electoral intervention in the national elections of many countries. One study indicated that the Soviet Union and Russia engaged in 36 interventions in foreign elections from 1946 to 2000.

The Soviet Union ratified the UN Charter in 1945, the preeminent international law document, which legally bound the Soviet government to the Charter's provisions, including Article 2(4), which prohibits the threat or use of force in international relations, except in very limited circumstances. Therefore, any legal claim advanced to justify regime change by a foreign power carries a particularly heavy burden.

The U.S. government examined cases of Soviet interventions within the context of international law, specifically the interpretation of the UN Charter in view of sovereignty and the use of force. Some cases have been discussed in official U.S. documentation.

The Mongolian Revolution of 1911 saw Mongolia declare independence from the Qing dynasty in China, ruled by Bogd Khan. In 1912, the Qing dynasty collapsed into the Republic of China. In 1915, Russia and China signed the Kyatha agreement, making it autonomous. However, when the Russian Civil War broke out, China, working with Mongolian aristocrats, retook Mongolia in 1919. At the same time the Russian Civil War raged on and the White Army were, by 1921, beginning to lose to the Red Army. One of the commanders, Roman Ungern Von Sternberg, saw this and decided to abandon the White Army with his forces. He led his army into Mongolia in 1920, and conquered it completely by February 1921, putting Bogd Khan back into power.

The Bolsheviks had been worried about Sternberg and, at the request of the Mongolian People's Party, invaded Mongolia in August 1921 helping with the Mongolian Revolution of 1921. The Soviets moved from many directions and captured many locations in the country. Sternberg fought back and marched into the USSR but he was captured and killed by the Soviets on 15 September 1921. The Soviets kept Bogd Khan in power, as a constitutional monarch, hoping to keep good relations with China, while continuing to occupy the country. However, when Bogd Khan died in 1924, the Mongolian Revolutionary government declared that no reincarnations shall be accepted and set up the People's Republic of Mongolia which would exist in power until 1992.

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the 1911 Revolution, the province of Tannu Uriankhai became independent, and was then made a protectorate of the Russian empire. During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army created the Tuvan People's Republic. It was located in between Mongolia and the USSR and was only recognized by the two countries. Their Prime Minister was Donduk Kuular, a former Lama with many ties to the Lamas present in the country. He tried to put his country on a Theocratic and Nationalistic path, tried to sow closer ties with Mongolia, and made Buddhism the state religion. He was also resistant to the collectivization policies of the Soviet Union. This was alarming and irritating to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union's leader.

The Soviet Union would set the ground for a coup. They encouraged the "Revolutionary Union of Youth" movement, and educated many of them at Communist University of the Toilers of the East. In January 1929, five youths educated at the school would launch a coup with Soviet support and depose Kuular, imprisoning and later executing him. Salchak Toka would become the new head of the country. Under the new government, collectivization policies were implemented. A purge was launched in the country against aristocrats, Buddhists, intellectuals, and other political dissidents, which would also see the destruction of many monasteries.

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