The Blue Revolution
From Kaiserreich
The Blue Revolution is a term used to describe the civil uprising that took place in Mongolia in May 1926 in opposition to Ungern von Sternberg's rule. The uprising was primarily instigated by an alliance between intellectuals, Buddhist monks, and minority regional leaders in Mongolia. The bloody aftermath of the uprising proved to enforce Sternberg's rule even further.
Blue Ideology
Supporters of the Blue revolution supported several referendums of change in Mongolia. They are shown as following:
- Democratization. This would mean that a national Khural, or parliament, would be elected to decide on national issues. Sternberg would still serve as Khaan, but with more limited abilities. The new system would be similar to the Kaiserreich system in Germany.
- Regional autonomy. Coupled with democratization, it would allow the local leaders greater say and allow for each region to chose a governor.
Causes of the Revolution
In the period after the end of the Russian Civil War, Sternberg began building Mongolia into a centralized empire based out of Urga. To make sure taxes and other dues were properly paid, Sternberg appointed governors, typically ethnic Mongols, to watch over the provinces. Despite these general functions, the governors were usually left with only a small garrison to guard the province against dissent.
The weakness of the governors provided many of the local tribal leaders to band together against the bureaucracy without much hassle. Another group that was able to organize against the local governments were the local intellectuals, based primarily in the former Russian provinces along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and in Urga proper. Along with many local lamaseries as support, the groups eventually banded together over the next couple of years. Many meetings took place in Kyzyl, a resistance stronghold. It was at one of these meetings where they decided to call the movement the "Blue Movement", as symbolism for the purity of the blue waters and skies of the Mongolia, seeing Sternberg's rule as "muddying up" the nation.
Typically, the Blue Revolution was a movement of minority groups in Mongolia. Tuvans, Russians, Kazakhs, Buryats, and Altai Turks were primarily in support of the Blues. Despite this, some of the Khalkha Mongols from Outer Mongolia, primarily from the Urga area, supported the Blue ideology.
At one of the meetings in Kyzyl on April 15th, it was decided to have a massive display of dissent in May 3rd, with demonstrations in regional capitals across the country, and even in Urga itself, followed by a signed declaration of their proposals for change to be delivered to Sternberg himself.
