Page | 33them the ideas of perestroika (economic and political reconstruction) and glasnost
(openness and transparency).^169 Several of them soon organized a new reform movement.
Beginning in December 1989, the young protesters carried out demonstrations and
hunger strikes in Ulaanbaatar’s Sükhbaatar Square (named after one of the nationalist
leaders of Mongolia’s 1921 revolution).^170
By May 1990 the MPRP, which by this point contained several members sympathetic to
the protesters’ goals, had relented. Mongolia’s first multi-party elections took place in
July 1990. Some economic reforms, including the privatization of Mongolia’s livestock
herds, began thereafter, even though the MPRP retained control of the government after
the 1990 elections.
171, (^172) A new constitution passed in 1992 removed the last traces of the
socialist past, including the country’s name. The Mongolian People’s Republic was now
simply “Mongolia” once again.^173
Recent Events............................................................................................................
Mongolia’s transition to a market economy, which began in
1991, has been particularly difficult.^174 The nation’s long
economic dependence on assistance from the Soviet Union
caused immediate shocks in the early 1990s when Russia went
through its own economic troubles.^175 The MPRP-led
government also hesitated in carrying out the wrenching
economic changes necessary to retool the economy. In 1996,
Mongolian voters in turn showed their frustration by electing
Mongolia’s first non-MPRP government.^176
(^169) Morris Rossabi, “Chapter 1: Mongolia: A Peaceful Transition,” in Modern Mongolia: From Khans to
Commissars to Capitalists (Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 5.
(^170) Morris Rossabi, “Chapter 1: Mongolia: A Peaceful Transition,” in Modern Mongolia: From Khans to
Commissars to Capitalists (Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 1–2.
(^171) Morris Rossabi, “Chapter 5: Herders and the New Economy,” in Modern Mongolia: From Khans to
Commissars to Capitalists (Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 120.
(^172) Nicholas D. Kristof, “Mongols to Elect New Parliament With China Watching the Results,” New York
Times, 28 June 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/world/mongols-to-elect-new-parliament-with-
china-watching-the-results.html?ref=mongolia
(^173) Encyclopædia Britannica Online, “Mongolia: History: Mongolia Since 1900,” Larry William Moses,
2011, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/389335/Mongolia/27423/Internecine-strife
(^174) United Kingdom, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Mongolia Country Report,” 23 Feb. 2011,
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/asia-
oceania/mongolia/?profile=all
(^175) Nicholas D. Kristof, “Mongols, Ignored by Stepmother Russia, Are Left Adrift by Democracy, Too,”
New York Times, 5 July 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/05/world/mongols-ignored-by-stepmother-
russia-are-left-adrift-by-democracy-too.html?ref=mongolia&pagewanted=1
(^176) Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Mongolia,” 8
March 2011, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2779.htm