Pastoral Nomadism in Mongolia: The Role of Herdsmen's Cooperatives in the National Economy

Abstract

For centuries the basic means of livelihood of the Mongolian people has been pastoral nomadism, the herding of five kinds of animals (horses, cattle, sheep, goats and camels) throughout the hilly steppes which lie between Siberia and the north Chinese plain. This paper is about the cooperative movement among Mongol herdsmen and the part it played in transforming the economy of the country. This theme issue is concerned with the future of native societies; it is impossible to predict the future from the past, but a discussion of the past can show the emergence of unexpected social developments as a result of decisions taken in the economy. It is this kind of development which I shall try to isolate in a description of the evolution of herdsmen's cooperatives; only in the last five years or so has it been possible to get an idea of the implications of full collectivization for the life of the Mongols, and even then Mongol society is changing so rapidly that yet other social forms are likely to emerge.Before the Socialist Revolution in Mongolia in 1921, and in fact for some time afterwards, the Mongolians found themselves in a typically 'colonial' situation.(i) They produced only raw materials (wool, meat, hides) for which there was an uncertain export market. As virtually all Mongolians engaged in production were herdsmen rather than artisans, cultivators or craftsmen, they had to import from China

Community, collective action and common grazing: The case of post‐socialist Mongolia

“…The second, some 70 years later, marked the onset of postsocialist economic and political transition [ADB, 1992;IBRD, 1992;Aubin, 1993;Collins and Nixson, 1993;Lee, 1993;Hahm, 1994]. During the first period (1921-91) Mongolia undertook the collectivisation of its rural economy along Soviet lines [Humphrey, 1978;Lattimore, 1980;Rosenberg, 1981;Mearns, 1991a], while decollectivisation has largely taken place in Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 21:36 03 February 2015 the period since 1991 [Potkanski, 1993;Swift and Mearns, 1993]. By the standards of transitional economies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Mongolia has undertaken extremely rapid structural reform: 'by the end of 1992, more than 80 per cent of the industrial, service, trade and agricultural sectors had been privatised, judged by both the number of enterprises and the amount of capital stock' [Korsun and Murrell, 1994: 2],…”

The Directions of the Development of the Kalmyk Nomadic Economy in the late XIX – Early XX Centuries

“…Some works were published, which touch on the general questions of history of nomadism and are of great theoretical and methodological interest for us (Bold, 1996;Martin. 2010;Vasjutin, 2003;Kradin, 2008;Zhang, Borjigin, Zhang, 2007;Humphrey, 1978). There are a large number of published statistical and legislative sources on the economic history of Kalmykia of this period, among which we should highlight the materials of the First national population census of the Russian Empire of 1897 (the First, 1899-1904), the military-horse censuses of 1901and 1912(Military-horse, 1902, 1914, a survey of the Kalmyk steppe of 1909 (Proceedings, 1910).…”

Decentralisation, Rural Livelihoods and Pasture-Land Management in Post-Socialist Mongolia

“…Significant changes in pasture-land management practice were introduced under collectivisation, including investments in water supply, winter shelters, hay and fodder production, and transportation for making nomadic moves, and species-specialisation in livestock production at the herder camp level [Humphrey, 1978]. While some of these changes partially displaced customary forms of collective action in herding, and tended to restrict seasonal nomadic moves within bag (then known as 'brigade') territories, they did not alter the basic seasonal rhythm of pasture-land use.…”