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MongoliaCivil-Military Relations
In the Mongol military tradition, all men were warriors, and
therefore military training was not confined to the regular army.
In the early days of the Mongolian People's Republic, before
universal military conscription, party and youth league members
received sporadic special military training in the reserve and in
physical culture detachments. Women were admitted to this
training on a voluntary basis. In 1929 the League for Assisting
the Defense Aims of the Mongolian State was established by the
party Central Committee; it was based on the Soviet Voluntary
Society for Cooperation with the Armed Forces. In 1942 the league
was reorganized as the People's Volunteer Self-Defense Detachment
and was used in home defense against the Japanese. In 1945, at
the end of World War II, it again was reorganized and renamed--
this time the Auxiliary Defense Organization. A 1975 decree of
the Political Bureau of the party Central Committee specifically
assigned the Auxiliary Defense Organization the task of fostering
patriotism and support for the army through sponsorship of annual
defense popularization months, Mongolian-Soviet friendship
months, and military sports competitions throughout the year. In
the late 1980s, the Auxiliary Defense Organization still was
responsible for these activities and for providing spare-time
schools and courses to train all seventeen-year-old males in
basic military skills and specialties of use to the military. "To
protect the economy against weapons of mass destruction," all
citizens were obliged to participate in civil defense training
organized by the Civil Defense Office of the Ministry of Defense.
In 1982 there reportedly were 600 civil defense units in
Mongolia.
Data as of June 1989
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