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Unable to compete in economic aid, Red China sent in 22,000 laborers, who have built dams, brick kilns, a glass factory, and a 50,000-kw. power plant. The blue-clad laborers (known locally as "blue ants") were promised land in Mongolia, but when the Mongols clearly lined up with Russia, Peking withdrew 14,000 workers. Those remaining stay close to their fenced-in barracks; it is doubtful that any will be allowed to stay on after their contracts expire.
Restive Lamas. Outer Mongolia won a precarious independence in 1921, when with Soviet help the Chinese officials were driven from the country and a "Peoples Revolutionary government" was established under Sukhe Bator, whose heroic statue stands in the center of Ulan Bator. The Red regime survived several uprisings led by Mongol princes and Buddhist lamas, and in 1945, as a result of the Yalta conference, Nationalist China agreed to a plebiscite in Outer Mongolia. The Reds saw to it that the vote for independence was unanimous.
Today the signs of Sovietization are everywhere. The architecture of Ulan Ba tor is Stalin-modern. The national newspaper Unen is a replica of Moscow's Pravda, and both words mean "truth." The farmers and herdsmen are grouped in collectives and on state farms, as in Russia. The No. i Communist, Tsedenbal, heads both the government and the party, as Khrushchev does in Moscow. Ulan Bator has a mausoleum, containing Sukhe Bator's remains, similar to the Lenin tomb in the Soviet capital. In 1946, Mongols adopted the Russian Cyrillic alphabet; their army is Russian trained and equipped. A Mongol guide explained, "Everything new here is Russian."
Outward Gaze. Forty years of Communism have not dimmed the charm, warmth and hospitality of the Mongolian people. They also retain an intense nationalism ("We feel close to Lenin," said one official, "because he had Mongolian blood on his mother's side"), which still arouses Russian .suspicion. A member of the Mongolian Communist Central Committee was expelled this year for ultranationalist tendencies. Pride in their country's achievements makes Mongols eager for contact with the rest of the world, and Mongolia has tried hard to establish diplomatic relations with the U.S. On the occasion of Outer Mongolia's admission to the United Nations last year, Washington declared it had "explored the possibility" of exchanging ambassadors with Ulan Bator. The exploration indicated that 1) Nationalist China was strongly opposed, and 2) Congress would not be happy to have the U.S. recognize still another Communist country. For these reasons, the Kennedy Administration decided that it would be "in the best interests of the U.S. to suspend further study of the question."