The Bloody White Baron

The Baron Ungern Von Sternberg is a legendary evil madman, the “Bloody White Baron” or “Mad Baron of Mongolia.” He was a warlord of the White Russians during the Russian Civil War, but his army was largely composed of Buriat Mongols from Siberia, among whom he was regarded as the avatar of an obscure Tibetan/Mongolian war god.

The Mad Baron considered himself to be a Buddhist, but his interpretation of Buddhism would shock and horrify most people. He believed himself capable of freeing people from their bad karma by having them tortured and executed in vast numbers, particularly communists and Jews but also any random people he happened to stumble upon. The Baron was a monarchist on a grand scale. He wanted to restore not only the Czarist empire in Russia, but also the Qing empire of China and the Mongolian khanate.

 

In pursuit of the last goal he moved his army into Outer Mongolia and drove out the Chinese, restoring the Bogd Khan to power for a time. Unlike the khans of the medieval Genghisids, the Bogd Khans were religious rather than temporal rulers. The Bogd Khan was a Tibetan lama, essentially the Mongolian equivalent of the Dalai Lama. Like the Mad Baron himself, the Bogd Khan was a sadist, and he used his newfound power to help the Baron with his mad schemes.

 

The communists weren't about to put up with an independent Mongolia ruled by a White Russian warlord and his allies, so they invaded and killed the Baron, and overthrew the Bogd Khan. That's how Mongolia became a communist country as part of the Soviet bloc.