Peljidiin Genden: The Mongolian Leader Who Slapped Stalin

Peljidiin Genden, who served as Mongolia's leader during the 1930s, is notably remembered for his bold act of defiance: slapping Joseph Stalin at a meeting in Moscow in 1935. Born in 1892 in rural Mongolia, Genden climbed the political ladder to become Prime Minister in 1932. Initially, he maintained a cordial relationship with Stalin, but tensions rose when Stalin demanded the eradication of Mongolia's Buddhist population in 1934. As a devout Buddhist, Genden refused, famously declaring that only Lenin and the Buddha were true geniuses. During the 1935 meeting, after being accused by Stalin of aspiring to kingship, a drunken Genden retaliated by calling him a 'bloody Georgian' and striking him, breaking Stalin's pipe. This act sealed his fate; upon his return to Mongolia, he was ousted by pro-Soviet members. In April 1936, he was abducted and imprisoned near Foros on the Black Sea, where he suffered torture and falsely confessed to collaborating with Japanese spies. Genden was executed by firing squad on November 26, 1937, during Stalin's Great Purge, and his refusal to support the extermination of Buddhists has marked him as a leader of moral integrity in history.