Niamyn Zhagvaral

Born 1919, in Eastern Gobi Aimak (province). Mongolian party leader and statesman; economist, doctor of economics (1957), and member of the Academy of Sciences of the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) since 1961. Member of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) since 1939.

In 1938, Zhagvaral graduated from the Communist University for the Workers of the East in Moscow. In 1938–39 he was a secondary school teacher, and in 1939–40 he taught at the Higher School for Party Cadres of the MPR. For the next five years (1940–45), he was a graduate student in the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, becoming the first Mongolian citizen to receive a candidate’s degree in economics.

In 1945–6 he served on the Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the MPR, first as its vice-chairman and then chairman. From 1946 to 1953 he was vice-chairman of the Committee of Sciences and from 1953 to 1957, chairman. In 1957 he was appointed minister of agriculture, a post he held until 1961; since 1957 he has also served as vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers of the MPR. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (C C MPRP) since 1954 and its secretary since 1963. In 1957 he was elected a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, becoming a full member in 1960. He has also served as a delegate to the Great People’s Khural (parliament) since 1954. Zhagvaral wrote a number of works dealing with problems of the socialist reorganization of agriculture in the MPR.