Merse

Merse (also known as Guo Daofu, 1894–?) was an Inner Mongolian politician, best known as a founder of the Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (IMPRP). He was a Daur from a noble family native to Hulunbuir.

Names "Merse" is transcribed into Chinese as . The final "e" is pronounced, not silent as in English; to emphasise this, some sources write "Mersé". Others write Mersee, a transcription from the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet spelling Мэрсээ. It is an abbreviation of the Daur name Mersentei . He also used the Chinese name Kuo Tao-fu , formed with his courtesy name (道甫) as a given name and the first character Guo of his Daur clan name Gobulo as a Chinese-style surname. He also used the art-name Chun Hwang .

The KMT-CCP split of 1927 reflected itself into the IMPRP's own internal situation. The party split into two factions under the pro-China Serengdongrub and the pro-Ulaanbaatar/Moscow Merse (though Ulanhu would later try to frame this purely as a split between KMT and CCP supporters). Merse and other left-wing elements within the party took steps towards more radical action: organising an armed uprising. Comintern agent Ivan P. Stepanov promised them arms and funding. Thus, in 1928, Merse and his Daur compatriot Fumintai (福明泰 or 敖民泰) led a group of Barga Mongols in an uprising in his hometown Hailar, attempting to establish local autonomy. Sources refer to this by a variety of names, including the "Hulunbuir Uprising" and "Barga Rebellion". However, the Comintern repudiated Stepanov's statement, and the Mongolian and Soviet governments denied all association with the uprisings, and arrested Merse's associates who had gone to Ulaanbaatar during and after the uprising. No outside support would be forthcoming. The Barga, for their part, fled to independent Mongolia, where they would become the target of political repressions in the next decade. He also worked as Zhang's personal secretary. He repudiated the Soviet Union in published articles. He also stepped back from his promotion of Inner Mongolian independence, instead seeking greater autonomy under the Republic of China.

Disappearance After the Mukden Incident in 1931, Merse disappeared from public view. Owen Lattimore claimed that Zhang Xueliang, fearing that Merse would be used to convince other Mongols to support the Japanese, had him assassinated. Later authors, though agreeing with the possibility that Zhang held such views, dismiss the assassination claims; they instead state that Merse went to the Soviet consulate in Manzhouli. Another source reports that he indeed instructed two associates, Khafengga and Buyanmandukhu, to try to obtain material support from the Japanese to organise a Mongolian autonomous army in eastern Inner Mongolia as a ruse, and once done head west to support the anti-Japanese movement. Another account states that he went to Ulaanbaatar in 1932 to try to obtain support for his plans.

There was no news of him after that for more than half a century. However, his name appeared in KGB files released in May 1989 when he was rehabilitated. According to those records, Merse was arrested due to his nationalistic tendencies, taken to the Soviet Union, charged with spying for Inner Mongolia and attempting to escape imprisonment, and sentenced to death. His sentence was reduced to 10 years' imprisonment in October 1934, and he was sent to the Gulag, but the records do not record his eventual fate. However, later PRC historiography of Inner Mongolia up to the late 1990s portrayed Merse as a villain, a "splittist", and even a rightist like Serengdongrub. However, Daur in the PRC increasingly viewed him as a hero beginning in the 1980s. The 1986 Brief Daur History described him positively. The following year, the Daur History and Language Working Group issued a reprint of his 1929 lectures on "the Mongolian problem". A bust of him stands in a public square in the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner. His position on the question of the Daur's status as an ethnic group separate from the Mongols remained an open question, with some suggesting he intended for the Daurs to be completely "Mongolised".