During the crisis and collapse of the Manchu Qing Empire in the early twentieth century, the Chinese (Han), Mongols, and Tibetans each sought to build their own independent nation-states. Mongolia and Tibet, which formed a single Tibet-Mongolian civilization, closely interacted in this pursuit. To prevent occupation of their lands by the Chinese, both tried to rely on Russia, which had close ties with the Mongols as well as with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama during his stay in Mongolia. There is a considerable amount of data on the relationship between Russia and Mongolia/Tibet in Russian archives, recorded by diplomats, military personnel, pilgrims, special envoys, officials, and others. It is interesting to compare some of this information with the Mongolian archival data, which has been partly published. Although a part of the Russian information is based on data received from Mongols and Tibetans, the Russian understanding of that data was based within the European political and historical paradigms of that time. Mongolian sources, on the other hand, tend to do the same within a traditional Mongolian or Tibet-Mongolian worldview, which sometimes leads to different understandings. However, there are many similarities in the basic conclusions each set of records reaches.

After the establishment of the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) under the guidance of Soviet Bolsheviks, official Mongolian documents took on a phraseology that was similar to Soviet ones. Many archival documents on the relations between Tibet and Russia, along with a few selected ones on the relations between Tibet and Outer Mongolia, have been published earlier.