[1] In 1922, he joined the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League (MRYL), and a year later he was appointed acting head of his local cell.

Together with fellow secretaries Ölziin Badrakh and Bat-Ochiryn Eldev-Ochir (and later Zolbingiin Shijee), Genden urged for swift compulsory implementation of socialist economic policies such as forced collectivization, bans on private enterprise, the closure of monasteries and the forfeiture of their property.

[2] The policy proved disastrous as traditional herders were forced off the steppe and into badly managed collective farms, destroying one third of Mongolian livestock.

In response, Moscow ordered the suspension of what it termed the "Leftist Deviation" policies of the Mongolian government and in May 1932 several party leaders (including Badrah, Shijee, and Prime Minister Tsengeltiin Jigjidjav) were purged for trying to implement socialist measures "prematurely".

[5] Through Moscow's support, Genden was named Chairman of the Assembly of People's Commissaries on July 2, 1932, replacing the purged Jigjidjav.

Several of those arrested and interrogated by Soviet agents in Ulaanbaatar fingered Jambyn Lkhümbe, then secretary of the MPRP Central Committee, as their leader.

Genden, party leader Eldev-Ochir, and Security Directorate Chief D. Namsrai backed the subsequent investigation that saw several hundred innocent persons, including Lkhümbe, arrested.

Genden hoped to stave off Soviet domination by exploiting the diplomatic strain between the USSR and Japan to Mongolia's benefit, but the policy would later prove to be his undoing as accusations surfaced in 1936 that he was working on the side of the Japanese.

Party members led by Luvsansharav reprimanded Genden for his actions in Moscow and accused him of sabotaging relations with the Soviet Union.

With the purge of Genden, Choibalsan became Stalin's favored official in Ulaanbaatar and was named head of the new Internal Affairs Ministry, effectively making him the most powerful person in Mongolia.

In summer 1937, he was arrested during Stalin's Great Purge[13] and under interrogation admitted to plotting with "lamaist reactionaries" and "Japanese spies.

"[14] By order from the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Genden was executed in Moscow on November 26, 1937, for "his attempt to undertake a political coup and being a spy of Japan.

"[15] Genden was declared a nonperson in Mongolia; however, he would be rehabilitated in 1956 by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, nearly two decades after his death.