Conversations With Uncle
The Uncle scratched his hands yet again. He told The Nephew that communism destroys all in its path: culture, traditions, customs, history, and all that was old and treasured. For the old and historic do not fit with communism.
He remembers his uncle's office at the local university in Ulaanbaatar: cramped, musky, and carrying a pungent wooden smell. Grey clouds and polluted skies could be seen from the dirty window, and the air tasted strange, not like what he could taste beyond the capital. Cleaner, purer, and fresher, which seemed not to be this office. His Uncle, with white hair, a thin mustache, and achy from neck to toe due to aging, leaned in his creaky, wooden chair while The Nephew sat opposed to him, younger, more curious about the world, and not plagued with financial pressures or existential anxiety. He saw his Uncle do one of his idiosyncrasies: scratch his hands.
The Nephew asked his Uncle how come Mongolia had such a mighty, widespread empire, stretching from China to Eurasia, yet then lost it all for books written in Russian, German, English, Chinese, and French detailing the history of the Mongols sat atop a nearby shelf. His Uncle scratched his hands, dry and wrinkly, and gave a tired grumble. He rubbed his eyebrows. From what his Uncle told him, time would be the downfall of the empire, any empire anywhere. No empire lasts forever, and empires built on generational succession collapse faster than most. The Khans fragmented into their states, similar to how Alexander's empire fragmented into regions ruled by his former generals. From there, it becomes a scenario of diminishing power.
Those conquered became the conquerors, and the new conquerors conquered much. China threw off the yolk of Mongol rule and grew in size and imperial authority. The Rus people banded together to fight their Khan overlords, and so, became a power in their own right. Mongolia remained, yet shrank in influence, growing weaker and weaker, until one century, the Russians and Chinese could exert their authority over Mongolia, such as with the Soviet Union and before Imperial Russia. The Nephew found a new question about Imperial Russia and Mongolia's relations with them. The Uncle coughed and cleared his throat, drinking some tea.
Imperial nations like Imperial Russia saw themselves as an empire; the Soviet Union saw itself as spreading worldwide communism, facilitating communist regimes throughout the known world. The revolution of communism is so explosive and contagious that countries across the world succumb to it, yet this communism must be taken with the utmost caution. The Nephew wanted to know. And so, the Uncle told him, after he offered some tea. The Uncle scratched his hands yet again. He told The Nephew that communism destroys all in its path: culture, traditions, customs, history, and all that was old and treasured. For the old and historic do not fit with communism. Communism represents an ideology, a way of viewing the world politically and socio-economically, and such narrative fights or conflicts with what has come before, such as the way things were.
He knew of The Nephew's decision to work in Soviet Russia, and so he told The Nephew to be observant, learn from his comrades, and educate himself on new places, understand why other places would desire communism. Though The Nephew frowned, not picturing any person in any place to desire such a system of government, however, a system of government The Nephew vaguely understood, if not oversimplified, to political socialism. This would be a conversation for another time as this memory fizzles and fades out of the picture. The Nephew now holds the letter. His Uncle had an asthma attack, and the doctors told him his lungs had grown weak and frail. He wrote this letter to remind his Nephew that he always has someone to speak to in dark or dull times.
The Nephew looks at the work supervisor. He has been ordered to meet with a higher-up. Now.
