Richard Bewes reflects on the revolution of 1917 and its fruit in the last 100 years
Forget Trump for the moment.
Exactly 100 years ago it was Lenin – and Russia’s great Communist experiment. But, by the end of 1989, it was over. The Russian cosmonauts who were rocketed into space in the Spring of that year had left their world with the Berlin Wall intact, with Ceaușescu of Romania firmly in place and Czechoslovakia and Hungary still under their long-term jackboot rule.
Six months later, the cosmonauts returned to earth to find the Berlin Wall down, Ceaușescu removed by the Romanian revolution, Czechoslovakia and Hungary no longer Communist – and with their own country reeling under Glasnost.
Witness to Russia
On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union as such ceased to exist. The following October, at the invitation of Russian churches, I joined Noel Tredinnick and London’s All Souls Orchestra on a visit to Moscow, featuring music and Christian witness. We found ourselves exposed to the public at all levels, from Tchaikovsky’s famous Conservatoire of Music to the very streets of Moscow.
Doll of Boris
It was on the city streets that I acquired a Russian doll, featuring Boris Yeltsin. Within this colourful figure were to be found, in ever-decreasing sizes, the main leaders associated with the events following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 – from the assassinated Tsar Nicolas II, through Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, Breshnev, Gorbachev and finally Yeltsin himself.
It was eventually Boris Yeltsin who would ask for a gift of Bibles that he could give to his friends. It was also by his invitation that the Red Army Choir was invited to sing in public How Great Thou Art, the famous mission hymn that, years earlier, had originated in Russia.
Shaking the world
True, those heady days have since passed… and Vladimir Putin is now in charge. However, Viktor Hamm, perhaps Russia’s best-known preacher – born in a Soviet labour camp – who, later this year, will be co-ordinating a world Summit Conference on the defence of those persecuted for their beliefs. Much good is still coming out of Russia.
But back in 1917, as recounted in Ten Days that Shook the World, the Marxist-Leninist revolution took place, based on the Dialectical Materialism that, in Lenin’s words, offered ‘Peace, Bread and Land’. Here was an enticing offer of a Workers’ Paradise for the future – but any earthly ‘Paradise’, whether Communist or Capitalist, can only end in ashes.
Bringing hell up
Lesslie Newbigin, the British Christian philosopher and writer, later commented that: ‘The project of bringing heaven down to earth always results in bringing hell up from below.’
For decades the Soviet regime looked unconquerable, in a leaden, on-going political domino game. By contrast, in the face of imprisonments and mass killings, the Christian church looked powerless. Yet faith continued to persist. During our Moscow visit, I spoke one day to my interpreter, a young intellectual.
‘Oleg’, I said, ‘I suppose you grew up in a Christian family.’ He shook his head. ‘Not at all’, he replied. ‘Until 1987 I was an atheist – a school teacher and a dedicated member of the Communist Youth League. The change came when my Head Master told me to sort out a school pupil. “She’s not only a Christian”, he said, “but she’s a Baptist! I want you to stamp out this trouble-making and put an end to it.”
‘I went to her’, said Oleg, ‘and my first surprise was her age; she was only seven! My next surprise was her first question to me: “How sure are you”, she asked, “that there is no God?” I had to admit that I had no 100% proof… and from that, she sensed my uncertainties, opened up my defences – and led me to faith in Jesus Christ there and then. It was’, declared Oleg, ‘the most embarrassing day of my life!’
Another regime
The 100-year experiment is over. But be sure that, from East to West, as one regime goes down, another arises to replace it – but not for ever…
Furthermore – in our ever-changing world – believers can find comfort today in the statement of the historian, T. R. Glover: ‘The final disappearance of Christianity has been predicted so often, as to be no longer interesting.’
You can stake your own soul on that… and the sooner the better. But no one will coerce you!
