| News and Views | February 1944 |
The Overthrow of Satan’s Empire
THE STANDARD DICTIONARY, in defining the word revolution, explains that “the essential idea of revolution is a change in the form of government or constitution, or a change of rulers, otherwise than as provided by existing laws of succession, election, etc.; while such change is apt to involve armed hostilities, these make no necessary part of a revolution, which may be accomplished without a battle.”
The overthrow of Satan’s empire, in its final analysis, is the most radical and far-reaching change of world government ever experienced by man. It is a revolution in which all the kingdoms of this world, under the dominion of Satan; are overthrown, and the long promised Kingdom of the Messiah is established in their place. The period during which this far-reaching change of government occurs is prophetically described in the Bible as “The Day of Jehovah.” (Joel 1:15; 2:1,2,11,31) Concerning the great revolution which occurs during this time, The Divine Plan of the Ages, on page 307, has this to say:
“The ‘Day of Jehovah’ is the name of that period of time in which God’s Kingdom, under Christ, is to be gradually ‘set up’ in the earth, while the kingdoms of this world are passing away and Satan’s power and influence over men are being bound. It is everywhere described as a dark day of intense trouble, distress and perplexity upon mankind. And what wonder that a revolution of such proportions, and necessitating such great changes, should cause trouble. Small revolutions have caused trouble in every age; and this, so much greater than any previous revolution, is to be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation—no, nor ever shall be.—Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21,22.”
The prophecies present two viewpoints as to the manner in which this great revolution is brought about. They show that the Lord is primarily responsible for it, in that it is the divine Kingdom of righteousness under Christ that is finally to result from the planet-wide upheaval in which all humanly-constituted government is overthrown. The prophecies show, on the other hand, that the forces immediately responsible for the overthrow of selfish and oppressive governments are those of human selfishness, implemented by the various and ingenious weapons of destruction that have been made possible by a worldwide increase of knowledge.
God’s part in the struggle is related to man’s from the fact that, in His providence and as foretold in His Word, the great increase of knowledge experienced during the last century has enlightened the people to a realization of what has been withheld from them, and at the same time has put in their hands the means of challenging the vested rights of their pre-1914 rulers.
The relationship between knowledge and the present world chaos is clearly recognized by many students of world economy. Among these is Paul Hutchinson. In 1930, Mr. Hutchinson delivered a series of lectures under the auspices of Northwestern University. Later, these lectures, together with related material, were published in a book entitled, “World Revolution and Religion.” From this book we quote the following:
“Universal education contributes to the spread of unrest, for by it the men who have been dispossessed learn of the wrongs which have been done them. The agricultural state becomes more and more a rarity. The increase of intercommunication by swift passage and by the even swifter dissemination of information smashes old boundary lines, necessitating a new but not yet envisaged society.”
Concerning the revolutionary trend of world events in 1930, we quote the following excerpts from Mr. Hutchinson’s book:
“When your well-fed American stalks the world, he comes hard upon the ghastly reality of revolution. Revolution is Russia, with the gaping windows of Leningrad, with the fear-filled eyes of the former middle classes, with the iron-willed extermination of the ancient nobility. Revolution is India, with the mystic Gandhi pressing himself on the bayonets of the world’s mightiest empire. … Revolution is Africa, with the black man beginning to stand up to the white, with the white amazed and furious and apprehensive, with the black outraged and desperate and ready for any death-struggle. Revolution is all that the word implies. It is taking this world of ours—this nice little settled comfortable world, with all the jimcracks of our civilization so nicely placed upon the mantels of our complacent enjoyment—and turning it upside down, so that that which has been on the bottom stands on the top, and so that all our expensive and fragile bric-a-brac falls into fragments and forms part of a vast debris.
“Revolution is a smashed, overturned, pulverized world. No other understanding of the word is sufficient for our present needs.
“Was there ever before a period in which revolution—complete, smashing revolution—was as prevalent, using that word not only in its geographical sense, but in the sense of penetrating even the most sheltered nooks and crannies of human life.”
The noted news analyst, Dorothy Thompson, recognized the revolutionary trend of world events long before the outbreak of the present struggle. She still holds to this viewpoint, and in a recent article discussing Russia’s discarding of the “Internationale” and the adoption of a more nationalistic attitude, explains that this does not mean that Russia is not still looked upon as the leader of a world revolution. Miss Thompson says:
“The revolutionary forces pressing for social change are conjoined everywhere in Europe today. Russia is looked upon, both as the liberator of the nations, and the liberator of long-suppressed social forces. Let those who wish to believe that the influence of Russia is no longer revolutionary cherish their wish-dreams. The facts are exactly the opposite. There is not the slightest hope that Europe will re-arise on the foundations of 1939.
“The European revolution is in being. Without revolutionary forces and techniques, there could be no effective resistance in the countries of Europe. And the political weakness of the Anglo-American powers is that fearing these revolutions, originally formless, they have made no attempt to canalize them to a dynamic idea, and have left them, partly hanging on Russia, and partly developing spontaneously.
“Thus if the old ‘Internationale’ is no longer sung, new and no less revolutionary national songs are sung. The liberation of the nations and the rise of the masses are becoming synchronized from one end of Europe to the other.”
Now that most of the pre-1914 governments of Europe have already been overthrown, the world’s most powerful leaders are promising the people that there surely will be a new world order following the hoped-for victory in 1944. The wisdom of this world sees the inevitable changes which are taking place and must take place if its hopes for a better world order are to be realized, and are able to analyze to some extent at least, the causes which led up to this situation. Divine wisdom, however, manifested in the prophecies of the Bible, foresaw and foretold these changes thousands of years ago, and, furthermore, identified the fundamental causes which are bringing them about.
The Prophet Daniel, for example (chapter 12:1-4), foretold a great increase of knowledge which would be coupled with “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.” The world rejoiced in this increase of knowledge when it came, but for the most part was utterly oblivious to the epoch-making changes in human society to which it would lead.
The advantages of this increasing knowledge have been used and are being used to further selfish ends, thus ultimately bringing about the wreck of civilization as we know it.
Those who understood the prophecies of the Bible knew long in advance of 1914, to what the worldwide increase of knowledge would lead. Pastor Russell, in Volume 4 of Studies in the Scriptures (1897), the title of which he changed to “The Battle of Armageddon,” pointed out many of the underlying principles involved, and called attention to the great time of trouble for which the nations of the earth were headed. Shortly after the outbreak of the war in 1914, Pastor Russell wrote:
“The long expected shaking of the social earth is, we believe, already in progress. The great war for which Europe has been drilling its troops, preparing its treasuries and armaments, is shaking every nation of the world, financially, socially, politically. Strong as the nations feel themselves to be, all tremble in dread at the results of the conflict now in progress. Only the Bible can or does speak authoritatively respecting results. In the same breath it tells of disaster and of blessings—disaster to the nations, but ultimate blessings to the people through the new government of Messiah’s Kingdom.
* * *“We should not get the thought that the shaking of the nations is just beginning, but rather that the shaking has been in progress for some time and is now reaching its violent stage. For years Europe has been trembling with occasional violent revolutionary shocks; but now it is preparing for the great shock, the great ‘earthquake,’ as the Bible symbolically styles it.—Revelation 16:18
“Knowledge is power. For the past fifty years in particular, knowledge has been preparing the masses of humanity, and their power has been growing apace. Proportionately the errors, superstitions and serfdoms of the past have been obliged to yield. A social revolution has proportionately progressed, different in its kind from anything of the past. Socialism is a revolution based upon increase of knowledge, even though, as we shall seek to demonstrate, much of its reasoning is fallacious, and much of its work likely, in the future, to be terribly injurious; in fact, if not eventually overruled by Christ’s Kingdom, nothing would escape its misguided destructiveness.
“Europe is honeycombed with Socialism, which like yeast, is fermenting the entire social fabric. Kings and emperors dare not oppose it too openly, and all of their secret intrigues have failed to hinder its development. The general war now begun has inspiration from different quarters. Politics have to do with it—a desire to enlarge national boundaries. Religion has something to do with it—the Greek and the Roman Catholic Churches being opponents, the sympathies and prejudices of the people are directed accordingly.
“But Socialism is, we believe, the main factor in the war now raging and which will be earth’s greatest and most terrible war—and probably the last. Socialism is related to the war by the fact that kings and emperors hope that patriotism and self-defense will cement the interests and sympathies of their peoples, now tending to disintegrate under the influence of Socialism. They would rather risk a general war than face a social revolution.
* * *“But after the shock of battle—What? Such a war as is now progressing will surely bring no great victory to any single nation or to any combination of nations. The winners in the war will surely pay a high price for every victory. Civilization, falsely styled Christendom—Christ’s Kingdom,—drenched with blood and terribly impoverished at the end of the war, will have been only partially shaken. The great Armageddon battle of the Scriptures will have been only partially fought. The remnants of armies, returning to their homes sour and discouraged with defeat or costly victory, will be war-sick and mad against their rulers who led them to the carnage. Then the great Armageddon of the Bible may be expected, Every man’s hand will be against his neighbor. Various factions and parties will proclaim panaceas, and will endeavor to force them upon the public. As a result, foretold in prophecy, ‘There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.’—Dan. 12:1.”—Reprints, page 5516.
From the foregoing, we can see that while various influences contributed as causes of the first world war, yet the unrest of the masses of the people manifesting itself through the channels of Socialism was evidently the main cause. The term Socialism is a broad one, of course, and in its fullest meaning is descriptive of all the various shades of ideology having as their objective the overthrow of government by hereditary ruling houses as they existed in Europe prior to 1914. It ranges from government control of industry, as in State Socialism, all the way to the extreme “left,” as in Communism.
What the rulers of Europe feared, and what they hoped to avert by plunging their countries into war, finally came upon them in almost precisely the manner outlined in the foregoing quotation. The Tsarist government of Russia was overthrown by the masses of its own people in 1917, and that country has been ruled by an extremely radical phase of Socialism, that is, Communism or Bolshevism, ever since.
Likewise, the House of Hohenzollern, headed by Kaiser Wilhelm, was overthrown in 1918, the Kaiser fleeing to Holland, where he remained in exile until he died. Germany since has been ruled first by a republican form of government, and finally by a counter-revolutionary dictator, at the head of what is styled National Socialism.
The pre-1914 hereditary governments of Austria, Spain, Italy, and other lesser countries of Europe, likewise were overthrown following the war.
In Great Britain and the United States, where the people have had the opportunity of expressing themselves at the polls, the revolutionary trend has not been marked by an out-and-out overthrow of their respective pre-1914 forms of government, but by changes within the governments gradually brought about to meet the great demands of the laboring classes.
The worldwide revolutionary trend did not cease with the overthrow of most of the powerful pre-1914 governments of Europe. The conservative elements of Great Britain and other countries still hoped that it might be possible to confine what they considered to be the most dangerous element threatening the vested rights of constituted governments, namely, Communism, within the borders of Russia, With this thought in mind, the national Socialist government of Germany found ready help in its re-arming program, backed by the excuse that it was necessary as a safeguard against the spread of Russian Communism. Even as late as the memorable year of 1938, made outstanding in history by the so-called Munich crisis, the status quo physicians of world society tried to stein the tide of the Russian revolution, hence the four-power pact of that time by which Russia was ignored and snubbed.
In the light of what has transpired since, it is not difficult to see how utterly these failed to diagnose properly the causes of world trouble, and to prescribe an adequate remedy. Through the fortunes (or ill fortunes) of war, Russia and Russian Communism is now emerging on a tidal wave of glory through victory, and is in a position to very largely force her views and wishes at the coming peace conference.
And what is even more interesting is the fact that most of the great and mighty of the world seem pleased to have it so. Mr. Stalin, once hated and despised by practically all the civilized rulers of the world, and to many the personification of the devil himself, is now viewed as one of the heroic saviors of Europe and the world.
What does all this mean? It means, as a host of news analysts, historians and professors of world economics are pointing out to us, that the world is passing through a revolution, and that out of this revolution will emerge a new order, if not communistic, so colored by communistic philosophy that the ideologies of the pre-1914 world will have lost their power and glamour forever.
Right now, due to the signal and mounting successes of the United Nations, millions are keyed up to the idea of a victorious ending of the war before the close of 1944. This bright hope that hostilities soon will end has done much to encourage a war-weary world. And yet, there is a growing number of sober-minded and foresighted thinkers who are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the close of the war will not mean the end of the world’s distresses.
The great revolution, in its larger aspect, will not be fully consummated until Messiah’s Kingdom takes the place of humanly constituted authority in the hearts and lives of men. Meanwhile, as the shaking of the social earth continues, men will be permitted to try new forms of government. There will doubtless be a new world order to take the place of the pre-1914 set up, but this will mean only that another phase of the great revolution is completed. Selfishness will still dominate in human affairs, and the bitter disappointment of the masses will cause the recurrence of further national and international upheavals. Only when the people and nations of the earth recognize the folly of their own selfish planning and say, as the prophet declares they ultimately will say, “Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,” will they find genuine and lasting peace and joy. (Micah 4:1-4) “The desire of all nations shall come.”—Haggai 2:7