 To view a video of this presentation, click here. To view a PowerPoint presentation of this article, click here. To listen to the audio of this presentation, click here. Devious Distortion and Disinformation Even over 100 years after this horrific event, disinformation and distortion obscure many facts. Wikipedia has the audacity to entitle this event: “Execution of the Romanov Family”! How the brutal and sadistic murder of not only Czar Nicholas II, but his wife, Alexandra and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, could be described as an “execution” defies belief.  Mass Murder There was no legal trial. There was no due process. There was no defence counsel. There were not even any charges. How can an entire family be guilty of any capital crime? Not only was the entire Royal Family murdered, but also their doctor and personal attendants, including: Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov. None of them were guilty of any crime.  Callous Crime How can a brutal and sadistic massacre, which dragged out over 20 minutes, be described as an “execution”? Investigations concluded that over 70 bullets were fired into the Romanov Family and their attendants. Yet after that barrage of gunfire all of the children were still alive. They were then beaten with rifle butts and bayonetted multiple times. The savage violence lasted for over 20 minutes!  Mutilated The bodies were then stripped and mutilated, disfigured with sulphuric acid to make identification extremely difficult. They were dumped into a mine shaft which then had hand grenades thrown in to attempt to collapse the mine shaft. When it was decided that the pit was too shallow, the remains were reburied in a swampy remote area. Barrels of petrol, kerosene and sulphuric acid were used in an attempt to conceal evidence of their crime. The bodies were further attacked and smashed with spades and the remains burned in a bonfire. All of this not only is evidence of sadistic malice, but an attempt to cover up the crime. How then can it be described as an “execution”? Yet, there are school textbooks that refer to this atrocity as “an execution”!  Denials and Deceit From the very beginning, the Bolsheviks and their apologists and public relations agents have attempted to cover up the facts of the murder of the Romanov Royal Family with a dense web of lies. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared: “In our country, the lie is a pillar of the state.”  Colossal Communist Cover-Up While the Bolshevik government in Moscow announced that Czar Nicholas II had been “executed,” they reported that his wife and children had been “sent to a secure place.” For over 8 years thereafter, the Soviet leadership maintained a systematic web of disinformation as to the fate of the Royal Family. This included claiming, in September 1919, that the Royal Family had actually been murdered by “left-wing revolutionaries,” to, in April 1922, denying that any of the children of the Czar had been killed at all. In 1926, the Soviets finally acknowledged the murders, but claimed that Vladimir Lenin and his cabinet were not responsible. They stated that this had been the decision of the “local authorities” in Yekaterinburg.  Facts are Stubborn Things In fact, the evidence is irrefutable that the murders were ordered by Vladimir Lenin, issued through Yakov Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky (the Founder and Head of the Cheka, which later developed into the NKVD and the KGB). The chief executioner, Yakov Yurovsky had studied the Talmud and joined the revolutionary forces in 1905, his membership number, 1500. He served in the Cheka. The Bolsheviks’ own records confirm that he was in constant communication with Lenin, Sverdlov and Dzerzhinsky in Moscow in the hours leading up to the mass-murder. At a time of great war shortages, Yurovsky obtained 570 litres of gasoline and 180kg of sulphuric acid to destroy the evidence of their murder. The crime was performed in the early hours of 17 July 1918, in the basement of the House of Special Purpose (Ipatiev House) in Yekaterinburg. Truth Does Not Fear Investigation From 1938 on, Joseph Stalin suppressed any discussion regarding the fate of the Royal Family. The burial site was discovered in 1979 by Alexander Avdonin. However, the Soviet Union did not acknowledge the existence of the discovery of the remains until 1989, at the tail end of glasnost, as the Iron Curtain was crumbling.  Official Acknowledgement 80 Years After the Event In 1998, President Boris Yeltsin, described the murders of the Royal Family as one of the “most shameful episodes in Russian history.” In 1998, 80 years after their murders, the remains of the Romanov Family were given a Christian burial in a state funeral in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. However, key members of the Russian Orthodox Church did not attend the funeral as they were not yet convinced of the authenticity of the remains and because two of the Romanov children’s bones were still missing. Only after the remains of two other Romanov children were discovered in 2007 and confirmed by DNA tests, did the Orthodox Church recognise and participate in the Reinternment. Prosecutor General Finally Opens a Criminal Case The Russian Prosecutor Generals’ Office formally rehabilitated the Romanov Family, recognising them as “victims of political repressions.” In 1993, a criminal case was opened into the murder of the Romanovs.  Denied Sanctuary by His Cousin After the abdication of the Czar in March 1917, he applied for sanctuary from his cousin King George V in Great Britain. Although King George initially extended his invitation for the Romanov Family to be welcomed from exile and protected in Great Britain, pressure from bankers and politicians in England forced him to refuse sanctuary to his cousin and his family. This tragically sealed their fate and left the Romanovs at the mercy of the coming Bolshevik Revolution. Arrested and Exiled Initially Kerensky’s Provisional government had kept the Romanovs under a form of house-arrest. As the Bolshevik Revolution loomed, they were transported to Tobolsk, in Siberia, allegedly to “protect” them from the rising tide of revolution.  Harsh Prison Conditions After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter. Czar Nicholas was forbidden to wear epaulets and the family was placed on rations. They were forbidden to have butter, or coffee. Their daughters were subjected to lewd harassment by Bolshevik Red Guards. In April 1918, the family was moved to Yekaterinburg to Ipatiev House (also known as The House of Special Purpose). There the Royal Family was strictly forbidden to speak in any other language than Russian, they were not permitted access to their luggage which was stored in an outhouse in the courtyard. Their cameras were confiscated. The servants were forbidden to address the Romanov’s by their titles. Jewellery was “confiscated.” No Visitors Allowed The family was not allowed to receive visitors, or to receive, or send letters. When Princess Helen of Serbia attempted to visit the house in June 1918, she was refused entry at gunpoint.  No Church Services, No Information No excursions to attend church services at the nearby church were permitted. Nor were the family permitted to receive any outside information, including newspapers. Strict rationing of food and water was enforced. Recreation was limited to a walk in the garden for only half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. Extraordinary Security Measures The house was surrounded by a four-meter high (14-feet) double palisade that obscured the view from the streets. The windows in all the family’s rooms were sealed shut and covered with newspaper and later painted over with whitewash. The family was forbidden to look out the windows. Anastasia was shot at when she looked out of a window.  Excessive Force At the time of the murder of the Royal Family, there were 300 Red Guards at Ipatiev House. There were four machine gun emplacements. One in the Bell Tower of the Voznesesky Cathedral. This machine gun was aimed directly at the house. A second machine gun was in the basement window facing the street. A third monitored the balcony overlooking the garden at the back of the house and the fourth in the attic, overlooked the intersections directly above the Czar and Czarina’s bedroom. 10 Guard posts were located in and around Ipatiev House. Protestors Shot On 13 July, a demonstration of Red Army soldiers, socialist revolutionaries and anarchists demanding the dismissal of the Yekaterinburg Soviet was dispersed by gun fire on the street in front of Ipatiev House.  Murders Begin On 6 July, Klementy Nagorny the sailor assigned to care for Alexei and Ivan Sednev, the footman to the Czar, were taken away and shot. The Royal Family were informed on 13 July that they had only “been sent out of the area.” To prevent the Royal Family from playing the piano, it was moved out of the dining room to the commandants’ office. The Bolshevik Red guards also used the confiscated piano of the Romanovs to play revolutionary songs. The Bolsheviks also scribbled crude political slogans and vulgar graffiti on the walls.  Do Not Slander the Victims by Calling it a “Russian Revolution” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn makes the point that those who describe the Bolshevik Revolution as the “Russian Revolution” slander the victims. It was not a Russian Revolution; it was an anti-Russian Revolution. “You must understand: the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred, they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. The October Revolution was not what you in America call the ‘Russian Revolution.’ It was an invasion and conquest over the Russian people. More of my countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism was the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this reality, is proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the perpetrators.”  The Rothschild Vendetta Major General Count Cherep-Spiridovich, in The Secret World Government (or “The Hidden Hand”, New York, 1926) asserted that the Rothschilds’ were responsible for the assassination of the last five Czars. Not one of these czars reached an old age. Their average age at death was 53. See also Stephen Mitford Goodson, Murdering the Czars: The Rothschild Connection, The Barnes Review, October 2014. The Worst Disaster in History After the Wall Street banker financed takeover in 1917, Russia became a vast monolithic killing field on a level not seen in the world before, or since. Unimaginable horrors, on an unimaginable scale, took place in ensuing years and decades as Christians, the middle and upper classes and those who disagreed with the Soviet regime were wiped out. Russia’s population today is half, or less, of what it would have been had this satanic catastrophe not befallen.  Wall Street Bankers Financed the Bolshevik Revolution Professor Antony Sutton of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace, documented in his books, The Best Enemy Money Can Buy; National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union and in Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, that, from its inception, the Bolsheviks were financed by Wall Street bankers. Leon Trotsky was in exile in the Bronx of New York when the February 1917 Revolution erupted. Trotsky returned with vast finances from America to launch multiple newspapers and finance and arm revolutionaries who seized Russia for the Bolshevik Revolution in the October 1917 Revolution.  The Best Enemy Money Can Buy Professor Sutton, in his Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development (in three volumes) documents that Rothschild greed and corruption in the United States of America played a major role in developing the Soviet Union from its very beginnings, transferring vital technology and providing the finances essential to building up the Soviet Union to the military threat it became to the whole world.  Vindictive Vendetta
Stephen Mitford Goodson, in his book: A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind, documents that the Rothchild Family had a vendetta against the Romanovs for refusing to allow a Rothchild central bank to control Russia’s economy. He provides convincing evidence on why Western Bankers financed the Bolshevik Revolution, the destruction of the Russian Empire and the murder of the Romanov Royal Family. “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” Revelation 6:9-10 Reformation Society P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa mission@frontline.org.za www.ReformationSA.org www.HMSchoolofChristianJournalism.org See also: To listen to a radio interview on this topic, click here. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 The Greatest Killer The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx The Failure of Atheism and Triumph of Faith in Russia
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 Film Review The Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom film presents a selection and distortion of the history of South Africa and Nelson Mandela as the secular humanists of the New World Order would like us to perceive it. The film rushes through the life and times of Nelson Mandela, completely ignoring the Cold War context and threat of Soviet communism on the borders of South Africa at that time. It glosses over the murders and massacres of the Marxists and presents scenes that stereotype whites as racist and blacks as noble revolutionaries only seeking for justice. Political Propaganda Producer Anant Singh is recognised as South Africa's preeminent anti-apartheid film producer. Previous productions of Singh include: Place of Weeping, Sarafina! Red Dust and Cry, the Beloved Country. Heavily funded by the South African ANC government and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, this £22 million authorised biopic presents a selection of incidents from the history of South Africa and the life of Nelson Mandela that will go a long way towards further marketing the Mandela myth.  Emotive Speeches Backed by Orchestras Shot for spectacle with impressive crowd scenes, the legend of Nelson Mandela is presented with numerous speeches backed with swooning orchestration that climbs to emotional peeks whenever Nelson Mandela addresses any crowd. English Born Actor Plays Mandela London born actor, Idris Alba, plays Nelson Mandela from his early days as a smooth lawyer through his recruitment to the African National Congress (ANC), to his arrest, imprisonment, eventual release and election as president. Naomie Harris plays Winnie, the fiery revolutionary love interest and second wife of Nelson Mandela.  Animistic Circumcision Rituals The film begins with Nelson Mandela as a teenager going through the Xhosa circumcision ritual where witchdoctors prepare youth for initiation rites. The painting of their naked bodies in white chalk, passing through the smoke of burning everything relating to their childhood and washing off in the river, with full frontal male nudity, is disturbingly depicted. Anachronism Next we see the Nelson Mandela character depicted as a smooth lawyer in a three piece suite walking past anachronistic security gates and burglar bars (which did not exist in South Africa in the 1940s).  Shallow Stereotypes The film is a mythic and heroic story of man against man. In this case it is a black man leading all black people against white people who are depicted as uniformly racist, shallow and stupid. The film makers apparently believed that the best way to exalt Nelson Mandela was to depict all whites as narrow-minded, selfish, racist bigots. The first scene of whites in the movie is of them sipping champagne on a balcony, while the black workers bustle around on the streets below. Numerous fictional incidents and comments are inserted in order to reinforce this stereotype. Reluctant Revolutionary The time worn cliché of the reluctant revolutionary is inserted into the story turning Nelson Mandela from a happy-go-lucky smooth lawyer confounding a white woman in the witness box, to a frustrated and angry revolutionary fighting for justice, peace and equality for all.  Police Brutality Numerous incidents of mindless police brutality are depicted, giving the impression that, without any provocation, or reason, they would beat up, or shoot, black men, women and children in cold blood. Adulterous Affairs and Abuse Nelson Mandela’s pattern of adulterous relationships and repeated beating of his first wife are briefly touched on in a few fleeting scenes. Then much attention is given to the romance with Winnie, who became his second wife.  Preferring Paganism In contrast to the repeated, respectful treatment of animism, Christianity is dismissed in a few striking statements and scenes. Mandela states that God only seems to answer the prayers of the Boers and Winnie declares that there is no God who will save us, we must save ourselves! Necklace Murders Later Winnie Mandela gives a revolutionary call to violence from the front of a church, where the cross is obscured. With much anger and expressions of hatred, Winnie Mandela repeatedly calls for using stones, boxes of matches and petrol to 'necklace' the informers and kill the enemy. One brutal burning to death of a supposed informer through the ANC’s signature necklace method is depicted. Actually, over 1,000 black people were burnt to death by the brutal necklace murder, so publically promoted by Winnie Mandela. Many of these were elected black town councillors and mayors – but that is not acknowledged in this film, which claims that blacks had no rights, no votes and no elected representatives.  Ignoring the Cold War Context Significantly there is no mention of the Cold War context and not a scene or a reference to communism, the Soviet Union or the Russian and Cuban troops, at that time engaged in conventional warfare on the border of Angola and South West Africa. The Missing Victims No mention is made of the Cuban training in terrorism received by Nelson Mandela. Nor are any of the victims of his bombing campaign depicted. From the film one would get the impression that his armed struggle consisted of nothing more than night time bombings of unoccupied municipal offices and a power station. In fact none of the ANC's car bombings are depicted, not even the Church Street bombing bloodbath. None of the ANC assassinations, such as of Bartholomew Hlopane, are depicted or referred to. Nor the Shell House massacre when Nelson Mandela, as head of the ANC, after his release from prison, ordered his security to open fire on unarmed Zulu protestors belonging to the INKATHA Freedom Party.  The Communist Connection At no time does one even see a hammer and sickle. The huge Soviet and South African Communist Party flags that Nelson Mandela spoke in front of are nowhere to be seen in this film. Neither are any of the white Russian communist members of the ANC, such as Joe Slovo and Ronnie Kasrils, depicted in any way in this film. The Making of a New Religion It is disturbing that this film was released across the United States on Christmas Day. With songs of praise and hymns glorifying Nelson Mandela being sung by choirs and taught to school children, we seem to be seeing a beginning of a new religion.  Icon of the New World Order Certainly Nelson Mandela is the pre-eminent icon and idol of the New World Order. The United Nations General Assembly even declared 18 July, Nelson Mandela International Day! Strategic Timing The timing of this heavily state-funded propaganda film was interesting as the ANC, mired in corruption scandals, was heading into an election year. Many saw the timing of this film as a distraction from the disastrous failures of the ANC, by rewriting history to depict the past in the worst possible light and rally the voters of South Africa behind the party of the revered Nelson Mandela.  Blame Everything on Apartheid The violence of the ANC is mostly blamed on Winnie Mandela, with Nelson Mandela apparently disapproving. Even when referring to Mandela's divorce from Winnie, Mandela's character blames it on the apartheid government! The Missing Opposition Parties There are disturbing and shocking scenes of the black on black violence in the townships with axing, machetting, shooting and hacking of men, women and children, but no explanations given as to who was doing what to whom. At no time is any hint given that there were actually other black political parties in South Africa, such as the INKATHA Freedom Party, with whom the ANC were locked in deadly turf wars.  The Last Word on Everything Throughout the film, Nelson Mandela dominates the screen and always has the most intelligent and profound things to say. He always has the last word, even in court and in prison. No one else ever seems to have a reply for his dogmatic statements. A Redemptive Message After all the depictions of white racism and evil, the film concludes with Nelson Mandela commenting: "If I can forgive them – you can forgive them!" He asserts "peace is the only way." The film ends with a quote from Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom book: "My country is not meant to be a land of hatred. People are taught to hate and they can be taught to love. Love comes more naturally than hate."  Divorced From the Historical Context If the message of the film is forgiveness then it is a good message. However, divorced from the context of the brutal war being waged by the ANC to intimidate the people in the townships and terrorise farmers and civilians, this film turns communists into heroes and Christians into villains. It also denies the depravity of man, claiming that love (apart from God) is natural and dismisses God as irrelevant. Presidential Performance The film wisely stops at Mandela's Presidential Inauguration in May 1994. That is understandable, because at two and a half hours long, the film drags and sags at times. It is quite episodic. However, it would be relevant to note that the Nelson Mandela presidency was a disappointment and a failure in many ways. Nelson Mandela reintroduced race classification for Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment and job reservation and racial quotas even for sports teams. He legalised pornography and abortion. Violent crime exploded with rape and child abuse increasing 400% during his presidency. The currency imploded and the ANC looted the country of billions of Rands through chronic corruption.  The Abortion Holocaust Over one million, seven hundred thousand babies have been killed, officially, legally, in South Africa, with taxpayer's money, since Nelson Mandela forced through the Termination of Pregnancy Bill, 1 February 1997. Crime Wave Under Nelson Mandela's presidency, an average of 25,000 people were murdered each year. Yet, to celebrate his birthdays, Nelson Mandela would regularly open prison doors and set many convicted criminals, including armed robbers, murderers and rapists, free. Some of these were murdering and raping within 24 hours of being released. Well over 100,000 people were murdered under Mandela's term as president.  The Growth Industry of Murder To put this into perspective, in 44 years of apartheid, 18,700 people were killed in politically related violence, most at the hands of ANC supporters. This included soldiers, police, terrorists, civilians, necklace murders and rioters - all victims. However, after Mandela became president in 1994, an average of 25,000 people were murdered every year. Over 85,000 whites have been murdered in South Africa since 1994, 4,000 of them farmers. Many fear that this film will incite further race hatred and targeting of whites for murder. Genocide Watch warns that South Africa is already in the Genocidal process stage 7 targeting white Afrikaners for extermination. Economic Deterioration In the 1970s, even while facing terrorism, riots and engaged in a border war with the Cubans in Angola, the SA Rand was stronger than the US Dollar. In Mandela's first four years as president, the Rand lost 80% of its value and more than 2.8 million man days were lost to strikes. The national debt doubled under Nelson Mandela’s presidency.  Financial Failure Therefore, under Mandela, even with no war, no sanctions, no riots and no conscription and with massive international aid and investment, the Rand plummeted to R10 to the Dollar. Economic deterioration and sky-rocketing crime marred his presidency. The Economist at the time described Nelson Mandela's presidency as: "a failure." Do Not Let the Facts Get In the Way of a Good Story However, we are not meant to allow facts to get in the way of a good story. So, this Mandela film calls us to forget all these facts and to shelve our pro-life, pro-family, moral convictions and bow before this new idol, sing this politician’s praises and effectively burn incense before the image of a new Caesar.  Rewriting History
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom presents a selection and distortion of the history of South Africa and Nelson Mandela as the African National Congress (ANC) would like us to remember it. This heavily state-funded biopic is politically correct propaganda which markets the Mandela myth by ignoring the Cold War context and threat of Soviet communism on the borders of South Africa at that time. Stereotypical and episodic, it includes numerous obscenities, nudity, occultism, pagan and humanist worldviews, anti-Biblical and anti-Christian sentiments, immorality, adultery, drunkenness, smoking, extreme, brutal and disturbing violence, revisionist history and racism. See: www.movieguide.org for reviews on all films from a Biblical perspective. Summary Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom markets the Mandela myth by demonising white South Africans, dismissing Christianity and God, promoting paganism, occultism, humanism, socialism and justifying violent revolution. The film is a mythic and heroic story of man against man. Despite ending with a call for forgiveness and love, the rest of the film seems more inclined to incite hatred and racial stereotyping. It does not allow the facts of history to get in the way of their story of this icon and idol of leftist causes and the socialist New World Order. The Film Review by Dr. Peter Hammond was first published by Movieguide. See also: Idolatry is the Most Condemned Sin in the Bible Mandela Day and the Making of a New Religion Making Idols of Modern Men and Myths The Mandela Industry Invictus Idolatry Over 5 Million Reasons Why I Will Not be Voting for the ANC My Meeting with Nelson Mandela Part 1 My Meeting with Nelson Mandela Part 2 Resistance to Revolution  To hear the audio lecture of this article, click here. To view the video presentation of this article, click here. To view the PowerPoint presentation of this article, click here. Bitter Winter of Discontent The Russian winter of 1916/1917 was one of the coldest in memory. On 23 February (by the old-style Russian calendar, or 8 March, by the Western calendar) 1917, 90,000 textile workers went on strike. By the next day, half of the industrial workers in St. Petersburg were on strike. By the third day, the number had risen to almost a quarter of a million. Defeats Lead to Disaster The continual string of defeats in the First World War, the chronic shortage of food and, perhaps most importantly, the lack of fuel for cooking and heating, led to what was called the Women’s Strike, although far more men were involved. Riots broke out, people were killed. Shops were looted.  Military Mutiny On 26 February (Russian calendar) the striking workers began to move to the city centre. St. Petersburg is built on a network of islands criss-crossed with canals. As soldiers closed the bridges, the workers walked across the ice. Whole military units began to mutiny and refused orders to march against the rioters. The Volynsky Regiment refused the orders of the Commander and shot him. They went over to the Revolution. Delayed and Derailed Alarmed by this shocking news of riots and mutiny in his capital, Czar Nicholas set out from the front to return to his capital. Railway workers stopped his train at Pskov Station, 170 miles from St. Petersburg. There, he received the news of the mutiny of the Volynsky Regiment. General Khabolov reported that the whole city was in the hands of revolutionaries, including the railway stations, telephone exchange and Artillery Garrison. All government ministers had been arrested.  Worthless War Discredits the Dynasty On the 8th day, the Czar abdicated, “to save Russia and the keep the army at the front, I decided on this step… I left Pskov with heavy feelings; around me was treason, cowardice and deceit,” he wrote. He could not have known that it would be the end of the monarchy and the end of Romanov rule. The 300-year authority and reputation of the Romanov Czars had been squandered in a hopeless war, which had brought nothing but defeat. The Czar had rejected the Kaiser’s offer of a separate peace, on very generous terms, with Germany in 1915. Had he accepted it the Russian Empire would have survived and many millions of its citizens would have been spared violent deaths. Disastrous Decision by the Duma At the Taurrde Palace in St. Petersburg, a provisional government was put together by representatives of the Imperial Parliament, the Duma. The provisional government of the Duma abolished the death penalty and dismantled the Czarist police. They agreed that their priority was to meet the “obligations” to their military allies and to get the Russian armed forces back into the war. This decision proved fatal. The army and the population in general were sick and tired of this ruinous war, which had bankrupted and impoverished the country. The government had completely misread the mood of the populous.  The Rise of Soviet Subversion In another wing of the same Taurrde Palace, a rival political organisation was being set up. It called itself The Soviet. They perceived that the key element was peace at any price. The Petrograd Soviet issued Order No 1, putting elected committees in charge of army units. Many soldiers and sailors interpreted this as a licence to go home. Even as the provisional government was promising to keep Russia in the war, the army began to melt away. Millions of peasants in uniform, sullen, angry and sick of the wasted lives and squandered sacrifices wanted an end to the never-ending series of military defeats. Unpopular Parliament Committed to Ruinous War Finds Itself Powerless Guchkov, the Minister of War, remarked bitterly: “the provisional government does not possess any real power. Its directives are carried out only to the extent that it is permitted by the Soviet. All the essential elements of real power, the troops, the railroads, the post and telegraph are all in their hands.”  Lenin Returns from Exile Initially, the allies (France, Britain and the USA) had welcomed the Revolution in Russia. The German High Commander also was elated and offered free passage home to the most dangerous revolutionary exiles they could find, hoping to destabilise their enemy on the Eastern front still further. So, Vladimir Lenin came to be put in a sealed train from Zürich across Germany, arriving at Petrograd’s Finland Station early April 1917. Internal Squabbles Amongst Socialist Radicals When Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia, he had been in exile for most of the previous 17 years, running one wing of the small and quarrelsome Russian Socialist Democratic Party. His Bolsheviks were the radical left-wing faction of this Marxist party. They had split from the more conciliatory Socialist Mensheviks back in 1903.  Promise of Peace Galvanises Popular Support Lenin found the Marxists in Russia arguing over what to do next. Lenin’s train was welcomed at the Finland Station by a band playing, La Marsellaise, because no one had yet learned the tune of the Internationale. His speech from the top of an armoured car was to the point. “Let us end the war! Let the workers take power now!” His comrades were shocked. His own party newspaper, Pravda, attacked him. However, Lenin had read the mood of the people in the streets. His slogans of: “Peace! Bread!” Land! And all power to the Soviets!” came in time to mobilise masses to support the Bolshevik cause. Catastrophic Commitment to Continued Conflict The Socialist Revolutionary Party had a commanding position in the Provisional government. One of their members, a young lawyer, Alexander Kerensky, was the Prime Minister of Russia. He was also Deputy Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. However, Kerensky still believed in continuing fighting the war. So, in June, he ordered a fresh offensive against Germany. It was a disaster. In three weeks, 60,000 more Russian soldiers had died.  Death of the Russian Army General Knox, Head of the British Military Mission in Russia, wrote that the Russian Army was, “irretrievably ruined as a fighting organisation.” Chaos Prepares Population for Communist Revolution There was an explosion of popular rage on the streets with furious demonstrations from war-weary soldiers, hungry families and frustrated citizens impatient for peace, protesting against the war. Vast numbers were unemployed due to factory closures and all the while the Bolsheviks were busy agitating. Banners began to appear on the streets: “Peace! Bread! Land! All Power to the Soviets!”  Attempt to Arrest Anarchists Kerensky clamped down on political freedom and arrested so many Bolsheviks that Lenin shaved off his beard and fled with false papers to Finland, where he spent the rest of the Summer writing a book. Failed Military Coup Further Erodes Confidence in Kerensky The Supreme Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, General Kornilov, attempted a military coup which collapsed in Ignominy. Kerensky sacked General Kornilov. The credibility of the provisional government was exhausted. As people on the street declared: All the provisional government of the socialist revolutionaries had succeeded in doing was to put up train fares! The government admitted that over two million soldiers had deserted from the Front. Three million had died.  Anarchy Leads to Tyranny Lenin was delighted. “Never under estimate the power of constructive chaos!” he exclaimed. As the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Mensheviks’ Revolution dissolved into failure, the Bolshevik Central Committee (BCC) prepared for insurrection. The capital city was full of deserters and street crime. The Czar’s Palace at Tsarskoye Selo was looted by mobs. Officers at the Naval Base of Kronstadt were lynched by the men. The new Commander in Chief, General Alexeyev, resigned on the grounds that he no longer had an army to lead. Trotsky Returns to Mobilise the Revolution A well-funded Leon Trotsky returned from exile in the Bronx of New York with a band of Jewish Revolutionaries from America who formed the Vanguard of the Red Army. By October 1917, the Bolsheviks were publishing 25 newspapers and had a membership approaching 40,000.  The October Revolution Lenin arrived back from his hideaway in Finland and declared: “History will not forgive us if we do not take power now!” On 25 October, by the Old Russian calendar (or 7 November by the Western calendar), Bolshevik soldiers, sailors and workers began occupying railway stations, telephone exchanges and post offices. They also seized the State Bank and the Winter Palace. The mob of insurrectionists stormed into the cabinet room of the Provincial Government and declared the Provisional Government “deposed”. Prime Minister Kerensky fled to the Front to rally resistance, while the rest of the cabinet ministers were arrested. Lenin simply declared: “We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist Order.” Council of Commissars The new government was called The Council of Peoples Commissars. At this stage there was only 2 Bolsheviks for every 600 Russians. They nationalised the factories, legalised divorce and declared themselves as the first domino of an International Proletarian Revolution that would change the world.  Cancelling the Constituent Assembly The first elections for a Democratic Constituent Assembly was deemed a “failure” as the Bolsheviks only won a quarter of the seats. Therefore, when the delegates assembled in January 1918, the Red Guards closed the session and forced all the elected delegates out of the hall, barring the doors. Russia’s long-awaited parliament had lasted less than a day. The Abrupt End of Freedom of Speech Freedom of the press was severely restricted. Anyone labelled as “an enemy of the people,” was arrested and dealt with severely, often by execution on the spot.  Peace is the Priority The first act of the October Revolution was to order General Dukhonin, Commander in Chief of the Russian Army, to sue for peace at any price. When he refused, he was lynched and a new commander was appointed. Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs and his first order of business was to negotiate the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a town behind German lines and occupied Poland, which today is in Belarus. The Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Germans demanded recognition of the Independence of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the Ukraine. All of these were already behind German lines and out of Russian control anyway. Lenin declared to the Petrograd Soviet, “to carry on a Revolutionary war, an army is needed. We do not have one. It is a question of signing the terms of peace now, or of signing a death sentence for the Soviet Government three weeks later.” After accepting the peace terms, Trotsky then resigned from Foreign Affairs and became Commissar for War. His first priority was to defend the Revolution against “counter revolutionaries!”  Peace Treaty Prelude to Civil War to Entrench the Revolution 50,000 Former officers of the Czarist Army were taken into the Red Army. To keep these military men in line, Political Commissars were appointed in every unit. Over the next 3 years, Trotsky’s Red Army grew to 5 million men, controlled from his personal armoured train. His mobile headquarters had a radio, map room, printing press, secretarial staff, a Rolls Royce, vast quantities of ammunition and medicine. All Trotsky’s staff were dressed in leather uniforms. He had commanders and commissars executed. Some units were subjected to decimation, where every tenth man was executed. Murder of the Royal Family On 17 July 1918, on the direct orders of Yakov Sverdlov and Felix Dzerzhinsky, with the explicit agreement of Vladimir Lenin, the local Soviet in Ekaterinburg brutally murdered Czar Nicholas, his wife, the Czarina Alexandra, their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia and son, Alexei and their attendants.  What You Sow is What you Will Reap Six weeks later, Vladimir Lenin was shot in the chest, arm and neck by young socialist Revolutionary, Fanya Kaplan. Before her execution, Fanya explained: “I have long had the intention of killing Lenin. In my eyes he has betrayed the Revolution. I was for the Constituent Assembly and I still am.” The Red Terror However, Lenin survived the attempted assassination, but his health was undermined. The Bolshevik response was to issue a promulgation of an official state of Red Terror directed by the leather-jacketed secret policemen of the Special Commission, or Cheka, the forerunner of the NKVD, which later became the KGB. Hundreds-of-thousands were executed and millions more imprisoned in the GULAG, a network of 1,200 concentration camps which spread across especially the Arctic waste areas of Siberia.  Resistance to Revolution The Czech Legion rebelled and fought eastwards along the Trans-Siberian railway in an attempt to return home. Admiral Kolchak led the Siberian government of the White armies against the Reds. The Socialist Revolution Party set up an administration on the Volga River, claiming to rule in the name of the Constituent Assembly. 19 different governments appeared during the course of the Civil War. Secession from the Soviet Union Azerbaijan, a Turkish and Muslim land, declared its independence. Armenia, its Christian neighbour, also declared its independence. On 26 May 1918, Georgia declare its independence.  Foreign Intervention British, American and French troops were landed at Murmansk and Archangelsk in the far North and Vladivostok in the East, to prevent Japan from seizing it. A New Bubonic Plague of Bolshevism Winston Churchill wrote of the Bolsheviks as “baboons and a new bubonic plague.” Betrayal Millions of pounds of Western aircraft, tanks, machine guns and uniforms which were meant to equip the White Army resisting the Reds, ended up in the Red Army. Thousands of allied troops were abandoned and betrayed into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Millions were massacred during the Red Terror. Torture and murder were a daily reality.  Devastation, Destruction and Degradation By 1921, the Bolsheviks had ruined the economy. Inflation was astronomical. Hundreds-of-thousands of workers had fled the city in the hope of finding food in the countryside. The entire economy collapsed as iron detachments of Bolsheviks forcibly confiscated, or requisitioned, all the food they could get their hands on in the villages, to feed workers in the city. Thousands of orphan children roamed the streets, prey to disease and cruelty. A Man-Made Famine As a result, a terrible famine struck the whole Volga River region. Millions starved to death. Unorganised, armed only with pitchforks, scythes and flails, hungry peasants rose up against their new oppressors in an attempt to survive.  Mass Murder and Massive Oppression
50,000 Red troops were mobilised to execute whole villages, exile millions to the waste areas of Siberia and violently put down strikes. Strikes were forbidden. All opposition was outlawed. Criticism of the government or its policies was outlawed. The independent countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Armenia were forcibly enslaved into the Soviet Union. The Communist Cult of Lenin When Lenin died of his third stroke on 21 January 1924, factory sirens blared out across the country. St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad. The decision was made to embalm the corpse. Inspired by the recent discovery the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt; an atheistic/religious cult was formed by building a pyramid-like temple where faithful party members would pay their respects to the “god” of the USSR: Vladimir Lenin. “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption…” 2 Peter 2:19 Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa mission@frontline.org.za www.FrontlineMissionSA.org www.ReformationSA.org www.hmsschoolofchristianjournalism.org See also: To listen to a radio programme on this subject, click here. The Greatest Killer The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx The Failure of Atheism and Triumph of Faith in Russia The Murder of the Russian Royal Family  To hear the audio lecture of this article, click here. To view the video presentation of this article, click here. To listen to a radio interview on The Real Agenda Behind Revolutionaries click here. 14 July is celebrated in France as Bastille Day. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille and the launch of The French Revolution. A Time of Turmoil The French Revolution was one of the most influential events of modern history. The ten-year period from 1789 to 1799 when France went from a Monarchy to a Republic, to a Reign of Terror, to Dictatorship was one of the most tumultuous times in European history. Myth and Reality Much myth and romantic legend has been written on what some politicians would like the French Revolution to have been, but the reality was that the French Revolution was a monstrous horror. In the name of "liberty, equality, fraternity or death!" over 40,000 people lost their heads to the guillotine, 300,000 people were publicly executed by firing squads, drownings and other methods of mass murder and ultimately many millions died in the 25 years of war and upheavals that resulted.  The Prototype Revolution The French Revolution has been the inspiration and model for all socialist and communist revolutions in modern history. As so many today seem entranced by the deceptive promises of communism, it is vital that we look again at what communism really is and why so many rose up in resistance against it. Over 30 years ago, the Iron Curtain fell, Soviet satellites broke free, the Soviet Union collapsed and the world rejoiced in a new birth of freedom. Yet, today, there is an entire generation who are apparently ignorant that they are being lied to and used, to advance a failed and evil system, under the delusion that they are working for a better and more just world. Those of us who fought against communism during the Cold War need to remind the younger generation of the reality which destroys the modern propaganda narrative being taught on so many university campuses and broadcast under the guise of news on the mainstream/lame stream media. Communism is the most malicious and destructive system in the history of mankind. God’s Covenant people have beaten it before and we must defeat communism again. “Who will rise up for Me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for Me against the workers of iniquity?” Psalm 94:16 Deliberate Design Lord Acton in his Lectures on the French Revolution observed: "The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult, but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organisation. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first." Tools of Revolution The tools of the French Revolution were: dis-information, propaganda, the subversion of language, malice, envy, hatred, jealousy, mass murder and foreign military adventurism as a diversion to distract the masses from the failure of government. These tools have been implemented by more modern revolutionaries: Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Che Guevare, Patrice Lumumba, Nicolai Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh and Robert Mugabe.  Revolutionary Ideas The power mad and disenchanted have continued to sing the praises of the French Revolution, and to attempt to replicate its ideals in revolutions as far afield as Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, the Congo and Zimbabwe. Demonic forces and the Enlightenment ideas of humanist philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire prepared the ground for revolution. Disenchantment and Degeneration Historian Otto Scott observed: "French intellectuals, middle and upper classes had grown ashamed of their country, history and institutions. Such a phenomenon had never before arisen in any nation or race throughout the long history of mankind. …a great loosening began; the country slowly came apart… for the first time since the decadent days of Rome, pornography emerged from its caves and circulated openly in a civilised nation. The Catholic Church in France was intellectually gutted; the priests lost their faith along with the congregations. Strange cults appeared; sex rituals, black magic, satanism. Perversion became not only acceptable, but fashionable. Homosexuals held public balls to which heterosexuals were invited and the police guarded their carriages… the air grew thick with plans to restructure and reconstruct all traditional French society and institutions." (Robespierre - Inside the French Revolution, the Reformer Library, New York, 1974.) The Role of the News Media "The heirs of the Enlightenment of the late 18th century… launched the first Revolution in all history against the ideas of Christianity, and Christianity's God. …the press… was spearhead, font, and fuel for these discussions… the journals were mixtures of politics and smut. They admired agitators extravagantly and never discussed the Church without mention of scandal, nor the government without criticism. They relied heavily on tales of sin in high places and high handed outrages of the court; no name, however highly placed and illustrious, escaped. …through its journals and pamphlets …it could distort, colour, plead, argue, lie, report, and misreport the information upon which the balance of the realm depended." (Otto Scott, Robespierre)  The Debt Crisis The French involvement in the American War of Independence against Great Britain created an enormous debt for France. This debt added to the financial crises which had started with France's involvement in the earlier ruinous Seven Years War against Great Britain and Prussia. The colossal debt added to the financial crises which propelled the French state into bankruptcy. Side-lined from Recovery King Louis XVI began his reign wisely. He dismissed the large number of corrupt and incompetent ministers inherited from the court of his father, Louis XV and he appointed an excellent economist, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as Controller General. Turgot proposed drastic solutions to France's crises: the cancelation of tax privileges for the nobles, the abolition of industrial monopolies, removal of restrictions on free enterprise, and other bold, practical measures. However, the nobles pressured Louis XVI to dismiss Turgot. Stop Gap Measures to Stave off Economic Collapse The young banker Jacques Necker was then given the task of managing the unmanageable bankrupt economy. He bravely tried some short-term measures to stave off the inevitable economic collapse. But when he attempted to move towards adopting Turgot's free market strategies, the privileged nobles and wealthy middle-class forced the king to dismiss him too. This was in 1781. Louis entrusted one hapless man after another with the financial crises, but all to no avail. France's international credit rating was plummeting and the country was no longer able to secure loans.  Bankruptcy By mid-1788, the government had become paralysed and no longer able to avoid admitting bankruptcy. The king was forced to re-instate Necker and call for a meeting of the Estates-General to be convened in May 1789. The Estates General The Estates General consisted of three houses, the first Estate was the Clergy, the second Estate was the Nobles and the third Estate were merchants and the common people. Although the third house had twice as many people as the other houses, each house was understood historically to have only one vote. Louis' government failed to specify how the three houses of the Estates-General were to function, nor did he provide them with any Agenda or Constitution. The National Assembly The commoners in the third house boldly organised themselves as a self-contained National Assembly. The nobles were outraged and convinced Louis XVI to send troops to blockade the hall where the Assembly planned to meet. The third Estate then met on a nearby tennis court and vowed to continue in session until they could complete a new Constitution for the nation. This was outright rebellion against the authority of the king. Yet, on 27 June 1789, Louis ordered the other two estates to join the commoners in a new combined Assembly. The Liberals The National Assembly spent most of its time debating the latest philosophical and political theories. The Marquis de Lafayette, who had achieved fame through his involvement in the American war of Independence, espoused the cause of freedom and rallied the liberal wing of nobles around him. The Count of Mirabeau dominated the Assembly through his eloquent campaign for a constitutional monarchy.  The Fanatics The most fanatical extremists gravitated to Maximilien Robespierre who was a strong devotee of the writings of radical philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. Rousseau wrote that: "It is necessary to have a cohesive force to organise and coordinate the movements of (societies), members." Rousseau advocated constant agitation for "equality" in order to maintain an atmosphere of fear where individual differences will not be tolerated. Inspired by the defiance of the Assembly and stirred up by revolutionary pamphlets and speeches, mobs began to roam the streets of Paris attacking and murdering royal officials. Coordinated Chaos France's financial house of cards collapsed. Capital fled the country and economic depression resulted. A series of events combined to create food shortages and hunger. Agitators panned out across the countryside to destroy the grain stores and terrorise the inhabitants. Hired mobs staged "spontaneous" riots in Paris. The powers of government then collapsed. Everything fell apart with astonishing co-ordination. Reaction In reaction, some of the nobles persuaded the king to seek to reassert royal authority. Soldiers were ordered into the streets of Paris as a show of strength. The appearance of the soldiers inspired mobs to seize whatever weapons they could find and to storm the old fortress of the Bastille.  Revolution The French Revolution is officially dated from this point: 14 July 1789. The Bastille had become a symbol of hated tyranny and much legend has grown out of this event. As it so happens, there were no political prisoners at the Bastille at that time, and despite the fact that the Lieutenant Governor of the Bastille, M. De Launay, was guaranteed safe conduct and surrendered the fortress under a white flag of truce, the mob massacred his soldiers, and the governor, cutting off their heads and carrying them on spikes throughout the streets. As body parts of the defenders of the Bastille were paraded through the streets, a mere seven prisoners were found in the Bastille. When the news reached the palace of Versailles, King Louis was astonished: "This is revolt!" He said. The Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt responded: "No, Sire, it is a Revolution!" Appeasement The next day King Louis arrived, simply dressed and with no bodyguards or attendants, and spoke at the National Assembly. He had ordered the troops to leave Paris, so that the people would have no reason to fear their king. Louis assured them that he had confidence in the Assembly. The deputies rose to their feet cheering with great fervour. 88 of the deputies gathered at the Paris City Hall and took turns speaking to the enormous crowd from the balcony. The famous 32-year-old Lafayette was elected General of the National Guard. Deterioration While many seemed optimistic for the future, Marie Antoinette was filled with foreboding and burned her private papers. Nobles fled the court and the country, with many settling across the border. On the 17 July the king travelled to Paris to identify with the revolutionary mob. In October a mob marched to Versailles demanding that the king transfer his residence to Paris. On 6 October, the royal family were escorted by the rioters to Paris where they could be under the control of the revolutionaries.  Manipulation of the Masses Otto Scott observed that: "Paris, like the nation, was divided into the politically active and the passive, between the many confused, disorganised and abstracted and the highly concentrated organised and intent few." (Robespierre). Radicalisation Two clubs came to dominate the Assembly at this time: The Cordeliers were led by Georges Jacques Danton and Jean Paul Marat. The Jacobins were skilfully manipulated by Robespierre. The Origin of the Left Wing It was in the French Revolution that the terms "left wing" and "right wing" were first coined. Those on the left were the Radicals, who proudly adopted the designation as a symbol of their Revolutionary defiance of Christian tradition which always represented those on the right hand of God as saved, and those on the left as damned. (James Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origin of the Revolutionary Faith.) The Hijacking of the Church On 4 August 1789, the Nobles and Clergy renounced their privileges in the name of revolutionary equality. On 2 November 1789, the Assembly voted to confiscate church property and issue new paper money, called Assignats. This sparked off rampant inflation. In July 1790 the Assembly nationalised the Roman Catholic Church by enacting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Assembly undertook to pay the salaries of the priests from the National Treasury and to create a French church under the control of the government. Pope Pius VI excommunicated all clergymen who took the new oath demanded by the Assembly. Most of the clergy refused to take the oath and were evicted from their pulpits and parishes. France was divided into 83 Departments (counties).  Declaration of the Rights of Man The National Assembly produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens. Although this was patterned after the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the American Bill of Rights which had been appended to the United States Constitution, the French Declaration embodied mostly humanistic ideas of the Enlightenment. While attempting to adopt many of the forms of the Biblically orientated Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man failed to recognise the Creator and ignored the Biblical foundations for true freedom. A new Constitution was completed in 1791, with a unicameral legislature elected by "active citizens". Before Mirabeau died, in April 1791, he predicted that all their well-deliberated efforts at Reform would collapse and be washed away in a bloodbath. Abolishing the Monarchy Louis XVI attempted to flee with his family from France on the night of 20 June 1791. When radicals discovered them, they blocked their path and escorted the royal family back to Paris. Danton and Robespierre seized upon this event as an opportunity to proclaim that France was a Republic. As the new Legislative Assembly met, 1 October 1791, the Girondists proposed replacing the just-adopted Constitution and creating a Republic. War Deeply concerned for the fate of the royal family, Austria, ruled by Leopold II, the brother of Mary Antoinette, prepared to invade France. The Assembly declared war on Austria in 1792. The French were soon defeated by the Austrians and the Prussians. Massacre The mob stormed the king's residence and massacred the royal Swiss guards. The Assembly voted to depose the king and write a new constitution. On 10 August 1792 the municipal government was overthrown and Danton became the self-appointed national dictator. The entire male population was drafted for military service and weapons production entered high gear. In September 1792, terrorist mobs swarmed through the prisons and massacred thousands of prisoners including many nobles who had been arrested for no other reason than that they were nobility.  Killing the King A new National Convention was called on 21 September 1792 to write a new constitution. In December, the Convention summoned the deposed King, Louis Capet as he was now called. On 21 January 1793 King Louis XVI was beheaded on the guillotine. Coalition Against Revolution All of Europe was horrified and a coalition was formed against France. Austria, England, Holland, Prussia, Spain and Piedmont prepared to restore order to France and prevent the exporting of revolution to their own regions. The Reign of Terror The Jacobins mobilised the mob to invade the Convention and arrest the 31 leading Girondists. This launched the Reign of Terror, which officially began 2 June 1793. Robespierre established the Committee of Public Safety. A policy of mass public terror was unleashed with Revolutionary Tribunals, in which all "enemies of the Revolution" were summarily tried. Mere accusations were tantamount to verdicts of guilt. The trials were abrupt with no real opportunity granted to the accused to prepare or present any defence. The accused were quickly convicted and carted off to the guillotine.  Killing of the Queen The Queen, 38-year-old Mary Antoinette, was dragged through the mockery of a trial and guillotined on 16 October. Her son, later recognised as Louis XVII, died as a result of inhuman treatment by his revolutionary jailers. Heads Roll Twenty-one Girondist leaders, including Madam Roland, were also beheaded shortly after the Queen. The Duke of Orleans who had joined the Jacobins and taken the name of citizen Egaliter, even voting for the death of his cousin the King, was also executed at this time. Big Bang Social Science Romantic occultism taught a big bang theory of social science. If one could blow up, or burn down, enough buildings, kill enough people and destroy enough things, you could produce Utopia! Destruction The Reign of Terror spread throughout France. When one city sought to resist, it was destroyed. The revolutionaries set up a pillar outside Lyons inscribed: "Lyons waged war with Liberty. Lyons is no more." Toulon was subjugated under the leadership of a young artillery officer from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte.  War Against God The Committee of Public Safety launched a vicious atheistic war against Christianity. They invented a new religion which they called the Cult of Reason. At a festival at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris an actress was enthroned as the "goddess of the French people." France was renamed "The Republic of Virtue". Ancient Rome was lifted up as its model. The press and theatres were turned into instruments for state propaganda. Fashions changed to immoral loose Roman robes. Over 2,000 churches were renamed Temples of Reason and hijacked for the promotion of this cult. A Secular Religion Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: "In the Revolution a sinister ancient religion suddenly re-erupted with elemental violence… the fanatical worship of collective human power. The Terror was only the first of the mass-crimes that have been committed… in this evil religions name." (John Wilson, The gods of Revolution.) Meltdown The revolutionaries began to turn on one another. Danton was executed 5 April 1794. On 7 May, Robespierre sought to impose a new religion on France, declaring a new calendar to replace the Christian calendar. 21 September 1792, the day the Monarchy had ended, was declared the First day of year one of their revolutionary calendar. Robespierre appointed himself as high priest of the Supreme Being in this new cult.  Reaping What They Had Sown
On 27 July 1794, Robespierre and 20 other of his henchmen were seized and executed by the survivors of the Convention. More than 40,000 victims had been murdered on the guillotine under the Reign of Terror. Over two-thirds of those victims had been peasants, artisans and workers. As Madam Roland was being ushered up to the platform to be guillotined, she faced the statue of the goddess Liberty and cried out: "O Liberty, Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Unleashing Forces of Destruction The end of the reign of terror was not the end of the French Revolution. It would be followed by the Directory and by the Dictatorship eventually culminating in Napoleon's Empire which embroiled all of Europe in ruinous war. Even after the death of Robespierre, the Revolution continued to talk about liberty and equality, to fight against the Christian Faith, and to inspire more communes, voices of virtue and revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Tse Tung and Robert Mugabe. Revolutionary Tyranny The French Revolution was the prototype, which was followed by the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Cambodian Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Ethiopian Revolution, the Mozambiquan Revolution, the Angolan Revolution, the Zimbabwe Revolution and many others. In every case they proved that yesterday's revolutionaries become tomorrow's tyrants and dictators. "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption." 2 Peter 2:19 Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa Email: mission@frontline.org.za Website: www.FrontlineMissionSA.org Otto Scott's Robespierre – Inside the French Revolution is the very best expose of what led up to that cataclysmic event and what really took place during that disastrous revolution. Reading this extraordinary book enables one to understand the revolutionary forces arrayed against Christian civilisation today. It is uncanny the similarities one can immediately recognise to what is happening in our streets, in the media, in education, in entertainment, in churches and in government, available from Christian Liberty Books, Tel: 021-689-7478, Fax: 086-551-7490, Email: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za, Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za. See also: Resistance to Revolution How to Respond to Marxist Bullying Tactics Marie Antoinette, also available as a PowerPoint. The French Huguenots, also available as a PowerPoint and translated into Afrikaans. Reformation or Revolution Is South Africa Entering the Second Phase of the Revolution? Fred Schwarz and David Noble's You Can Still Trust the Communists to be Communists is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how to negotiate and deal with Marxist revolutionaries like BLM and ANTIFA. The Agenda - Masters of Deceit DVD documentary is a brilliant expose of how revolutionaries work and how one can resist their unreasonable and suicidal demands.  Resistance is Respected - Weakness is Despised There is nothing communists respect more than strength. There is nothing they despise more than weakness. Those people who think that they can calm the situation by bowing to the mob, washing their feet, or brushing, or kissing their boots, not only figuratively, but literally, have no idea that all they are doing is greatly aggravating the situation and encouraging the revolutionaries to demand far, far more. Never Bow to Bullies In my experience, it is absolutely essential that one never gives Marxist bullies, or mobs, a millimetre. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. First-hand Experience Being brought up in war-torn Rhodesia, experiencing terrorism and revolution, working in communist Angola and Mozambique, being imprisoned in Zambia and Mozambique and in so many other cases I have seen: the more steadfastly and strongly you stand, the better. The moment Marxists sense weakness, fear, or compromise, they smell blood and will only howl for more and escalate their unreasonable demands.  Meeting with Mandela When I marched 30,000 people to parliament in Cape Town to oppose president Nelson Mandela’s secular state policies, I was summoned to the president’s mansion. The first words Mandela said to me: “So, Mr Hammond, what were you doing during the Years of Struggle?” My response: “I was fighting people like you, Sir.” He smiled, laughed, stood up and shook my hand again and said: “I’m so glad to meet an honest white man. All the other whites have told me how they always opposed apartheid and actually supported me. I wondered how the National Party had stayed in power for 44 years, when all the while, whites actually opposed the National Party and supported me!” My response: “Well, make no mistake Mr President, we were not fighting for apartheid, we were fighting against communism and terrorism.” The Greatest Evil His response: “Apartheid was the greatest evil in the history of the world…” My response: “I cannot agree Mr President. That prize must go to your friends and supporters, the communists. They have littered the 20th century with 160 million corpses, not foreign people killed in a time of war, but their own people, killed by their own governments in times of peace. Over 66 million slaughtered under communism in the Soviet Union, over 69 million murdered in Red China. Over two Million killed under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The millions more killed under Mengistu in Ethiopia, under Samora Machel in Mozambique, and Agestino Neto in Angola and under Fidel Castro in Cuba.”  Replacing Apartheid with Abortion At one point, Nelson Mandela expressed his surprise that we wanted to “restrict the rights of women” by opposing abortion. I responded: “Mr. President you are questioning the Christianity of people who 40 years ago justified apartheid. I tell you, sir, it will not be 40 years from now and people will question your humanity for legalising abortion. You are seeking to replace apartheid with abortion. And abortion is even worse than apartheid. Abortion does not just place the baby on a separate voter’s role and restrict where they can live or swim. Abortion takes the baby’s life. Life begins at conception and abortion is the violent taking of that life. Abortion is the worst type of apartheid, for it separates a baby from its own mother and from its life support, at its most crucial state of development. You are seeking to replace discrimination on the basis of race with discrimination on the basis of age.” “You May Take your Photos Now…” At the end of the hour, Nelson Mandela stood up and told us that we could now take our pictures. I did not mean to be rude, but we honestly had not even thought about that: “No thank you,” I said. He turned mouth agape in apparent shock. Perhaps we were the first delegation to meet with him who did not want to have pictures taken with him. I then hastened to add: “But, we would like to pray for you.” Praying for the President “No! No! That’s very private and personal.” I pretended not to hear and put a hand on one shoulder while Rev. Soon Zevenster placed his hand on the other shoulder. We prayed that the Lord would not grant Mr. Mandela any peace until he did what he knew what was right, until he introduced legislation for the protection of helpless, innocent babies from the violence and injustice of abortion. I prayed that Mr. Mandela would find peace in Christ by bowing the knee and surrendering to Almighty God to do His will.  Door is Always Open At the end of our impassioned prayer, I handed over a book from Dr. James Kennedy and Mr. Mandela thanked us and assured us that he was “always responsive” to the “concerns” of our “constituency” and that his “door is always open” should we have any other concerns. (However, the next week senior investigators of his Revenue Service began a seven-year Audit of our mission and family!) Responding to an ANC Demand for an Apology On another occasion, in 1995, I was summoned to parliament to give a submission to their subcommittee on their draft publications bill, which effectively legalised pornography and blasphemy. After my submission, during question time, one ANC MP asked me: “Have you ever apologised for what you did in the SADF?” I answered: “You want me to apologise for what I did in the South African Defence Force? I am sorry we did not kill all of you. You were not Freedom fighters, you were terrorists. You did not attack our military bases, you attacked civilians. Black civilians. You burned a thousand Black South Africans with the brutal necklace murder. You planted landmines in dirt roads and killed whole families. You planted landmines in roads leading to schools and killed school children coming in school buses on their way to school. You kidnapped young children from schools and took them across the border to brutalise them and trained them for your terrorist groups, murdering many and raping the girls. You threw hand grenades through windows into Black policemen’s homes at night. You petrol bombed the homes of Black town councillors. Car bombs, limpet mines, blatant targeting of civilians. You are hypocrites. You speak against racism and then you laugh and applaud and give standing ovations to the worst racist on the planet today, Robert Mugabe, dictator of Zimbabwe. You have no right to ever speak against racism when you so obviously applaud, endorse and enthusiastically practise it. I am sorry we ended the war before thoroughly and completely eradicating all of you communists.” There was a stunned and awkward silence for a time and then the Chairman said: “Right, let us move to our next point…” and they never brought up the subject again. That is the only way you can deal with Marxists, guilt manipulators, gaslighters, thugs and terrorists.  Observation from the French Revolution Napoleon observed that he could not believe the foolishness of the King Louis XVI in not ordering his men to open fire on the mob. Young Napoleon, seeing the massacre of the king’s Swiss guard, determined that if he ever faced a mob, he would give them “the whiff of grapeshot” - meaning turn the artillery/cannons on them. This is what he did on 5 October 1795 which led to Napoleon becoming a leader in France and then the Emperor. You Cannot Reason with a Mob Napoleon Bonaparte was adamant that you cannot reason with a mob. Throughout history, it has been understood that the only way to deal with arsonists and looters is to shoot them. Those who advise police to “stand back,” or “stand down,” during threats to life and property are unravelling the foundations of civilisation. There can be nothing worse than mob rule anarchy. Understanding the Agenda behind Defund the Police The BLM plan to “defund the police” does not mean a police-free state. Marxists want control. Their plan is to defund and disarm, disband the organised, professional police force, which is mostly conservative and generally pro-Trump. What they then want to do is have their war lords/gangs replace the existing professional police with BLM and ANTIFA revolutionaries is police uniform. That would then be followed by gun confiscations and we know how that ends.  The Issue is Never the Issue – the Issue is Always the Revolution
The French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Cultural Revolution in China… how many more times must we see this Agenda worked out before people understand that what Curtis Bowers, documented in Agenda – Masters of Deceit is so true: The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the Revolution. Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa mission@frontline.org.za www.FrontlineMissionSA.org www.ReformationSA.org www.HMSSchoolofChristianJournalism.org See also: Understanding Psychological Warfare The French Revolution How Marxists Subvert Churches and Society The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx Black Lives Matter – a New Religious Cult Racism, Rights and the Role of the Media and Revolution Responding to Revolution with Relevant Reformation Resources  To listen to this article, as an audio, click here. To view the video of this presentation, click here. To view this article as a PowerPoint presentation, click here. Undermining an Enemy’s Will to Resist Psychological warfare involves tactics intended to manipulate one’s opponents, or enemies. This includes the dissemination of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the morale of enemy forces and erode their ability to resist. Psywar In the military terms like ‘psywar’ (psychological warfare), or ‘psyops’ (psychological operations), have also been known as ‘winning hearts and minds’, political warfare and propaganda. Normally, military intelligence would distinguish between Psyops Own Forces, to build up the morale of one’s own people, Psyops Enemy Forces, (to break down the morale of both enemy soldiers and their civilian population) and Psyops Local Population (to win over the hearts and minds of those in the operational area).  Aimed at Emotions and Values Psyops recognise that they need to target their audience’s belief system, value system, emotions, motives, reasoning and behaviour. Some countries have resorted to false flag, or blackops, to discredit the enemy forces by terrorist operations, which can be attributed to the enemy. Using Media Technology to Target the Population Psychological warfare is no longer limited to soldiers. Targets of pysops include civilians, groups, churches, organisations and governments. Technology and media are increasingly being used to effect political changes desired by the enemy, or revolutionary forces.  Victory Through Media Manipulation The Vietnamese commander famously declared that they did not win the war on the battlefield, but on the campuses and in the living rooms of the United States of America, through television coverage of American protests against the war. Not Beaten - Betrayed The Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, declared: “We were never beaten by our enemies, we were betrayed by our friends.” Total War President P.W. Botha of South Africa tried to warn the South African population of the Total War which was targeting every aspect of life in South Africa. While the mass media derided this, history has proven President P.W. Botha correct. South Africa was subjected to a total war where, although the South African Defence Force was spectacularly successful on the battlefield, on the border of South West Africa and in pre-emptive strikes into communist controlled Angola, the country was undermined by subversion, sedition and sabotage.  Sedition Subverts Society On the university campuses, in the classrooms, in the media, on the streets, insidious sedition subverted the public. The ANC could justly be described as “the most spectacularly unsuccessful revolutionary movement” in the world, with not a single victory to their name in over 30 years of “armed struggle.” However, their allies in the South African Council of Churches, in the universities, editors of many newspapers, Hollywood, through sports boycotts, disinvestment campaigns, sanctions and general psychological warfare, economic warfare and political warfare waged by the Soviet Block, the European Economic Community, the Organisation of African Unity, the British Foreign Office, the US State Department and the United Nations gradually wore down much of the population to where they were willing to settle for a negotiated settlement with the defeated ANC. In exchange for international sports, cricket, rugby and participation in the Olympic games. Threats and Temptations This was something of the carrot and the stick approach. The sticks included economic sanctions, disinvestment, boycotts and bans, riots, sabotage, bombings and sporadic acts of terrorism at home and increasing condemnation from abroad. The carrots were the opportunity to participate in international rugby tours, cricket tours and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Battle for the Mind In psyops, propagandists target adversaries by seeking to destroy, by psychological means, the morale and confidence of their targeted opponent to the extent that they begin to doubt the validity of their beliefs, values and actions.  Unprecedented Mass Communication Media Opportunities to Manipulate Emotions Modern mass communication techniques have allowed unprecedented opportunity for foreign forces to engage in direct communication with a targeted/enemy population. In recent times the internet allows for campaigns of disinformation and misinformation, including false flags and agent provocateurs to seek to discredit, or character assassinate, those whom they target. Capture the Culture The Frankfurt School of Cultural Marxism recognised that while World War One and the military defeat of Czarist Russia provided a unique opportunity for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, violent revolution was unlikely to succeed anywhere in Western Europe. Therefore, Marxist leaders, such as Antonio Gramsci, proposed The Termite Strategy to erode from the inside the cultural institutions of the West. The Termite Strategy Just as a termite could hollow out the inside of a wooden building so that even fresh coats of paint on the outside would not save the structure from collapsing in time, so too Marxists need to work for slow, gradual, long-term, culminative revolution through infiltrating the five cultural carrying and culture transforming institutions of Western society: Education institutions; News Media; Entertainment industry; Religious institutions and Political institutions. Gramsci’s slogan was to “capture the culture!”  Subvert Christian Civilisation through Obscenity, Pornography and Blasphemy Herbert Marcuse, another of the Frankfurt School Marxists, emphasised the importance of subverting the culture through obscenity, blasphemy, perversion and pornography. He advocated using swear words as “verbal grenades” to attack bourgeoisie Christian society. Obscenity and blasphemy are weapons in psychological warfare to break down Christian civilisation. War on History As Karl Marx declared: “The first battlefield is the rewriting of History!” George Orwell observed: “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” Culture War Those who understand Marxism, particularly the Cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School, the Gramsci Strategy and the role of obscenity in Marcuse’s Revolutionary Strategy will immediately recognise where the violence and campaign to topple statues and monuments and spray paint obscenities on the walls, comes from. Straight out of Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution and the public humiliation/shaming/apology scenes were exactly how Mao Tse Tung publicly shamed/sidelined and humiliated traditional leaders in China’s Revolution. Prophetic Warnings George Orwell warned us in his prophetic novel 1984 of Newspeak, Thought Police, Thought Crimes, where opponents would be vaporised, made unpeople and disappear down the memory hole. Aldous Huxley warned us in his prophetic book, Brave New World, of a future sophisticated society where people are distracted by endless entertainment stimulation and subdued by drugs, to be easily manipulated by the New World Order state.  Indoctrinated, Distracted and Depressed John Dewey, one of the authors of the Humanist Manifesto of 1933, was a pioneer of secular humanist state education. We should be able to recognise how much of the entertainment industry defiles and degrades us, how much of the news media discourages and distracts us. So much in this society today, including music and the arts, depresses and disgraces us. Through the Stockholm Syndrome, many are cowered into co-dependency on their very abusers. “That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.” Ephesians 4:14 Deteriorated, Degraded and Divided Cultural Marxism has deteriorated society. Critical Race Theory has divided society. “Confuse, divide and conquer.” Most of Hollywood entertainment degenerates and degrades. The Gramsci Termite Strategy has corrupted and rotted most institutions of the West. The Marcusian subvert and corrupt the culture campaign has been all too successful. Not only is perversion tolerated, it is promoted and celebrated. “But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” Hebrews 10:39 Degradation, Disintegration and Defeat We are seeing communism in the classroom and a war on our historic monuments in the streets. Discouragement. Distraction. Depression. Dependency. Deterioration. Division. Degeneration. Degradation. Disintegration. All equal defeat. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” Ephesians 5:11  Discernment and Discretion We need to understand the times and know what God’s people should do. History matters. Truth matters. We need to get back to the Bible. We need discernment. We need to disconnect from the world indoctrination, distraction and disinformation media. Support independent and alternative sources of news media and entertainment. Exercise discretion. Reclaim the Culture for Christ Get back to the classic Christian books that built up civilisation and boycott the modern trash that is breaking it down. Home education using solid Bible-based, Christ-centered, God-honouring textbooks will be the single most strategic and important foundation that can be laid for reclaiming our culture for Christ. Examples of Excellence Some of the antidote to the psyops, gaslighting, guilt manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, cultural Marxism indoctrination are the examples of excellence we can learn in Christian history. Frontline Fellowship’s contribution to this colossal conflict for Christian civilisation includes: Victorious Christians – Who Changed the World; The Greatest Century of Reformation; The Greatest Century of Missions; Sketches from South African History (also available in Afrikaans); Slavery, Terrorism and Islam – The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat and to get back to the Bible, Old Testament Survey and New Testament Survey. Learn to Discern Visit Henry Morton Stanley School of Christian Journalism Facebook page and www.hmsschoolofchristianjournalism.org. website for alternative Christian news media perspectives.  Clean the Screen Visit www.MovieGuide.org to evaluate films. It is important to know before you go, to learn to discern and to clean the screen. Boycott the bad and support the good, uplifting and excellent. Understanding the Times Dr. David Noebel’s Understanding the Times is the single best textbook explaining the different competing worldviews and the Biblical response. This has also been summarised in a more compact book, The Battle for Truth, by Dr. David Noebel. Firm Foundations for our Families, Faith and Future Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter are a vital strategic antidote to the secular humanism evolutionary foundations of the cultural revolution facing us today. Effective Evangelism Effective Evangelistic tools to seek to win our world to Christ can be found from Living Waters, Way of the Master Ten Commandments based resources: www.LivingWatersAfrica.co.za. “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul…” Psalm 19:7  Apply the Lordship of Christ to All Areas of Life
Frontline Fellowship’s Great Commission Course and Biblical Worldview Summit are intensive training programmes for those who want to apply the Lordship of Christ to all areas of life and make disciples of the nations. For practical principles for every area of life, see the Ten Commandments – God’s Perfect Law of Liberty (also available in Afrikaans) and Biblical Principles for Africa (also available in Afrikaans and French). Resources to Equip and Empower You You can access many of the lectures and presentations of previous Biblical Worldview Summits and Great Commission Courses on the www.FrontlineMissionSA.org website in our audio and video galleries. Always Be Ready to Give an Answer to Anyone Who Asks You To counter many of the attacks made on the Faith, you will find Answering Skeptics, a useful resource with battle-tested, factual and Scriptural responses to 14 common attacks on the Faith. Stand Up, Step Out and Fight the Good Fight of Faith Great is He who is in us than him who is in the world. Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from us. We are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1 Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa mission@frontline.org.za www.FrontlineMissionSA.org www.ReformationSA.org www.HMSSchoolofChristianJournalism.org See also: How Marxists Subvert Churches and Society Do Not Be Deceived The Battle for the Mind in the News Media Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People  Following the Revolutionary Herd George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, now seems ominously prophetic. First published in 1949, Orwell’s 1984 envisaged a future with omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation through media propaganda, school indoctrination, the cult of worshipping political and media personalities, historic revisionism, intimidation and social engineering. All this no longer looks like a joke. Subverting Freedom of Thought Orwell predicted the manipulation of language into Newspeak, with Thought Crimes punished by Thought Police. The Ministry of Truth use lies and propaganda to distort all information in news, entertainment, education and the arts. The Ministry of Plenty controls rationing and ensures starvation. The Ministry of Peace ensures perpetual war. The Ministry of Love tortures, terrifies and crushes all dissent and resistance. Mobilising Hate in the Name of Love
The Ministry of Love also orchestrates two minutes hate and hate week campaigns to distract and channel the anger and frustration of the masses towards a real, or imagined, enemy. Memory Holes The Ministry of Truth would also vaporise, or expunge, from the public record, opponents of the state which could not be debated with, or argued, against. These would become un-persons who would disappear down the Memory Hole. Rewriting History Every monument needs to be replaced; every street name changed. History itself needs to be re-written in order to accord with the current policy of the ruling political party (As Karl Marx declared: “The first battlefield is the rewriting of History”). Supressing Freedom of Expression Today, the sinister suppression of free speech, manipulation of language and intimidation of the general population is becoming an all too real factor in everyday life. In the past, to suppress dissent the accusation of “heresy!” or “treason!” was sufficient. Today: “Hate Speech!” is the modern equivalent to silencing free speech. Merely accusing someone of: “racism!”, “homophobia!”, “Islamophobia!”, or “bigotry!” is sufficient to silence opposition and prevent free and open discussion. A Most Relevant Warning At the end of the 19th century, General William Booth of the Salvation Army predicted: “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without Repentance, Salvation without Regeneration, politics without God and Heaven without hell.” Wide Gates to Hell German Reformer Dr. Martin Luther warned, almost five centuries ago: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be wide gates to hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not constantly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.” School Campuses are a Battleground Education today most certainly is a battleground. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience is under fire on school and university campuses which are meant to be free market places of ideas where “iron sharpens iron”. Fight for Faith and Freedom Dr. Martin Luther declared: “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, then I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefront besides, is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point.” “…Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.” 2 Chronicles 19:2 Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa Tel: 021-689-4480 Email: mission@frontline.org.za Website: www.FrontlineMissionSA.org See also: Do Not Be Deceived “Hate Speech” Bill Threat to Free Speech The French Revolution The Greatest Killer Reformation or Revolution Is South Africa Entering the Second Phase of the Revolution? How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People The Battle for the Mind in the News Media 
Unraveling One of the Many Secrets of the Second World War
To view the video of this presentation on our Vimeo Gallery, click here. To listen to the audio lecture on Sermon Audio, click here. To see this article as a PowerPoint presentation on Slideshare, click here. One of the most extraordinary mysteries and disinformation campaigns has finally been exposed, implicating numerous prominent heads of state in the atrocities and subsequent cover up scandals. A complex edifice of deception has been thoroughly dismantled by patient and persistent perseverance and pressure.
Mission to Poland When I visited Poland in 1990, and saw a monument for the victims of the Katyn Forest Massacre in 1940, I questioned whether they did not mean 1941? "Surely you don't believe the Russian propaganda?" they challenged me. I did not know what they were talking about. The Polish Christians were most agitated over my ignorance on this matter. A Lesson in History They explained that although Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, ostensibly because Germany had invaded Poland, so Russia also invaded Poland in 1939. "Of course most history books omit that fact." The Katyn Forest was in Soviet territory, they pointed out. Over 22,000 Polish prisoners, including over 8,000 officers, were murdered in cold blood by the Soviet NKVD in the Spring of 1940. When this crime was discovered, Stalin's Soviet Russia was an ally of Great Britain and the United States of America. Therefore they found it more convenient to attribute this Russian atrocity to their German enemies. 
Judicial Fraud
The Polish Christians informed me that the British, Americans, and French chose to participate in judicial fraud at the Nuremberg Trials by indicting the German Army with what were plainly Communist atrocities committed by Soviet Russia. Missing Polish Prisoners of War In December 1941, the head of the London based Polish government-in-exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski enquired of Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, what had become of Polish prisoners of war captured by the Soviets during their invasion of Poland in September 1939. Stalin assured Sikorski that all Polish POWs had been released. He opinioned that some might have moved to Manchuria. Mass Graves Exhumed In 1943, a German intelligence officer, Rudolph von Gersdorff, serving with the Abwehr, received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers near Katyn. A ditch 28 m long and 16 m wide was found which contained the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers piled up in 12 layers. This was only the first of many such graves to be unearthed. German soldiers unearthed numerous mass graves of many thousands of Polish officers who had been massacred in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. German news reports claimed that this was yet another evidence of the war crimes and atrocities committed by the Communist commissars of the Soviet Union. W hen the German government announced the discovery of the mass graves in the Katyn Forest, the London based Polish government-in-exile requested an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it and claimed that the victims had been murdered by the Nazis. Investigation The German government brought in a European Commission of 12 forensic experts and their staff from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and Hungary. Even Polish, American and British Prisoners of War were included in the investigation. The reports of these neutral investigators confirmed that the victims were indeed Polish officers, NCOs and intellectuals who were victims of Russian forces in the Summer of 1940. When the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter before the International Red Cross, General Sikorski died in an aircraft crash in July 1943, an event that was described as "convenient to the allied leaders." Numerous books and documentary films have been made of "The Assassination of General Sikorski." 
The Burdenko Commission
The Soviets hastened to orchestrate an alternative Soviet version of the now disclosed massacre, to claim that the Polish POWs had been massacred, not by the Soviets, but by the Nazis. Nikolai Burdenko, the President of the Soviet Academy of Medicine, presided over a commission appointed by Stalin to investigate the incident. Burdenko claimed to have interviewed more than a hundred eyewitnesses who swore that the Nazis had massacred the Polish POWs in Autumn, 1941. The Nuremberg Trials At the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1946, the German military were proclaimed guilty of shooting Polish Prisoners of War in the Katyn Forest. So the Soviet version of the Katyn Massacre moved from war-time propaganda into school history books: The Germans shot Polish Prisoners of War in Katyn Forest in 1941. Duplicity The Polish-Soviet crisis threatened Western-Soviet relations and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt were torn between their commitment to their Polish ally and the demands of Stalin. In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was most likely carried out by the Soviets. According to Edward Raczynski, Churchill admitted on 15 April 1943, during a conversation with General Sikorski: "Alas, the German revelations are probably true. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel." However, on 24 April 1943, Churchill assured the Soviets: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any investigation by the International Red Cross or any other body…" Classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was "a near certainty", but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than the moral issue. The official version parroted the Soviet propaganda and the censors suppressed all contradictory accounts. Cover-up The British Foreign Secretary pointed out several inconsistencies, and near impossibilities, in the Soviet version. Churchill's post-war account of Katyn skirts over the Katyn Massacre by referring to the 1944 Soviet Enquiry which attributed guilt to the Germans adding cryptically: "belief seems an act of faith." Suppressed When US Navy Lieutenant Commander George Earle produced a report concluding that the massacres were committed by the Soviet Union, President Roosevelt ordered Earle's report to be suppressed. When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President issued a written order forbidding it. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of the War in the remote island of American Samoa. Reports Destroyed Two senior American Prisoners of War, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Stewart and Colonel John van Vliet, taken by the Germans to Katyn for investigation, submitted a report, after their release in 1945, that the Soviets were definitely responsible for the Massacre. George Marshall's Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General Clayton Bissell, destroyed the report. During the 1951-1952 Congressional Investigations, General Bissell defended his action before Congress arguing that it was not in the US interest to antagonise the Soviet Union which was America's ally . 
Embarrassed
The Americans and British were embarrassed by the Soviet inclusion of the Katyn Forest Massacre in the indictments against the German military at Nuremberg. Soviet General Roman Redenko, at the Nuremberg Tribunal stated that "One of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish Prisoners of War shot in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German Fascist invaders." Katyn was: "The worst massacre of Prisoners of War in history." Hypocrisy For sheer bare-faced hypocrisy this accusation was classic. All present at the trial, including the one making the accusation, knew that this was judicial fraud and farce. Censorship The Black Book of Censorship in the People's Republic of Poland expressly stated: "Any attempt to burden the Soviet Union with the responsibility for the deaths of Polish officers in Katyn Forest is forbidden." Further evidence that everyone knew who was really responsible, was that even the most simple memorial erected in Poland such as Katyn 1940, was confiscated by police and destroyed. The Polish practice was to erect memorial crosses on All Saints' Day. These were always dismantled by the police. If Katyn had really been a Nazi atrocity, it would not have been a taboo subject in Communist controlled countries. Not only did the Soviet Union forbid any monuments to be erected to victims of the Katyn Massacre, but the British government also objected to plans to build a Katyn monument in the UK. 
Disinformation Campaign
In the 1960s, the Soviets launched a Disinformation Offensive to sidetrack the persistent accusations of Soviet atrocities and massacres throughout Eastern Europe. A village in Belarus, Khatyn, whose name is very similar to Katyn, was chosen as a site for a memorial to commemorate the victims of Nazi atrocities. Apparently 149 Khatyn villagers had been massacred by Ukrainian and Belarus soldiers fighting for the Nazis in March 1943. This Khatyn Memorial became an obligatory stop for all foreign visitors. This Disinformation Campaign scored its major success in 1974 when US President Richard Nixon was brought to Khatyn to remember the Polish victims of the Nazis! From this time all Soviet publications displaced Katyn with Khatyn, including in Polish encyclopaedias and historical dictionaries. Facts are Stubborn Things Every Soviet leader had to deal with the persistent Polish charges of the Katyn Forest Massacre. The Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s used underground printing presses to expose the Soviet duplicity and print the facts about the Katyn Forest Massacre. 
Gorbachev's Glasnost
Mikhail Gorbachev launched an historical commission in 1987 to create a new Soviet version of what had actually happened at Katyn. Gorbachev's Politburo proposed in 1988 to build a memorial to the victims of the massacre "executed by Hitlerites in Katyn" alongside a memorial to 500 Soviet POWs supposedly also killed at Katyn by the Germans - a myth created by the Burdenko Commission with absolutely no evidence that it ever happened at all. Gorbachev also offered the Poles "a simplified procedure" for relatives wishing to visit the sites where their loved ones lay buried. One of the Worst Crimes Ever However the Polish historians tenaciously exposed the Russian responsibility, and the Catholic church in Poland labelled the Katyn Massacre "one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind." Exposure Gorbachev's trusted advisor, Valentin Falin, reported that Polish historians subverted the Soviet Commission by producing their own evidence exposing the 1944 Burdenko Report as spurious. Without waiting for the Soviet Commission's response, the Poles began publishing the facts. The problem stubbornly refused to go away. Even the communist puppet government of Jaruzelski was forced to admit that "the liquidation of the Polish officers was the responsibility of the USSR." 
Admission
On the symbolic date of 13 April 1990, 47 years after Berlin radio had announced the discovery of the massacre site, Gorbachev handed over two boxes of evidence to the Poles. The documents made clear that the Katyn Massacre was the work of the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria. Gorbachev attempted to convince the Poles that more than 20,000 Polish nationals had been executed by the secret police chief without any authority from the Soviet Politburo! 
Deception Rejected
This limited confession and further attempts at deception only enraged the Polish people further. An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Soviet Union in 1991, and later by the Russian Federation, confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres. However the Russian Federation later tried to diminish the number of the deaths to 1,803 Polish citizens. They also refused to classify the action as a war crime, or as an act of genocide. They declared the investigation closed on the grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already dead.
Finally the Truth Comes Out In October 1992, Boris Yeltsin, who had replaced Gorbachev, lowered the Soviet flag, abolished the Soviet Union and handed over "newly found" secret documents from the Soviet Politburo to Polish president Lech Walensa. The Politburo order dated 5 March 1940, was entitled, Question of the NKVD. In it Beria informed Stalin that 14,736 Polish officers, officials, police officials, gendarmes and other intellectuals were being held in prison camps in occupied Polish territory and that 18,632 similar people were being held in camps in the Western Provinces of Ukraine and Belarus. Beria requested permission to shoot them all. Stalin's Order Stalin's "in favour" and bold signature are scrawled at the top of Beria's question. Five other Politburo members also signed and approved the execution order. The document was labelled Top Secret. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were Polish military officers taken prisoner during the September 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. Another 6,000 were police officers, with the rest being Polish Intelligentsia arrested for being " bourgeois". The Katyn Forest Massacre was justified by Stalin's Politburo as necessary to deprive a potential future Polish military of its leadership. Since Russia intended to keep the Eastern portion of Poland, he was determined to deprive it of a large proportion of its military and intellectual elite. 
Cold Blooded Mass Murder
Those who were murdered, in the first batch alone, included: an Admiral, 2 Generals, 24 Colonels, 79 Lieutenant Colonels, 258 Majors, 654 Captains, 17 Naval Captains, 3,420 NCOs, 7 Chaplains, 20 University Professors, 300 Physicians, hundreds of lawyers, engineers and teachers, more than one hundred writers and journalists and over 200 pilots. Altogether during the massacres, the NKVD murdered 14 Polish Generals. Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, the Chief Executioner for the NKVD, is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, from the Ostashkov Camp, over a period of 28 days in April 1940. A Legacy of Deception Further documents revealed that every Soviet chairman since Joseph Stalin had signed out the Politburo's Katyn file and were well aware of the Russian complicity in this crime. In a Memo dated 20 March 1959, to Chairman Khrushchev, Interior Minister Alexander Shelepin reported: "The Committee of State Security… has held, since 1940, case files and other materials regarding prisoners and interned officers, policemen, gendarmes, military settlers, landowners, etc., persons from former bourgeois Poland who were shot in the same year. In all, on the basis of the decision of a special Troica of the NKVD, USSR, 21,857 people were shot… the entire operation was carried out on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of 5 March 1940. Since 1940, no information from these files was released to anyone. All of the files, numbering 21,857, have been stored in a sealed location. To Soviet organs, all of these files represent neither operational interest, nor historical value. It is also doubtful that they could be of any real value to our Polish friends. Quite the contrary, any unforeseen incident may lead to revealing the operation with all the undesirable consequences for our state. This is especially so because regarding those shot in the Katyn Forest, there is an official version supported by an Investigation carried out on the initiative of the Soviet state in 1944, by the Burdenko Commission… which concluded that all of the Poles liquidated there are considered to have been killed by the German invaders. The conclusions of the commission became firmly established in international public opinion. It seems appropriate to destroy all of the records regarding the persons shot in 1940, in the above mentioned operation." Evidence Destroyed Shelepin's recommendation to purge the records was carried out with these over 21,000 case files destroyed. However, the Politburo Execution Order and Memo from Beria remained in the official record. Files later released from Gorbachev's time included advice from advisors, that should the truth of the Katyn Forest Massacre come out, people could be convinced that the Soviet Union was no better than, and may have been worse than, Nazi Germany during the war, and that the Soviet Union bears no less responsibility for the war. 
Polish Deportations
Polish historians point out that during the 1930s, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles living in the Western areas of the Soviet Union were marked out for persecution by Stalin - either execution, or deportation to Central Asia. The Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, was followed by more waves of arrests and mass deportations to the East. When the Katyn Forest Massacre took place, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles, mostly the better-educated and economically active citizens, were already in exile in Siberia, or in labour camps in Central Asia. They were herded there in horribly overcrowded freight trains and at least one out of every five of them died during transportation to the Soviet concentration camps. Oppression Between 320,000, to possibly up to 1 million, Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet Union. Of one group of 12,000 Poles incarcerated in Delstroy, near Kolyma, in 1940, only 583 survived by 1942. Over 570,000 Polish citizens were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps by the Soviets during the war. Polish prisoners were subjected to lengthy interrogations between October 1939 and February 1940. These interviews were a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, if the prisoners could not be persuaded to adopt a pro-communist attitude, they were declared "hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority" and condemned to death. Further Massacres When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in the Summer of 1941, the NKVD concentration camp guards massacred thousands of Polish prisoners before fleeing eastwards to avoid the German advance. The Betrayal of Warsaw When the war was reaching its end and the Red Army was at the very gates of Warsaw, radio broadcasts from Russia urged the Polish citizens to rise up in revolt! The Soviet Army was then ordered to stand by and render no assistance as the Germans crushed the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin said that it was better that all resistance in Poland be crushed before a Soviet occupation. 
South Africa's Support Remembered
The Polish Christians in 1990 reminded me that only the South African Air Force had flown in weapons and aid to the Polish underground during the Warsaw Uprising. I was surprised. I had read that the RAF had done so - but that was another lie. It was actually the SAAF, but because of apartheid, historians had expunged South Africa's role and replaced it with the RAF. The fact that history books could be re-written to conform to politically correct dictates is disturbing. Never Liberated Polish citizens strenuously objected to any suggestion that they had been "liberated" by the Soviets. "The Soviets never liberated anyone!" they insisted. The first act of the Soviets on occupying Poland was arresting all leaders of the underground army and government. Polish Christians pointed out that most of the atrocities attributed to the Germans were actually communist atrocities committed by the Soviets and conveniently blamed on their enemies. Polish relatives of the victims continued to urge the European Court of Human Rights to rule on the crimes of the Stalin regime. 
Putin's Perspective
To Vladimir Putin's Russia, the Katyn Forest Massacre is an inconvenient truth which taints Russian war-time heroism. Putin's chief military prosecutor, Alexander Savenkov, issued a ruling on Katyn on 11 March 2005, in which they acknowledged that the NKVD Troika found 14,542 Polish citizens, held in NKVD camps, guilty of committing state crimes and made a decision to shoot them in the Spring of 1940. Putin's representative claims that these Soviet officials "abused their authority," but that no criminal cases could be opened against them because the guilty parties had since died. The Polish claim of genocide was rejected and although they agreed to hand over 67 of the 183 volumes of evidence, two thirds of the remaining evidence was to remain classified. Outrage The Polish parliament was outraged and demanded that Russia's Katyn archives all be declassified and that Russian courts rule that the Katyn Forest Massacre was an act of genocide. Communists throughout the world would prefer the truth about Katyn to be buried, but Christians in Poland, and throughout Eastern Europe, determined to exhume the secrets and expose the true nature of Soviet Communism. Pressure Human Rights societies continued to pressure the Russian government, until in November 2010, the Russian Duma, approved the declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the Massacre of Polish Prisoners of War. This was only after the disastrous plane crash of Polish leaders enroute to Katyn for the 70 th Anniversary Commemoration. 
Death Flight
On 10 April 2010, an aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 87 other politicians and high-ranking army officers, crashed near Smolensk, killing all 96 on board the aircraft. The passengers were to attend a ceremony marking the 70 th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. The Polish people were convinced that they were the victims of a communist terror campaign which assassinated their president and senior leaders on the eve of the most important and solemn anniversary of this massacre. Many observed that it was like the assassination of General Sikorski in 1943. In the furore following the death flight of the Polish government, the Russian Duma finally acknowledged Russia's guilt for the Katyn Forest Massacre. 
War Crime
In 2011, the European Court of Human Rights declared admissible two complaints of relatives of the massacre victims against Russia concerning the inadequacy of their investigations. In a ruling on 16 April 2012, the court found that Russia had violated the rights of victims' relatives and described the Massacre as a war-crime. It has taken 75 years, but facts are stubborn things. "They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity…" 2 Peter 2:19 Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa mission@frontline.org.za www.FrontlineMissionSA.org www.hmsschoolofchristianjournalism.org Sources: Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin's Polish Massacre, by Allen Paul, Scribner, 1991 Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory, by George Sanford, 2005 Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment, by Anna Cienciala, Jael University Press, 2007 Class Cleansing: The Katyn Massacre, by Victor Zaslavski, Telos Press, 2008 World War II Behind Closed Doors, by Laurence Rees, Random House, 2010 Katyn: Stalin's Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, by Allen Paul, Northern Illinois University Press, 2010 An audio CD of this message, as presented to The Reformation Society, is available from: Christian Liberty Books PO Box 358 Howard Place 7450 Cape Town, South Africa, Fax: 086-551-7490, Email: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za, Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za See also: Do Not Be Deceived (to see the video, click here; to listen to the audio, click here. How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People; to see the PowerPoint, click here. Dealing with Deceit The Greatest Killer; to see the video, click here; to see the PowerPoint, click here; to listen to the audio, click here. Death By Government Communist Liberation – Myth and Reality; to view the tract, click here. The Heart of Communism; to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here. The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx; to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here; to listen to the audio, click here. Farms and Freedom Under Fire in South Africa; to listen to the audio, click here. Lessons from the Rwandan Holocaust; to listen to an audio, click here. Security and Survival Handbook (include a pic of the book)  Click here to view a video presentation on the Holocaust in Rwanda. 26 Years ago, 6 April 1994, one of the most dreadful campaigns of mass murder was unleashed upon the Tutsi people of Rwanda. In just 100 days, more people had been slaughtered with machetes and clubs than have died from atomic weapons in all of history. Convenient Timing At the time, world media attention was focused on South Africa's first "One Man, One Vote" elections. When the genocide was launched on 6 April 1994, most African correspondents were in South Africa covering the elections. The MRND government in Rwanda meticulously organised the genocide. The French trained Presidential Guard, the army, the gendarmes and civil administrators were mobilised to slaughter the Tutsi minority.  Sowing Confusion Central to the MRND strategy was to sow confusion so that no one would know what was happening. They isolated their victims by imposing a news blackout, cutting telephone links, establishing a dense network of roadblocks and imposing a nationwide curfew. These measures kept people in their homes and prevented most people from fleeing. By cutting communications and restricting travel, they isolated their victims and sought to stifle the flow of news. State Sponsored Genocide Following the assassination of the president, by surface to air missile, the MRND government (Mouvement Revolutionnaire National pour le Development) launched a campaign of disinformation. It portrayed the killings as a spontaneous outbreak of tribal violence. It sought to confuse the mass killing of defenceless people with "the war", and it played the humanitarian card by pleading for emergency aid. All this was a smoke screen to conceal the state sponsored genocide. Amidst this calculated confusion, many foreign aid workers assisted in the disinformation campaign by contributing ill-informed comments such as: "Everyone is killing everyone!"; "It's uncontrollable violence"; "The Hutus and Tutsis are killing one another again!"  Spread of Disinformation Having killed opposition politicians, Rwandese journalists, human rights activists and others who might present an accurate report on the cold-blooded campaign of mass murder, the MRND campaign continued their strategy of disinformation by portraying the violence as spontaneous rage in response to the assassination of the president. Evacuation of Foreigners Initially, international attention generally focused on the plight of foreigners. Camera crews were, understandably, only prepared to travel with international troops - whose mission was to evacuate foreigners. This naturally led to a slanted and incomplete picture being portrayed to the world. The murder of ten Belgian soldiers on 7 April only heightened this pre-occupation with the evacuation of foreigners. It is very probable that the killers were instructed to murder the Belgians precisely in order to make the evacuation of foreigners the international priority. It also further encouraged the withdraw of UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda).  Massacres Exposed This strategy of disinformation and terror was spectacularly successful. To this day, most people worldwide do not understand what happened in Rwanda, or why it happened. That is why after my mission to Rwanda I was compelled to produce a compact book that would not only expose what had happened in the horrific massacres in homes, hospitals, churches and on the streets, but the reasons why this systematic slaughter was unleashed. Holocaust in Rwanda reveals the events leading up to the intense and widespread violence, and more importantly the lessons we need to learn from the genocide in Rwanda. International Community Condemned President Paul Kagame at the formal ten years commemoration of the Rwandan genocide condemned "the international community's failure… a convenient failure to take responsibility." President Kagame led conference participants on a tour of massacre sites including the churches in Nyamata and Ntarama where 15,000 people were slaughtered in the sanctuaries where they had sought refuge. Remembered Victims The cemetery at Nynaza was another place visited. The cemetery contains the graves of 3,500 people who were massacred after being abandoned in a schoolyard by UN peacekeepers. Liberal Church Participation The Holocaust In Rwanda book is unique in that it examines the disgraceful involvement of liberal church leaders, gun control and media manipulation. Rwanda was a gun free zone. The mass murderers successfully manipulated and abused the media to vilify the targeted Tutsis, and to mobilise masses of Hutus to kill their neighbours. The scandalous role of the French government in providing assistance, training and weapons to the mass murderers, and even the French military expedition to create a safe zone for the fleeing Hutu mass murderers, providing sanctuary even for many of the architects of the genocide, is also revealed in this book.  Challenge to the Christian Church In addition Holocaust In Rwanda looks at the challenge the Rwandan holocaust presents to the Christian church. The killers did not merely kill people in churches, they killed church workers - pastors, ministers, priests and nuns. However, the most shocking aspect of the anti-Christian mass murders was how many people responsible for the slaughter were trusted members of the congregations. On many occasions even priests, nuns and ministers were directly involved in the genocide! Several heads of denominations co-operated with the Interahamwe, by betraying their Tutsi congregations and co-workers into the hands of mass murderers. Compromise and Cowardice The role of these Christian traitors, blood-stained bishops and murderous ministers of Rwanda are an indictment upon our theological seminaries and church councils. Those who do not wholeheartedly love the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word are not qualified to be spiritual leaders. The Rwandan Holocaust exposes the emptiness of the superficial and self-centred easy believism, which all too often masquerades as the Gospel. Compromise and cowardice helped cause the catastrophe. Most importantly, Holocaust In Rwanda looks at some of the lessons, which need to be learned in order to ensure that such atrocities do not reoccur. Far more important than the concerns for retribution is the urge and need to lay foundations for the future that will prevent such nationwide oppression from ever occurring again. These are Biblical principles which are not only important for Rwanda but for every society which values life and liberty. Holocaust In Rwanda concludes with the Biblical principles which had they been adhered to, there would have been no holocaust in Rwanda.  Holocaust In Rwanda is available in both English and French (70 pages with 20 photographs, maps, or charts) from: Christian Liberty Books P O Box 358 Howard Place 7450 Cape Town South Africa, Tel: 021-689-7478, Fax: 086-551-7490, E-Mail: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za, Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za.
Holocaust in Rwanda is now available as an E-Book. Click here to listen to From the Frontline podcast on this topic. Dr. Peter Hammond Frontline Fellowship P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South Africa Email: mission@frontline.org.za Website: www.FrontlineMissionSA.org See also: Lessons From the Rwandan Holocaust Kofi Anan, the UN, the Rwandan Holocaust and Oil-for-Food Scandal Click here to listen to the audio of the Kofi Anan article
April marks the anniversary of the launch of the systematic extermination of the Christian Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. The Jihad began with the arrest of 250 Christian leaders in Constantinople (what is today called Istanbul) and over 800 other Christian leaders throughout the empire, on 24 April 1915. Over 1.5 million Christians were slaughtered by Muslims in Turkey during 1915. Additionally, 750,000 Assyrian Christians and 950,000 Greek Orthodox Christians were murdered in the Ottoman Turkish Empire between 1915 and 1922. That amounts to over 3.5 million Christian victims of the Turkish Empire over just 7 years. 
Corruption and Cruelty
The Ottoman Empire declined into corruption and degeneracy from the beginning. When Sultan Murad III died in AD 1595, his son Muhammad had his 19 brothers murdered to prevent them from claiming "his throne". He also had seven of his father's pregnant concubines sown into sacks and thrown into the river. Many of his nephews were incarcerated in "the cage". Sultan Ibrahim threw his grand Vizier into a cistern. One morning, after an orgy, Ibrahim had all 300 women of his harem put into sacks and thrown into the Bosporus. Only one survived by being picked up by a ship bound for France. When Ibrahim was finally assassinated, the Ottoman Empire was torn apart by more corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, misrule and power struggles. |
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