4: Readers' Reactions

The first editions of this book produced interesting responses. Many greeted it as a new discovery in the understanding of Marxism and gave me valuable hints as to where I could find new material.

On the other hand, a Dutch personality dedicated several columns of his theological magazine to minimising the importance of the discovery. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Marx may have indulged in black magic, but this does not count for much. All men are sinners, all men have evil thoughts. Let us not be alarmed at this.’

It is true that all men are sinners, but not all are criminals. All men are sinners, but some are murderers and some are the righteous judges who pass judgment on them. The crimes of Communism are unequalled. What other political system has ever killed sixty million men in half a century as have the Soviets?¹⁸⁹ Another sixty million have been killed in Red China—some estimates run much higher. There are degrees of sinfulness and criminality. The enormity of crime is a measure of the intensity of Satanic influence on the founder of modern Communism. The sins of Marxism, like those of Nazism, surpass the ordinary. They are satanic indeed.

I have also had letters from Satanists offering an apology for their religion. One of them writes:

‘A defence of Satanism needs only the Bible for documentary evidence. Think of all the thousands of earthly people, created in God’s own image, mind you, destroyed by fire and brimstone (Sodom. and Gomorrah), a lethal miscellany of plagues, and, to top everything off, the drowning of the earth’s population, except for Noah’s family. All of these devastations brought about by a “merciful” God/Lord/Jehovah. What could a merciless god have done?

‘But in all the Bible there is no record of even one death being brought about by Satan! So, let’s hear it for Satan.’

This Satanist has not studied the Bible well. Death came into the world through Satan’s deceit, his luring Eve into sin. This Satanist has also drawn his condusions too soon. God has not yet finished with His creation.

Initially, every painting is a senseless, often ugly mixture of lines and dots of many colours. It took da Vinci twenty years to make of these the beautiful Mona Lisa. God also creates in time. In time he shapes beings and destroys them to give them a new form. The seed which has neither beauty nor fragrance dies as seed in order to become a splendid, perfumed flower. Caterpillars have to die as such in order to become beautiful butterflies. Men are allowed by God to pass through the refining fires of suffering and death. The apotheosis of creation will be a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness will triumph. Then those who have followed Satan will have to suffer in eternity of regrets

Jesus endured floggng and crucifixion. But whoever wants to know God must look beyond the tomb to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. In contrast, the enemies of Jesus who plotted his death brought their people and their temple to destruction and lost their own souls.

Our critic wished to comprehend God through reason, which is not the right instrument for a creature. God cannot be comprehended but only apprehended by a believing heart.

A Jamaican asks if the America that exploits his country is not as satanic as Marx. It is not. Americans are sinners, as are all men. America has a small group of devil worshippers. But the American nation as such does not worship the devil.

Nauka I Religia, the principal atheist magazine of Moscow, contains a long article written by two philosophers, Belov and Shilkin. They say that ‘Wurmbrand’s temperament might be envied by the greatest football players. His shouting is savage. This fighter calls for a crusade against Socialism, which he calls an offspfing of Satan. He was imprisoned in Romania for distributing religious literature instigating revolt against the government!’¹⁹⁰

In this article two things are to be noted: First, that I am called a ‘devilish pastor’ for my book Was Karl Marx a Satanist? though the authors cannot produce one single fact to refute the documentation supporting Marx’s links with a Satanist sect. Second, the article congratulates Christian leaders, even anti- Communists, who have taken a stand against me. They might be adversaries of Communism, but as long as they oppose Wurmbrand, chief enemy of Communism, they are approved by Moscow.

One remarkable letter came from a Nigerian who had been a labour union leader for twenty years. My writings helped him to see that he had been led astray by Satan. He has become a Christian.

To All of You Marxists . . .

Now I address myself to the rank-and-file Marxist: You are not animated by the spirit that controlled Hess, Marx, Engels. You really love mankind; you respect it and are confident you are enrolled in an army fighting for universal good. It is not your desire to be a tool of some weird Satanist sect. For you this book might be useful.

Satanic Marxism has a materialistic philosophy that blinds its followers to spiritual realities. But there exists more than matter. There is a reality of the spirit, of truth, beauty and ideals.

There is also a world of evil spirits, whose head is Satan. He fell from heaven through pride and drew down with him a host of angels. Then he seduced the progenitors of the race. Since the Fall his deceit has been perpetuated and increased through every conceivable device, until today we see God’s beautiful creation ravaged by world wars, bloody revolutions and counter revolutions, dictatorships, exploitation, racism of many kinds, false religions, agnosticism and atheism, crimes and crooked dealings, infidelities in love and friendship, broken marriages, rebellious children.

Mankind has lost the vision of God. But what has taken the place of this vision? Is it something better?

Man must and will have some religion. It is his nature to worship. If he has not a God fearing religion, he will have the religion of Satan and will persecute those who do not worship his ‘god.’

Presumably only a very few top leaders of Communism have been and are Satanists consciously, but there is also an unconscious Satanism, just as some people are basically Christian without knowing that their religion is that of Christ. A man can be a Satanist unconsciously without being aware that such a religion exists. He is so if he hates the notion of God and the name of Christ, if he lives as though he were only matter, if he denies religious and moral principles.

Those who delve into the occult are in the same class.

In Frankfurt, West Germany, more people go on Sunday to spiritualist meetings, where the dead are called up, than to church services. There are known Satanist churches in Munich and Dusseldorf, for instance,¹⁹¹ There are many such churches in France, Britain, the U.S.A., and other countries.

In Great Britain there are 35,000 practising witches. American universities and even high schools offer courses in witchcraft, astrolory, voodoo, magic, and ESP. In France 40,000 black masses are conducted annually.

Human beings may forsake God, but God has never forsaken his creatures. He sent into the world His only Son Jesus Christ to save the race of man. Incarnate love and compassion lived on earth in the life of a poor Jewish child, then of a humble carpenter, and eventually of a teacher of righteousness. Downtrodden man cannot save himself, any more than a drowning man can fetch himself out of the water. So Jesus, full of understanding for our inner conflicts, took upon himself all our sins, including the sins of Marx and his followers, and bore the punishment for what we have done. He expiated our guilt by dying on a cross on Golgotha, after suffering the most terrible humiliation and agonising pain.

We have his word that whoever puts his faith in him is forgiven and will live with him in eternal paradise.

Even notorious Marxists can be saved. It is worth noting that two Soviet Nobel prize winners, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, both former Communists, after describing the extremities of crime to which satanic Marxism leads, have confessed their faith in Christ. Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Stalin the worst of the Marxist mass murderers, also became a Christian.

Let us remember that Marx’s ideal was to descend into the abyss of hell himself and draw all mankind in after him. Let us not follow him on this vicious path, but rather follow Christ who leads us upward to peaks of light, wisdom and love, toward a heaven of unspeakable glory.

The Great Gulf

It is manifestly impossible to compare Jesus with Marx. Jesus is not greater or better than Marx. He belongs to an entirely different realm altogether.

Marx was human and probably a worshipper of the Evil One. Jesus is God, who reduced himself to the level of mankind with the desire to save it.

Marx proposed a human paradise. When the Soviets tried to implement it, the result was an inferno.

Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. It is a kingdom of love, righteousness and truth. He calls to everyone, including Marxists and Satanists: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11:28). Believe in him, and you will have life etemal in his heavenly paradise.

There is no possibility of agreement between Christiantiy and Marxism, just as there can be no agree ment between God and the devil. Jesus came to destroy the works of the Evil One (I John 3:8). As Christians follow him, they strive to destroy Marxism while retaining love for the individual Marxist and tying to win him to Christ.

Some proclaim that they are Marxist Christians. They either deceive or are deceived. One cannot be a Marxist Christian any more than one can be a devil worshipping Christian.

Over the years, the Satanist aims of Marxism have not changed one bit.

The Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch writes in his book Atheism in Christianity that ‘the seduction of the first human couple by the serpent opens the way of salvation for mankind. So man starts to become a god; it is the way of rebellion. Priestcraft and the possessors of goods repressed this truth. The original sin consists in the fact that man does not wish to be like God. Man must conquer the power. The theology of revolution wills it that man should conquer the power of God. The world must be changed in the image of man. There should be no heaven at all. The belief in a personal God is the fall into sin. This fall must be repaired.’

There is a gulf between Chrisitanity and Communism that can be bridged only in one sense: Marxists must abandon their devil-inspired teacher, repent of their sins, and become followers of Christ.

To help them cross over this bridge was the main purpose of this present work.

Marxists are concerned with social and political problems. These will have to be solved outside the tenets of Marxism. For Marx, Socialism was only a pretence. His aim was the diabolical plan to ruin mankind for eternity. By way of contrast, Christ desires our eternal salvation.

In the fight between Christianity and Communism, believers ‘wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against prncipalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Ephesians 6:12).

We have to choose not only between abstract good and abstract evil, but between God and Satan. Marx believed in God and hated him. Even in his old age he worshipped Satan as indicated earlier.

The average Marxist and the sympathiser of Marxism should not follow Marx in his spiritual aberration. Let us reject the bourgeois Marx, bearer of darkness, and Engels, factory owner and therefore, according to Marxist dogma, an exploiter. Let us rather choose the Light of the world and mankind’s prime Benefactor, Jesus the working man, the Carpenter.

‘Proletarians of the World, Forgive Me!’

That Marxist Satanism has ravaged the world is terrible. That it has penetrated high places in the church is unthinkable. Yet such is the case.

To give just one example: the late Pope John Paul I praised Giuseppe Carducci, an Italian university professor, as an example of a good youth teacher.¹⁹² Who is the man recommended by no less than the Pope?

Carducci became famous through his ‘Hymn to Satan,’ which begins: ‘My ardent verse is for thee. I invoke you, Satan, king of the feast.’ It ends: ‘In holiness, incense and vows should ascend to thee, Satan. You have defeated Jehovah, the god of the priests.’¹⁹³

It would have been wrong for me to remain silent about these matters.

In 1949, a Soviet general said to a Catholic priest, Werenfried van Straaten, ‘We are Satan’s elite, but you, are you God’s elite?’

We have seen in this book to what length devil worshippers are willing to go. May their dedication to evil be an incentive for us to behave like God’s elect!

During the troubles in Poland in 1982, one could see mocking inscriptions on the walls: ‘Marx said, Proletarians of the world, forgive me!’ instead of the usual ‘Proletarians of the world, unite!’

I shuddered when I read these words.

It is said about Engels that he repented before his death. There is no such record about Marx, which means that he consigned himself to hell. In 1983, many commemorated the centenary of his death. Might he have held this same commemoration in hell?

While writing this book, I have passed many a sleepless night, thinking of what Marx must endure viewing in hell the rivers of tears and blood that he has caused to flow.

Jesus told a story about a rich man in the etemal fire who expressed one ardent desire: his brethren should be warned not to end up in the same place of torment.

Does Marx also have the same desire—that his followers should be warned not to walk in his foot steps leading to perdition?

Are the Polish people right when they have Marx say, ‘ ... forgive me’? Does he indeed cry out from the fire—as I truly believe in my heart of hearts—‘Send someone to my house, for I have many comrades, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment’ (Luke 16:27,28).

The Soviet Communists did an enormous wrong to their cause by disowning Stalin, who had become a popular idol. One can only speculate why they permitted such a reversal of policy, since it was certainly not in their best interest to remove Stalin’s corpse from the mausoleum. Likewise, the Chinese Communists harmed their own cause by disowning Mao and jailing his wife.

Perhaps in the hidden depths of their souls, Soviet and Chinese Communist leaders have felt what is now the burning desire of their former idols, who too late are remorseful about what they have done and taught.

As for me, I love every man, induding Marxists and Satanists. If Marx and Engels and Moses Hess were alive today, my most ardent wish would be to bring them to Jesus Christ, who alone has the answer to man’s ills and the remedy for his sins.

This is my wish for you, the reader. You have walked with me through the terrible pages of this book. Now I urge you to consider carefully your loyalties before it is too late. Abandon Satan and his evil cohorts. History proves he is never true to his own. Therefore, choose life and love, and hope, and heaven.

Marxists and proletarians of the world, unite around Jesus Christ!

Appendix

Marxist ‘Christian’ Theology

Ernesto Cardenal is a Catholic priest who is at once a self-avowed Communist and a member of the Communist government of Nicaragua. He is one of the most prominent exponents of so called Liberation Theology, which exists within both Catholicism and Protestantism and seeks to blend Christianity with Communism.

Here are a few excerpts from his book The Zero Hour:

‘A world of perfect Communism is the kingdom of God on earth. They are the same thing for me . . . Through the Gospel I have arrived at revolution; not through Karl Marx, but through Christ. The Gospel caused me to become a Marxist . . . I have the calling of a poet and prophet . . .’

‘Castro told me that the qualities of a good revolutionist are also the qualities of a good priest . . . Let us not forget that the first Christians were the best Christians, i.e., revolutionary and subversive, Christians . . .’

Marxism is a fruit of Christianity; without Christianity, Marxism would be impossible; Marx would be unthinkable without the prophets of the Old Testament. Changing the system of production, we can create the new man of the Gospel . . .’

‘The Mexican Jesuit Jose Miranda says in his book Marx and the Bible that the Ten Commandments are Marxist, even the first commandment, to love God. For him, to love Jehovah above all means to love justice. If the church ever asserted anything else, it was a monstrosity.’

‘I believe that the Communists, too, belong to the church. I believe the true church includes many who don’t perceive themselves as Christians, even those who consider themselves atheists. Many of these belong more to the church than some who sit in the Roman Curia.’

‘Since Constantine, the church has always gone to bed with the capital. If Christians and Marxists would read each other’s writings, there would be no conflicts any more between Christians and Socialism . . . It seems to me that worker-priests and revolutionists—the most progressive part of the church—are inspired directly by the Holy Ghost.’

‘For me the God of the Bible is also the God of Marxism-Leninism . . . The apostle John says, “No one has seen God.” What the atheist Marxists say is very much akin to what Saint John says: “No one has seen God.”’

Another writer quotes Cardenal as follows: ‘I am above all a revolutionist and as such fight for a Socialist country which is in the course of passing through a dictatorship of the proletariat, in which surely it cannot show itself feeble toward the enemies of its fatherland, not even in moments when one comes to the point of having to execute men for this purposs.’¹⁹⁴

It is self-evident that a man who thinks like this has no trouble praising the regime in Cuba as a model of liberty.

Liberation Theology is not an isolated phenomenon.

It is the by-product of a general tendency to synthesise Marxism and Christianity; it is also seen in various forms of compromise in politics, art, econ omics, and so on.

Two Jews, Bernstein and Schwartz, composed the musical The Mass for the inauguration of the John Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington in 1971. In it, during the singing of the Kyrie Eleison, the Gloria, and the Credo, a band of singers and dancers howl their doubts:

God made us the boss;
God gave us the cross.
We turned it into a sword
To spread the word of the Lord.
We use his holy decrees
To do whatever we please. Yeah . . .
 
Give us peace that we don’t keep on breaking.
Give us something or we’ll just start taking,
We’re fed up with your heavenly silence,
And we only get action with violence.

The ‘Christian’ multi-millionaires present at the concert cheered. Their wives, apparelled in slit skirts and decollete bodices, bejewelled and befurred, joined in the applause. The music is now standard repertoire.

I can understand men like the priest Cardenal. There is a ring of truth in the feeling he expresses of solidarity with the Communists, who appear to him as champions of the cause of the poor—always near to the heart of Christians.

In the Bible Job is called a righteous man. He describes to his dubious friends the programme of his life: ‘I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him . . . I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth’ (Job 29:12, 16, 17). These words could be uttered by any revolutionist.

Job continues: ‘Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?’ (30:25). ‘If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God rises up?’ (31:13, 14). True believers have always reacted like this.

Cardenal’s assertion that ‘the church has always gone to bed with the state’ is untrue. The war of secession in the U.S.A. which led to the abolition of slavery was influenced by the book of a Christian lady, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She said simply ‘The Lord wrote it.’

During a Communion service she had a vision of an old slave being beaten to death by a white ruffian. This became the story of Uncle Tom’s flogging.

The book was a stick of dynamite driven into the foundations of slavery, which had to disappear.

Charles Spurgeon, the greatest Baptist preacher of the last century, was also an ardent fighter against slavery. He Wrote, ‘If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.’ Wilberforce, a Christian and a capitalist, caused slavery to be abolished in the British Empire long before America’s Civil War. Lincoln, also a Christian, issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in his own country.

The Theology of Liberation, which ignores these facts, is widely urged in the Third World. Its theoreticians can call themselves Christian only because of the chaotic thinking prevalent in the church at this moment. According to the Catholic rules, these theo logians should long since have been expelled from the church.

According to the decree of 28 July 1949, of the Holy Office, the following categories of Catholics are excommunicated:

Whosoever belongs to the Communist Party;

whosoever makes propaganda for it in any way;

whosoever votes for it and its candidates;

whosoever writes for the Communist press, reads and spreads it;

whosoever remains a member in a Communist organisation;

whosoever confesses the materialistic and anti-Christian teaching of atheist Communism;

whosoever defends and spreads it.

This punishment applies also to parties that make common cause with Communism.

The revolutionist theologians belong only formally to the Catholic Church, but they have a great influence among believers. In the Orthodox churches too, there exists a tendency to exploit, for the benefit of Communism, the spiritual energies that religion awakens and channels. This will be the purpose of an ecumenical council (the eighth) for which the Soviet and Romanian official Orthodox churches are preparing.

Its principal aim will be to proclaim an earthly paradise. Communism is this paradise, Capitalism its foe. The church no longer waits for the coming of Jesus in the clouds of heaven. The triumph of Communism will be equated with his coming.

This concept explains why in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and other Communist countries the God hating Communist government pays the clergy.

It needs to be said that among both Catholics and Orthodox, there also exist contrary tendencies: fortunately, there are bishops who fear absorption into earthly pursuits and seek rather a deeper spiritual life.

As for Protestants, in hearings before the U.S.A. House Committee on Un-American Activities on 26 February 1966, Richard Arens, general counsel to the Committee, declared:

‘Thus far, in the leadership of the National Council of Churches, we have found over 100 persons in leadership capacity with either Communist-front records or records of services in Communist causes. The aggregate affiliations of the leadership is in the thousands.’

The World Council of Churches for years has subsidised Communist guerrillas in Africa.

The Catholic Gustavo Gutierrez wrote in The Theology of Liberation: ‘The church must place itself squarely within the process of revoluhon.’ The Lutheran theologian Dorothee Solle, founder of ‘Christians for Socialism,’ wrote: ‘We are at the begin ning of a new chapter in Christian history. It will not be written without Karl Marx.’

These are the facts, open and uncontested, about what is happening in the church universal.

Perfect Communism: Kingdom of God on Earth?

Cardenal says, ‘Communism and the kingdom of God are the same thing for me.’

The word ‘Communism’ in itself is vague. It is taken to mean only an economic system in which everyone will work according to his ibilities and will receive according to his needs. There will be no state, no division of the world into countries, and no social classes, because the means of production will belong to all mankind.

Suppose this could be attained: where is God in the picture? Why should this be equated with the kingdom of God? A society of unbelievers, even of men who hate and scorn God, could choose or be forced to live in such a state.

Scripture says that when the kingdom is the Lord’s, ‘All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him’ (Psalm 22:27).

The kingdom of God will not be a stateless society. The people of the saints of the Most High will have dominion over it (Daniel 7:27).

It is not a kingdom brought about by a political party, but Jesus, the Son of Man, shall come into his kingdom (Matthew 16:28).

Obviously, there will be none of the evils that plague society now, such as war, famine, pestilence, pollution, social injustice, exploitation, racism, etc. The kingdom of God will be one of righteousness, peace, love, joy, and the right to possess one’s own mansion and garden (John 14:2). Father Cardenal, who asserts that he is a prophet, must know what his Biblical predecessor Micah said: ‘In the last days they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree.’ (4:1, 4) The prophet Isaiah reinforces this idea definitively: ‘They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat (65:22). Thus, Scripture endorses the notion of private ownership.

What would perfect Communism look like in reality? Perfection as we humans experience it is the ultimate achievement of years of practice—in the field of sports, music, typing, or skills of any sort. A violinist perfects his performance of a Beethoven concerto by practising his violin. A baseball pitcher achieves success by throwing the ball and refining his technique in intensive effort. A flautist who prac tises his craft does not automatically become a foot ball hero.

Perfect Communism, described as economic liber ation, freedom, peace, and justice can be attained only through the practice of such policies in the society it hopes to benefit.

Communists have jailed, tortured, and terrorised hundreds of millions of men for almost seventy years. How could such practice result in a just, mild, and loving society?

Christian Communism is a utopian nightmare. The theology of revolution is a patent absurdity, a contra diction in terms.

‘What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has he that believes with an infidel?’ (II Corinthians 5:1.4, L5). ‘You cannot serve God and mammon,’ said Jesus. Choose you this day whom you will serve.

Notes

189. Solzhenitsyn, op. cit., vol. III-VI, p. 10. (back)

190. Nauka I Religia (Science and Religion), Moscow, December 1976. In Russian. Wurmbrand on the Lecturing Trip. Vol. 12, pp. 73-76. (back)

191. Idea, 3 June 1983. (back)

192. Osservatore Romano, 17 September 1978. (back)

193. Quoted in Gerhard Zacharias, The Cult of Satan and Black Mass. (back)

194. INF of Aide à L’Église en dètresse, April-June 1980. (back)

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