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Hi my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast I want to ask: Is there a demonic root to communism?

Some may consider that an odd topic since communist regimes are officially atheistic.

But communism is very much in vogue these days, with an odd twist.

We have the left wing anarchists calling for communism in America, while at the same time tens of thousands of Cubans were taking to the streets calling for an end to communism in the island nation.

Ironically, those who have never experienced Communism want it and those who have actually lived under it are desperate to get rid of it.

But with Cubans taking to the streets, I thought it appropriate to discuss an interesting article in the New York Post written by Juan Reinaldo Sanchez back in 2015. The article was entitled: Inside Fidel Castor’s Luxurious Life on His Secret Island Getaway.

You have probably never heard of Juan, but for 17 years he worked as personal security for Fidel Castro, otherwise known as ‘el commandante’, the glorious leader of Cuba’s glorious communist revolution.

Juan appeared in the background of dozens of publicity photos taken of Castro at home and abroad.

In 1994, Juan had enough and retired, and as thanks for his years of service, Castro promptly threw Juan in prison for several years. After his release, Juan fled to the United States.

Once in America, Juan wrote a book entitled the “The Double life of Fidel Castro.” It was the hypocrisy he witnessed first hand that finally sickened Juan of Fidel Castro and his glorious communist revolution.

During his presidential reign, Castro was famous for his five hours speeches and currently holds the record for the longest-winded speech at the UN, 4 hours and 29 minutes.

During his speeches, Castro typically wore his army fatigues and boasted he was a man of the people and only earned the equivalent of a paltry $38 US a month and repeatedly claimed he only owned a small fishing hut on the ocean.

But the reality was much more incredible than that, Castro showed the world what you could do with a measly $38 a month if you simply embraced Marxism.

Because according to Juan while earning only $38 a month, Fidel managed to own 20 properties across Cuba, including a luxury home that he built on a small island just off the coast of Cuba called Cayo Piedra or Little Jewel.

Incredibly, with his $38 monthly stipend, Castro was also able to staff his homes. He also owned a large yacht, now to be fair it was donated by Soviet Union President Leonid Brezhnev. But still Fidel was able to pay for crew, gas, food, and the nightly parties from his $38 monthly salary.

It showed how a person could stretch their finances under communism if you just embraced this ideology and put your mind to it.

And he even had a fully stocked hospital. When I say stocked, I mean fully stocked. According to Juan, it included two people with the same blood type as Fidel.

I see a great title for another blockbuster movie, “Vampires of the Caribbean, how communism sucks the life out of you.”

Look I can understand how left wing anarchists are clamouring for communism in America. If you get all this for $38 US a month, what could you expect under Marxism while earning America’s median salary of $3,900 a month.

Yet, for some bizarre reason, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets marching and protesting against Cuba’s glorious communist revolution.

Of course, communism was originally the brain child of a German man, Karl Marx, who died in 1883. He wrote the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, two major books that provided the basic economic theory behind communism explaining, how you could afford everything Castro had on just $38 US a month?

Marx also called for the end of capitalism and the development of a classless society, as workers rose up and destroyed the ruling bourgeoisie.

Of course, he was simply replacing the current bourgeoisie with a communist one.

And we need to understand a classless society as Fidel understood it.

Several years back, I remember watching an interview of a young man sitting at a Marxist/Leninist propaganda table at a university. When the interviewer asked him to explain all the communist failures over the past several decades, the man retorted he would do communism differently.

And today’s communists are trying to spin these past failures by claiming they weren’t true communism, because they never developed a classless society.

Many tried, but man’s old sinful nature got in the way, time and again.

What is that modern definition of insanity that we often toss around: Doing the same thing again and again, but expecting a different result.

I hate to disappoint you, but not everyone gets their own personal hospital that includes two people with their blood type under communism.

But as communism took root around the world, we have seen nothing but oppression, poverty, denial of basic human rights and tens of millions of deaths.

And this ideology falls in line with what Jesus said in John 10:10, that the thief, an allusion to satan, comes to steal, kill and destroy, which is essentially communism’s motto.

But is there a spiritual dimension to communism?

Though Marx ultimately became famous as the founder of communism, he also had a dark side, yeah one darker than communism.

Karl Marx was a poet. And before he founded communism, he was also a Christian and even wrote Christian literature.

So he understood Christianity and the Bible. He understood God and satan. He understood good and evil.

And as we look at his poetry, we see references to the satanic realm, as he embraced this new strange ideology that dominated much of the world this past century.

In his poem, entitled The Player, Karl Marx wrote these ominous words:

“The hellish vapours rise and fill the brain, till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed
See this sword, the prince of Darkness sold it to me.

And

With Satan I have struck my deal.”

Though Marxist supporters have tried to brush it off as just poetry, Marx knew exactly what he was saying, and almost prophetically, the sword, accompanied by blood and violence, followed communism where ever it gained a foot hold.

The Black Book of Communism, published in 1997, and written by several European academics, detailed the mass murders and genocides committed by communist regimes around the world.

They concluded that up to that point, Communism was directly responsible for at least 100 million deaths including:

• 65 million in Communist China under Mao Zendong
• 20 million in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin
• 2 million in Cambodia under Pol Pot and the the Khmer Rouge

But Marx’s poetry had other satanic allusions.

In his poem, Invocation of One in Despair, Marx writes about building his throne high overhead:

“So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of destiny,
All his words are gone beyond recall, nothing but revenge is left in me.
I shall build my throne high overhead.
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be
For its bulwark — superstitious dread
For its marshal — blackest agony.”

And when we combine these words with another poem where Marx declares himself equal with God:

“Then I will walk triumphantly
Like a god through the rains of their kingdom
Every word of mine is fire and action
My breast is equal to that of the creator.”

You see an eery resemblance to the words of the Prophet Isaiah, as he described the fall of satan writing:

“But you (satan) said in your heart,
I will ascend to heaven
I will raise my throne above the stars of God
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north (Isaiah 14:13-14 NASV)

And in his book, The Devil and Karl Marx, College professor Dr Paul Kengor noted that Karl Marx was often heard chanting one of his favorite sayings:

“Everything that exists deserves to perish”

Kengor said Marx would chant it over and over again. It was actually a direct quote from the Demonic being Mephistopheles in Johann Goethe’s book entitled Faust, where Faust sells his soul to the devil in exchange for wisdom and worldly pleasures.

But there may be another interesting connection between communism and the demonic found in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John’s vision of the end times. In Revelation chapter 2, John had an unusual word for the church at Pergamum, writing:

And to the angel of the church of Pergamum write: I know where you dwell (katoikeo), where Satan’s throne is and you hold fast My name and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where satan dwells (katoikeo) … (Revelation 2:12-13 NASV)

The same Greek word for dwell, katoikeo, is used to describe both the believers and Satan dwelling in Pergamum. According to the Expository Dictionary of the New Testament, the word means “to settle down in a dwelling, to dwell fixedly in a place.”

In other words, at this point in history, Satan was literally dwelling in the city of Pergamum located in modern Turkey.

But Pergamum was more than just a dwelling place for Satan, the passage adds that Satan also had his throne there, meaning it was also the seat of authority for the satanic kingdom.

And there was an actual physical representation of this authority at Pergamum, because it was also the home of the throne of Zeus — a massive altar built around 200 BC. It was a 35.64 meters wide and 33.4 meters deep.

The altar existed when the Apostle John wrote Revelation, and this was the throne of Satan that John was referring to.

But as Christianity became dominant in Rome, the Pergamum altar fell out of use and gradually disappeared, covered by debris and dirt.

Forgotten for nearly 2,000 years, the altar was rediscovered by German archaeologists in 1878, who then transferred in to a museum on Berlin’s Museum Island in 1901.

Was this move, resurrecting the throne of satan significant?

Well, 13 years after its arrival, World War I started, which was largely instigated by the Germans and Austrians, that resulted in the death of 16 million people.

Then in 1939, Germany under Adolf Hitler started World War II where over 60 million were killed, including 6 million Jews in concentration camps.

Was there a demonic influence behind World War I and later Adolf Hitler or was the thrones’ arrival in Berlin just a coincidence?

Neil Kressel in his book, Mass Hate: The Global Rise Of Genocide And Terror, said this about Hitler:

“Overwhelmingly … Germans speak with mystification of Hitler’s ‘hypnotic’ appeal. The word shows up again and again; Hitler is said to have mesmerized the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break loose.”

While many have tried to label Hitler as a right wing dictator. In fact, he rose to power as leader of National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which became know as the Nazi party.

But then a strange thing happens, the Pergamum alter is moved.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union — which captured Berlin — took the altar as a spoils of war — transferring it to the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad in 1945.

For most of the time it was there, the country was ruled by Josef Stalin who died in 1953 — arguably the second-greatest mass murder the world has ever seen, second only to Mao.

Now to be fair, Stalin was involved in genocide long before the throne of Satan arrived, but after its arrival, Stalin set up the Eastern Bloc made up of countries the Soviets had supposedly liberated in their push to defeat Hitler.

For the next several decades, as we entered the Cold War era, the Soviet Union exported communism around the world.

In 1958, the Soviets returned the Pergamum altar to communist controlled East Germany. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, East Germany was eventually reunited with West Germany.

Today, the altar of Satan sits in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

The altar of Zeus or the throne of Satan as John called it has no inherent power. In the Book of Revelation, it outwardly symbolized what was taking place in the spiritual realm. And I suspect the location of this satanic seat of authority has moved over the years.

And though most try to laugh off Marx’s satanic allusions as the words of a poet, there are indications Marx was taking it much more seriously.

READ: Inside Fidel Castro’s luxurious life on his secret island getaway