Two
Men, Two Revolutions, One True Change
Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 10/29/17
The river of history is
sometimes gentle, sometimes boisterous.
We often consider it a force beyond our control.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger once remarked
that “history is to the nation what memory is to the individual.” However we define history and whether or not
we enjoy its study, we cannot say that man has no control over it. This very month, October of 2017, is the
anniversary of the actions of two men who gripped history in their hands and
slung it forward, affecting many nations, many centuries, and millions of lives.
October
31 is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, it is the anniversary of the
actions of one individual, Martin Luther.
This October is also the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Bolshevik
Revolution, specifically the anniversary of the actions of Nicolai Lenin.
Luther’s
actions are well known. By tacking his
95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, the German monk bravely challenged
the most eminent authority in the western world, the Roman Catholic
Church.
Lenin did not act
alone. One of many in a bevy of
radicals, he became the leader and the face of the Bolshevik (Communist)
Revolution. As dangerously as Luther,
Lenin challenged not a state church but a family, the Romanovs, who had ruled
Russia for precisely 300 years.
In
1517 Luther plunged Europe into religious wars that continued for centuries. In 1917 Lenin led Russia into a 74-year
socialist experiment that severely curtailed freedom and left millions in
poverty. Such has been the plight
throughout the world of those living under socialism’s central planning, a
bloody recipe that has everywhere left blood in its wake.
As
social/political upheavals go, nothing is comparable to these two events except
the American Revolution and perhaps the 1948 Communist takeover of China. Our misnamed Civil War aside, we Americans,
thankfully, know little about internal upheaval that leads to hunger,
displacement, or endless strife. Our
222-year history, a brief one indeed, has been marked neither by constant
religious wars nor by the designs of any singular, would-be tyrant.
In
Luther’s case, it was religious conviction that sparked the flame that set
Europe afire. Luther’s indictment of the
medieval Catholic structure and its practices struck a chord. The sale of indulgences was evil. The
Church’s doctrine of salvation was amiss.
“Sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone), Luther pleaded. And then, “Here I Stand. I cannot and will
not recant.” Luther didn’t reform the Catholic Church, but he reformed the religious
landscape of the West by bringing attention to Rome’s raw power.
There
has come unity between Catholics and Protestants, not in respect to theology
but in diplomatic relations and in working for common goals. Recently, Southern Baptist leader Russell
Moore was invited by Pope Francis to a Vatican meeting of religious leaders. Catholics and many Protestant groups have
always worked together to fight abortion and to preserve the sanctity of
marriage.
There
has been far less healing between the masses of Russia and its political class. Russia now has elections and casts itself as
a democracy; however, the nation is still drying off from Leninism and
Stalinism. Putin, for sure, has not
reckoned with his communist past. The
irony of Lenin’s actions in 1917 is that a bad system of aristocratic,
totalitarian rule was replaced with a bad system of party totalitarian rule. Luther
brought about change; Lenin did not.
Tyranny is tyranny, whether foisted on us by a family dynasty of aristocrats
or a band of socialist radicals posing as deliverers of the peasants.
And
what can we learn from Luther and Lenin?
From Luther we can learn courage.
At the Diet of Worms he presented his case, facing excommunication and
the threat of execution. From Lenin we
should learn that socialism by any name is a losing proposition.
From
Luther we can learn to keep a list of 95 theses in our pocket, ready to
proclaim them when events and conscience so dictate. From Lenin we can learn that socialism/Marxism/communism
is little more than shared poverty and that sometimes history turns on those
who try to advance evil.
T.S.
Eliot wrote, “We know little of the future except that from generation to
generation the same things happen again and again.”
Yes
and no. Lenin’s statues have been
toppled, and now the city of Leningrad is St. Petersburg again. Luther is revered around the world.
Sometimes
history does make sense and turns out well.
Roger Hines
10/25/17
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