Terry & Barbi Franklin - USGN

The Party is Definitely Over

USGN article
by Terry Franklin
October 1999

I'm sitting in a motel room in Moscow and I'm laughing my head off. Outside the picture window of this communist-era hotel the sky is blue, people are a lot happier than they were thirty years ago, and V.I. Lenin is not happy.

Down below, next to a bustling street is one of the few bronze statues of the architect of communism that has not been removed. This one shows Lenin, the man who interpreted Karl Marx and forged a godless, atheistic society, looking out proudly as the czars are cowering at his feet. But this enemy of capitalism is not a happy camper...

You see, what he's looking at today is a gigantic billboard advertising Coca-Cola. And look, there's another one for Nike shoes... and another one for Sanyo televisions. (High-five your neighbor and say, "Yeah!, we won!!!!")

Now, I realize that capitalism is not perfect, but it sure beats the fire out of anything communism ever offered. And down at the end of the street I see another interesting thing.

A beautiful church with a cross rising high above it. It has been there for over a hundred years. Joseph Stalin, a Hitler-like dictator, tried to have the cross removed, but "for some reason" he could never accomplish it.

Guess what? Joseph Stalin and communism are gone... but the cross is rising high above the city of Moscow and tens of thousands of people are turning to Christ.

And poor old Lenin. Last I saw of him was a t-shirt that I bought. On the front it shows a picture of Lenin superimposed into the logo of McDonald's, and on this shirt it says McLenin's. And on the back it shows the familiar communist symbol of the hammer and the sickle being blasted to pieces. Immediately underneath it the copy reads, in words that are music to any God- fearing, freedom-loving person: "The Party is over!"

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