The Basics of Bible - Herald of Hope

The Basics of Bible Prophecy
Central Asia and the Middle East. Islam is expanding its influence
into the west of China and there are 20 million Muslims in Russia.
The Demise of the Soviet Union 1989
In 1917 the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, and for
70 years Communism became the scourge of the Free World. After
WWII there began a period of confrontation between International
Communism headed up by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the Western
Powers. In 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected and the threat of a nuclear
holocaust hung over the world.
In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was
established to meet the military threat from the USSR, and in 1955 the
USSR countered
by forming a
military alliance of
eastern European
countries under
the Warsaw Pact.
In order to prevent
the spread of
Communism into
the oil-rich Middle
East with its
warm-water ports,
the West
established a line
of defence along
the southern
border of the
USSR. Under the
Bagdad Pact (1955), and later the Central Asian Treaty Organisation
(CENTO 1958), Turkey, Iran and Pakistan were armed by the West,
denying the USSR access to the Indian Ocean and Middle East oil.
After the fall of the Shah of Persia and the subsequent rise of militant
fundamentalism, the CENTO line of defence along the southern front
of the USSR was broken, but by this time the USSR had problems of
its own which led nine years later to its disintegration.
The year 1989 saw the most amazing events transpire in eastern
Europe. The Warsaw Pact nations one after another broke away from
USSR control, in the following sequence of events:
92