This article is the continuation of a series on the Horses of the Apocalypse. For the full development of thought leading to these suggestions, please refer back to the introductory articles beginning with https://michaelmannauthor.com/discerning-the-times.

When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come and see.” Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that [people] should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword. 

Revelation 6:3-4, NKJV

In this instance the word for “another” is allos, meaning “another of the same kind.” It was a second world movement that swept across the globe for dominion over it, but this one had no king and flew a fiery red flag. “People” was added to the verse by the translators, but the sense is that as this rider sweeps the earth, ordinary people would do the killing. 

It was not the warring of kings, but now became a bloody struggle of the people—or proletariat—for the revolutionary overthrow of king, prince, pope, and church that characterized world rule prior to this. They rose up and wrested control of the wealth and means of production from those who held it by forming the working class into a force strong enough to take it from them. 

The clues we have to go on are these: the horse is red; its rider takes peace from the earth, the people kill one another, and the rider is given a great sword. If the white horse was the hegemony of European kings over the earth, this second world movement was Communism, a vicious tyranny of revolution put into power by the working class. 

Rabbi Cody marked the beginning of this ride with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels. The Communist movement had two different views on how to achieve equality for mankind. Marx and Engles envisioned an orderly progression from Capitalism, through Socialism, leading to true Communism. The far-left believed it could not be achieved gradually. Instead, Communism would be instituted by armed revolution. They said, “the end justifies the means,” so anyone opposing the new “equality” would have to be killed. In most cases the ones opposing it were anyone with property, wealth, or productive means of some kind—the upper and middle classes. 

The Hegelian Principle

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German idealist whose writing influenced the new order. The principle he postulated was Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis; the way in which power is achieved in the world today. 

Thesis is the status quo or existing system of governing, while antithesis is an opposite system challenging it, producing conflict. After a protracted battle in which neither side wins, the people grow weary of the conflict and demand change. Change is then offered as the synthesis of the opposing views, or a compromise. In this case the status quo was Capitalism, the opposite was Communism, and the compromise was Socialism.

Mystery of the Bear and the Bull 

After this, behold, there was a second beast like a bear. It rose up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth. Thus they said to it, “Arise, devour much flesh!” 

Daniel 7:5, OSB (LXX) 

In the “free world”, stock prices control the movement of wealth, swinging between bull and bear markets. The bull market is capitalism rising, while the bear is his antithesis, creating a never-ending conflict in which the rich become wealthier with each cycle by convincing the masses to buy high and sell low, while they make a fortune on the market’s alternating confidence and fear. The exhausted population counters this pillage by enacting laws to redistribute wealth in a more equitable fashion, thus the West has become Socialist by demanding protection from the wealthy. 

The ride of the Red Horse can be characterized by Mishka the Russian Bear on the one hand, and as John Bull on the other, the British champion of the free market system. There is no “right” side. The bloody conflict of two world wars was intended to exhaust it so that a new socialist order would replace the existing one and pave the way for world government. The territory of the old Roman Empire became divided by an “Iron Curtain” with Communism rising up on one side of it, and Capitalism remaining on the other side. Thus the bear rises on one side. 

Mystery of the Great Sword  

The rider of the Red Horse was given a great sword. This was apparently a literal event, and not just a spiritual one. At the Teheran Conference of 1943, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill ceded Eastern Europe to Stalin in exchange for his support against Hitler. As a token of gratitude, Churchill presented Stalin with the Sword of Stalingrad. Engraved upon it were the words, “TO THE STEEL HEARTED CITIZENS OF STALINGRAD – THE GIFT OF KING GEORGE VI – IN TOKEN OF THE HOMAGE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE”. It is as if the King of England passed the baton of world power from the White Horse of Royalty to the Red Horse of Revolution. 

Mystery of the Three Ribs 

Thus God brought a trance upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh in its place. Then the Lord God built the rib He took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to him. So Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Genesis 2:21-23, OSB (LXX) 

The rib is Womankind. In the bear’s mouth are three women that say to it, “Arise, devour much flesh!” World feminism rose “in the mouth” of Communism. A careful review of feminist history shows that many of the early leaders were openly Communist. Feminism produced three movements beginning in the same year as the Communist Manifesto. Women’s Suffrage for voting rights occurred between 1848 and 1920. The “second wave” or Modern Woman movement occurred from 1920-1965, emphasizing the right to smoke, leave the home, and do “man’s” work. The Woman’s Liberation movement of the early 1970’s was the third rib, emphasizing reproductive rights. 

Feminism is the voice and power behind the right to free abortions on demand. With the cry, Arise, devour much flesh, it has killed millions of innocent babies in a worldwide slaughter that dwarfs into insignificance the casualties of all the wars that have been fought during the same time. Women around the globe joined the rebellion of the Red Horse to overthrow the roles of men in their households and the morals of the Church over marriage, sex, and child-bearing. 

Please note that it’s not my purpose to endorse or denigrate kings, capitalism, socialism, communism, or feminism. Each has brought both good and bad from a purely human perspective. My purpose is to note that these things may indeed be fulfillments of things John and Daniel were shown in their prophetic visions of the future.