Meeting the Bear of Daniel 7:5
The second beast the Prophet Daniel is introduced to is the bear. It is not a nice bear, but instead a bear that is in the process of consuming three ribs.(Daniel 7:5) Some prophecy writers argue that those three ribs were Nazi Germany (defeated in 1945), Hungary (revolution quelled in 1956) and Czechoslovakia (revolution quelled in 1968). However, the "Warsaw Pact" nations would only hold together from 1955 through 1986 when the felling of the Berlin Wall served to be the beginning of the end. Therefore, it could be argued that Hungary and Czechoslovakia (which then was peacefully dissolved in 1992 into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic) were not consumed by the Sovient Union. Furthermore, only the eastern half of Germany was consumed by the Soviet Union. For this reason, other scholars disagree with this conclusion, arguing that this verse refers to yet future events. When we started doing code searches on the Soviet Union, we found NO hits. However, when we did code searchers on "Russia," we got a lot of hits which would suggest that Daniel 7:5 refers to events yet in the future. We began to realize that the codes have a lot to say about Russia, and in these files, we will begin to learn about them.
The reason the Bear is mentioned second is because the Russia we know of today got its start in the 16th Century with the advent of the Romanov dynasty under Peter the Great and later Catherine the Great. Called Tzars (Russian for Caesar), they ruled under the standard monarchy model. Conversely, the British Lion is mentioned first because that nation got its effective start when William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel from Normandy (in Northern France) and began the conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. That is why the Lion is the first beast and the Bear is the second beast.
That seemed a little strange to us because at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union appeared to consume a number of nations. If you take a look at the map to the right, you will see a pictorial representation of the Warsaw Pact (signed in 1955) nations in red. The nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are in blue. The nations in red were then called "The Iron Curtain." Effectively, it turned out to be every country the Soviet Union "liberated" from Nazi Germany in 1944-1945 with the exception of Austria. The agreement at Potsdam split Germany and the rest of Europe in two parts.
The only countries NOT to partipate in this agreement were Yugoslavia under Marshall Josip Broz Tito. Despite his communist leanings, he never quite trusted Russia and refused to sign an agreement with them. General Franco the effective dictator of Spain and Presidents Theodor Körner and Adolf Schärf of Austria also refused to bring their countries into NATO. In Austria's defense, they had Soviet troops patroling their country until 1955. Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland also refused to join the alliance.
Prior to 1991, most conservative scholars thought that the Soviet Union was indeed, the Bear of Daniel 7:5. Study the political cartoons of the Cold War and you will frequently see Russia and the Soviet Union represented as a bear, just like the U.S. Democratic Party is represented by a donkey and the U.S. Republican Party is represented by the elephant. However, the Warsaw Pact was never a stable alliance. In 1956, Hungary rebelled and the Soviet Union had to bring in tanks to restore the government back to a communist state. In 1968, Czechoslovakia had its own revolution which again required Soviet tanks to restore the government back to a communist state. In the 1960s, Albania left the Warsaw Pact and started aligning itself with China, and in the 1970s, the economic problems of East Europe, coupled by the prosperity of the West caused a lot of people to start thinking about dumping the Russian Communist solution. That crash came in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. At that point, a lot of scholars had to rethink their idea about the Bear being the Soviet Union.
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Yet, when you look at the politics of post-Soviet Russia, it seems like the Bear symbol has become even more popular than it was in the Cold War. Various political sources in Russia in 1991 reported that when the Russians were working on re-establishing itself, they seriously considered using a bear as its logo. At the end of their discussions, they finally decided on the more traditional double eagle logo (pictured to the right).
However, that did not stop the United Russia Party from adopting the bear symbol for the logo of their party emblem. When Boris Yeltsin was president, we had to wonder why Russia, the bear nation was so important? Most political analysts did not consider him a very effective president (some politial analysts contend that he was "a drunk" who received bribes from various Western countries). During his presidency in the 1990s, the country languished.
When Vladimir Putin got into the government in 2000, we again saw the Russia the bear make its mark in the world stage when several parties united into what is now called the Unity Party. In fact, Mr. Putin has proven to be a shrewder leader than most of his Soviet predecessors, including Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Lenin, and even Stalin. We now see Russia as a major player on the world stage. A few years ago, we saw them parade out a new cruise missile system that can fire missiles from cargo ships and trucks. This item is not being sold on the world arms market. They have also developed a new battle tank and are improving many of their other weapons. The most notable being a hypersonic missile that no Western system can shoot down.
Prime Minister Putin has taken over the world stage from the ineffective Lion country leaders: Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Barak Obama, and Joe Biden (who have insulted most of the West--They were/are in trouble politically, as well). While Donald Trump had good relations with Mr. Putin and they seemed to understand each other, the 2020 election changed everything. However, the Russo-Ukrainian War has proven to be real interesting. How President Biden handles this situation will go far in deciding what kind of president he really is?
Russia's influence in the Middle East has been growing, especially with the reaffirmation of their treaty with Syria, the thawing of relations with Turkey (the old Ottoman Empire with whom they have had several wars with), and their new arms deals with Iran (traditionally called Persia). The Russians came in and quickly destroyed ISIL (the creation of U.S. President Barak Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to destabilize the region), stabilizing the region. Their upgrade in relations with these three nations has brought about some discussions among Bible scholars about the Ezekiel 38-39 scenario.
Click on this link to view the first page of The Bear Files.
