Billy Graham and The Forgotten Factor in the Overthrow of Soviet Communism

The answer came decades later. Before and after the fall of the Soviet empire, Billy Graham had the unique opportunity to preach the Gospel to the Soviet people and leaders. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, critics interpreted his evangelistic trips to Moscow as an American being a naïve pawn in the hands of Soviet communists. What critics did not know was that before the trips, Graham took advise with his Republican conservative friends, including Ronald Reagan.

A Republican conservative president told him, “The message you have is more important than the criticism you will get.” Being criticized, Graham preached the Gospel in Moscow. He said that he knew that they would be using him, but that this was also an opportunity for him to use them to share the Gospel with them, including Soviet political and military leaders.

Left-wing historians rule out the Gospel as a factor in the overthrow of the Soviet Union. Yet, conservative historians are not immune to misrepresentations.

The proclamation of the Gospel was so a powerful factor to defeat communism that, as Kengor recognized in his book, “Reagan unleashed VOA literally to spread the Word.” VOA is the Voice of America, the official radio of the U.S. government. VOA was used by Reagan not to spread Catholicism, but the Word of God.