And the wild beast that was but is not, it is also itself an eighth king, but springs from the seven, and it goes off into destruction.”

This “scarlet-colored wild beast” is an eighth “king,” an eighth world power. Since it “springs from the seven,” it is not the Communistic bloc of nations. Also, unlike the Communist bloc, ‘it was (for a while), then was not; it ascends out. of the abyss (of inactivity) and goes off into destruction.’

The world peace and security organization, known first (when it “was”) as the League of Nations, was formed after World War I. It went into the abyss in 1939, when it was shown to be powerless to stop World War II (thus it ‘was not’).