May, 1945 was the end of one of the most horrendous capitalist systems the world has suffered. The fascist Nazi government of Germany led by Adolph Hitler was defeated by the communist government of the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin. Today there are many anticommunist lies about World War II, the Nazi period, and especially about the role of the then-socialist Soviet Union in smashing the fascist German forces. As we commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration camp, let’s refute some of those lies.

Liberals and conservatives lie about World War II

The capitalist media never stops rewriting history. In the Public Broadcasting System’s series “The Messengers,” one of the episodes begins with someone saying: “My biggest mistake was to believe that the Red Army won World War II” (PBS, 1995). Actually the Red Army did win World War II. Nine out of 10 German casualties were at the hands of the Red Army.

The liberal PBS is not alone in lying about WW II. In 1995 the “historian” of the U.S. House of Representatives, Christina Jeffrey, was fired when it was publicized that in 1986 she had criticized a school curriculum on the Holocaust by complaining that the perspectives of the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan were not included in it (New York Times, 1/11/95).

The truth about the Nazis

In 1933, Hitler took power with the support of most of the German bosses. He began what he thought was going to be the “Thousand-Year Reich [empire].” He ordered the building of the Dachau, Oranienburg, and Buchenwald concentration camps. These were the first of what was to become 900 big and small concentration camps that existed until the end of the war. One of Hitler’s first decrees introduced the concept of Schutzhaft – preventive imprisonment of “enemies of the state.” First, last, and always, these were mainly communists.

Hitler was very specific about the role of these camps. “Brutality inspires respect … The masses need someone to inspire fear and make them tremble and submissive … I don’t want concentration camps to become family housing. Terror is the most efficient political instrument  ... Those who are discontent and disobey us will think twice before confronting us if they know what is waiting for them in the concentration camps.”

The Red Army liberated Auschwitz

Twelve years later, the Third Reich’s “thousand year” reign of terror was cut short by the communist movement. Around 3 p.m. on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops of the First Ukrainian Front of the advancing Red Army, led by Marshal Ivan S. Konev, saw a sign that read: “Arbeit Macht Frei” – “Work Makes You Free” – on the top of the main gate of Auschwitz. The Nazis called these death camps  “labor camps.” These troops saw with their own eyes what up to then was only a suspicion based on messages smuggled out from the concentration camps: the incarceration and systematic elimination of Jewish and Romani workers, and political “deviates” (read: pro-communists). It was all part of the plan created by the top leadership of the Third Reich, which murdered millions (El Mundo, 1/8/95).

The Red Army troops found 5,000 prisoners. These prisoners were left behind by the Nazis because they were too weak to move (and, in spite of the efforts by the Red Army to save them, many died). A few days earlier, knowing the Red Army was getting closer to Auschwitz, Hitler ordered the camp closed. On January 18, the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel-elite Nazi squadron)–Hitler’s killer-troops—led the “March of Death” of 60,000 Auschwitz prisoners to Buchenwald, another death camp. Thousands of prisoners died on this march.

But the United States had delayed opening a Western Front for at least a year. They were hoping the Nazis and the Soviet Union would weaken each other. So the 42nd and 45th Divisions of the U.S. Army did not get to the Buchenwald concentration camp until April 11, just a few weeks before the Red Army liberated Berlin and ended the war. But the 5,000 prisoners that remained at Buchenwald had organized a rebellion and had killed most of the SS guards. The same thing happened at Dachau when at 9 a.m. on April 29, dozens of prisoners stopped the SS men from eliminating all the inmates by fighting them. It was not until nine hours later, at 6 p.m., that the 42nd and 45th Divisions entered Dachau and joined the fight, which lasted until the early morning of April 30. 30,000 survived the order, issued by Heinrich Himmler, chief of Hitler’s SS, to kill all the prisoners. But it was the rebelling prisoners that saved these lives. Many more would have been saved if the U. S. had not delayed landing in France. 

The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis

Today the capitalist regimes in Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe,deny that the populations of these lands were “liberated” at all (though Jewish organizations continue to insist that the Red Army were indeed liberators). Everything is being done to excuse the Polish, British, French, and U.S. capitalist rulers, who sabotaged all efforts to stop Hitler. Instead, these capitalist rulers urged Hitler to invade the Soviet Union and put a stop to the communist movement and the socialist Soviet Union, which did everything possible to stop the Nazis and whose troops ultimately beat the fascist scum.

Solidarity runs deeper than borders

I am a long-time comrade, avid runner, and, for the past 4 years, have been an active member of a large running group within my neighborhood. This “run crew” as we call it, has approximately 500 members and 200 of them are consistently active throughout the year, participating in group runs, weekly races, and community events. While running remains a predominately ‘white’ sport, this organization is one of the most integrated ‘run crews’ in the city. While not a communist organization, the group illustrates what athletics could look like under communism. It demonstrates a somewhat egalitarian leadership, inclusion of all fitness levels, collective encouragement and solidarity, and health promotion without shaming.

The leadership is also integrated and positions women in a variety of necessary and important roles. For many of us, this group provides a sense of community and friendships so powerful that many of us call this group our ‘run fam’ (short for family).

Since the increase in fascist attacks on immigrant workers (e.g., ICE raids, deportations, etc.), and inspiring struggles of my fellow Progressive Labor Party (PLP) club members these past few years, I have begun to speak more openly about Progressive Labor Party within my “run fam” and the need to organize a communist revolution. As a result, I currently distribute CHALLENGE  to five members within our running group. One person within the leadership of our “run crew” distributes approximately five copies  to her co-workers and friends. Recently, she and I attended a “birthday run” held for a member of another “run crew” who was deported two months ago. The campaign to defend this runner surged across social media, mobilizing solidarity runs, community events, and almost $50,000 in legal support. Yet the leadership of corporate-sponsored running groups, including our own, chose not to publicly stand behind this fightback led by various run-crew members. Bound by multiple agreements with Nike, these sponsored running groups operate under tight restrictions regarding what they may publicly promote or speak about.

That restriction extended to publicly backing the campaign to bring our fellow runner home. Just before Thanksgiving, our fellow runner was allowed back into the U.S., but the struggle continues. Hundreds of workers face deportation daily under this capitalist system, and our running group members are no exception to ICE’s reach. I’ve connected with a few members from other running groups, and together we’re planning a “defense committee” so that when the time comes, we’ll be prepared to strike back. Until then, with the support of my club, I will continue engaging CHALLENGE  readers in my running group and other “run crews” in conversations about how we can collectively confront these racist and fascist attacks and, in time, resist the passivity that corporate sponsorships enforce on working-class runners.
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NYC: down with imperialism & chavismo

After the U.S. bosses bombed Venezuela and arrested Maduro, a group of comrades and I went to a protest in Manhattan. Our contingent marched from a few blocks away to join the rally, chanting  “Abajo, abajo, abajo el imperialismo, arriba, arriba, arriba, el comunismo!” and “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, To smash imperialism, we must unite!” as well as “1,2,3,4 we won’t fight your oil wars, 5,6,7,8 smash the bosses and their state!” I believe we distributed around 100 copies of Challenge and a few copies of the Venezuela editorial from the 12/10 issue. Some of the other groups there leafleting and/or giving speeches rightly criticized US imperialism but did so without acknowledging the dangers of all forms of nationalism. It is important that our Party was out here rejecting US imperialism, Chinese imperialism, and nationalism of any kind all at the same time. 

A week later, PLP hosted a study group with 3 comrades and 9 people who have not yet joined the Party. Seven of these base members have attended May Day in the past. We discussed “Chavismo” from the 12/10 issue of Challenge and also part of our key document “Road to Revolution IV.” Our conversation largely centered around the difference between socialism and communism. We also discussed nationalism and the idea of self-determination. Workers asked questions like “How do we get people to stop caring about material gains ?” and “How do we stop the pendulum [swinging back and forth between liberal democracy and open fascism]?” It was a rich discussion and a reminder of the need to learn from the mistakes in previous movements.
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NC: No Maduro, no Trump, no bosses

We participated in a recent peace  protest/ candlelight vigil in Bull Park, Durham, in North Carolina, of over 100 workers and students. This came after Trump’ s overnight sneak attack on Venezuela. The main speaker condemned U.S. aggression against Venezuela. Imperialist rivalries are sharpening globally. For example, Saudi Arabia versus UAE just last week over control of Yemen. This protest, while multiracial, had glaring weaknesses. Waving a Venezulan flag for example. While it’s wrong for American bosses to bomb Venezuelan workers, the Venezuelan flag symbolizes Venezuelan bosses led by Maduro. No boss, be it Trump or Maduro, have ANY worker’s best interests, as bosses are exploiters.

Also, waving a white peace flag with a dove at a protest is bad too. Workers should not want peace at all costs, as that flag hides the class nature of imperialism. Progressive Labor Party (PLP)  had a limited presence there, but 10 papers were distributed, plus one protester took another additional five CHALLENGEs after a PL comrade explained why communist revolution  is the only way out of this imperialist hell caused by capitalism and its thirst for profits. U.S. bosses have long desired Venezuelan oil. The imperialist bosses are going on the offensive, and so must the international working class, and the PLP must lead the fight back!
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$tarbucks strike: scabs will not be victorious

Saturday December 20th and Wednesday 24th PLP Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members from our Baltimore local club joined the Starbucks workers on the picket line, supporting the strike, standing shoulder to shoulder with the workers. Two courageous striking workers out of 12 who are working at the store were also supported by a number of local union members. We distributed a few copies of CHALLENGE and flyers to the workers and local union representatives.

Both days, the target was a Starbucks store located in the Rotunda nestled in north Baltimore’s eclectic Hampden Community. The first day of the strike, striking workers ended up being threatened by corporate private security calling the police on them to be arrested because they were picketing in the front of the Starbucks store. The striking workers and their union leadership opted out of being arrested, so they changed the location to the entrance area of the Rotunda at 41st street.

Two of the rank and file workers are mainly concerned with ULPs (unfair labor practices), such as erratic scheduling times for their working shifts and times for breaks, which can severely limit and disturb their family and free time scheduling, while bosses enjoy their fruits of labor in their citadels. For exactly that matter, it is important that PLP members are out there with the striking workers to educate the workers about revolutionary communism and the challenges in front of us to smash this decaying capitalist system and rebuild it with a more just and egalitarian society - communism!

One of the local union labor daughters with a sign in her hands chanted repeatedly “no contract, no coffee” with the rest echoing the chant and adding “what’s disgusting, union busting” “understaffing, lousy pay! This is how your coffee is made.” Many honks from passing by cars on 41st street and fists in the air came in support for the picketers. On that note, let us not forget that the leadership of unions in the U.S. ignores the international working class (brutal assault on workers by the U.S. government on occupied Palestinian territories, workers in Africa, Asia) while pretending that they are fighting for the workers in the U.S. We at PLP encourage rank and file union workers to join our revolutionary communist organization and to fight against adherents of this current regime.

One of the important aspects for us PLP members is to be on the picket lines in support of workers and to draw a line to differentiate ourselves from other political parties and organizations that  deceive workers with their reform approach of the capitalist system. These reformers try to  use the same institutions under the current capitalist regime to better the lives of the working class. We in the Progressive Labor Party fight for the majority (working class) and will skip the negotiating part with the minority (capitalists) for those few more $$ and shinier cars. We are fighting for democracy for the working class and dictatorship against the ruling class (capitalists). We are fighting for communism!
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Trump makes case as best choice for fascism and war

AP News, 1/7– President Donald Trump on Wednesday proposed setting U.S. military spending at $1.5 trillion in 2027, citing “troubled and dangerous times”…The 2026 military budget is set at $901 billion. Trump in recent days has also called for taking over the Danish territory of Greenland for national security reasons and has suggested he’s open to carrying out military operations in Colombia… Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday also threatened to cut off Pentagon purchases from Raytheon, one of the biggest U.S. defense contractors, if the company did not end the practice of stock buybacks and invest more profits into building out its weapons manufacturing capacity.

Sudan war involves many regional players

Foreign Affairs, 1/8–Last summer, after more than two years of terrible fighting, it looked as though the United States might finally have landed on a viable approach for ending the civil war in Sudan… The war is already entangling Sudan’s African neighbors. The RSF’s supply lines run through Chad, Libya, Somalia, and South Sudan—and may yet involve Ethiopia and Kenya…the Sudanese war is also intermeshed with the volatile situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which threatens to devolve into a major war of its own…As the war drags on, the role of the UAE has become particularly fraught. While Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey back the SAF, there is now plentiful evidence that the Emiratis are providing arms to the RSF for its ongoing campaigns. 

U.S. continues push for territorial expansion

Al Jazeera, 1/9–US President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 has emboldened him to proceed with the annexation of Greenland, a Danish-owned, self-governed territory, spelling the effective end of NATO and furthering Russia’s war aims in Ukraine, experts tell Al Jazeera… Trump…told The Atlantic, “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”

Russia gives up on Venezuela, perhaps to gain Ukraine

New York Times, 1/10–Sitting on a gilded chair in the green drawing room of the Grand Kremlin Palace, Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, turned to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and spoke of their bright future together…Eight months later, Mr. Maduro is sitting…in a violent and overcrowded federal detention center in Brooklyn… A week has passed — and Mr. Putin has said nothing…“All the indicators in Russian foreign policy right now are that Ukraine trumps everything else by far, so why would you give the Americans a bloody nose there and get on their wrong side?” Ms. Notte said. 

New York nurses threaten strikes against greedy hospitals

Gothamist, 1/10–New York City nurses are doubling down on their calls for increased security in private hospitals after police fatally shot a man who allegedly threatened staff and patients with a sharp object at NewYork-Presbyterian’s Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope on Thursday…nurses say hospital safety is still one of several sticking points — along with clashes over pay, health benefits and staffing — that are driving them to strike Monday at multiple hospitals, including facilities run by NewYork-Presbyterian…Nurses are also planning strikes at three Mount Sinai locations and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Antiracists protest against anti-migrant thugs

Bristol247, 1/10–Bristol saw its first major protests of 2026 on Saturday as a “Bristol Patriots” rally was once again met with a larger antiracist counter-protest….About 100 counter-protesters joined under the slogan: ‘We hate Keir Starmer more than you’, raising banners welcoming refugees and migrants to our city…approximately 40 protesters from the first group came together to wave Union Jacks and St George’s flags…Three arrests were made as Avon and Somerset Police used enhanced powers and large officer numbers to keep the groups apart…A poster pledging to challenge Saturday’s march read: “We stand against Bristol Patriots because of their racist and anti-migrant views, not because we support the current system…

As the horror of U.S.-imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza has unfolded for all the world to see, a terrible human toll has been mounting in Sudan. While the latest span of open warfare in Africa’s third-largest country has been raging for close to a thousand days, the mass slaughter has escalated over the last two months. Ever more gruesome reports are emerging of atrocities committed in and around El Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur.  Previously controlled by the brutal Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), El Fasher came under an 18-month siege by the equally vicious Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rival militia.  After the city of 1.5 million fell this past October, workers faced mass rape and summary executions that left pools of blood visible to satellites (NBC, 11/1/25). Initial estimates stand at 68,000 deaths, but the true toll may never be known (Al Jazeera, 11/4/25).

Even before the El Fasher massacre, over 21 million workers in Sudan were at “crisis” levels of hunger, with 1.4 million children in a state of starvation (UN World Food Programme, UNICEF). Workers in Sudan are also facing the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 12 million people driven out of their homes (Fox News, 12/16/25). Hundreds of thousands of El Fasher refugees have joined this flood of human misery.

With capitalism in a global crisis and inter-imperialist competition sharpening between a rising China and a waning U.S., the world is a volatile and dangerous place for the international working class. Lives that families have struggled to build over generations are being blasted to bits from Gaza to Sudan to Venezuela and beyond.  The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) remains steadfast in the struggle to build a communist movement today and an international Red Army tomorrow.  These are the only forces that can turn imperialist war into class war and smash the nightmare of capitalism for all time. 

SAF vs. RSF: Partners in brutality

Since 1956, when they gained independence from British and Egyptian colonial rule, rival capitalist factions have torn Sudan apart for its oil, gold, minerals, and fertile land in a near-continuous civil war. The RSF and the SAF are the present-day heirs to this sordid tradition, matching each other in the callousness of their assaults on workers. 

The Sudanese government’s SAF is ruled with terror by the henchmen of the hated former president Omar al-Bashir. It has deep ties with religious fundamentalists and a decades-long history of massacring communists, smashing unions and workers’ organizations, and engaging in widespread sexual violence. Most recently, the SAF was accused of dropping chlorine—originally produced to purify water for 17 million workers—as an indiscriminate poison gas on RSF-held working-class areas of Khartoum (France24, 11/29/25).

The SAF’s bitter rival, the RSF, is an openly racist, Arab-supremacist militia that routinely commits its own mass atrocities and sexual violence against Sudan’s richly multiracial working class, including workers who identify as Arabs. Following their massacres from Khartoum to the Masalit ethnic group in West Darfur State, the RSF turned to El Fasher. They wiped out an entire hospital of 460 workers, shattering its sanitation infrastructure and triggering an outbreak of cholera (World Health Organization, 10/29/25).

Two tools of imperialism

The SAF, with roots going back into the anti-U.S. Bashir regime (1989-2019), is backed by Chinese imperialism and a number of fractious regional powers: Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. These capitalist bosses value Sudan’s strategic geography, with territory spanning from the Nile to the Red Sea.  More recently, Russian imperialism has forged ties with the SAF in exchange for the offer of a Red Sea naval base at the strategically vital Port Sudan (Wall Street Journal, 12/1/25).  The base would project Russian military power from both ends of the Suez Canal into a maritime route that connects Europe, East Africa, and Asia.

Prior to its overtures to the SAF, Russia had backed the RSF in a desperate bid for access to Sudanese gold, which could help the Russian bosses evade U.S. financial sanctions. The regional imperialist United Arab Emirates (UAE), with its own interest in destabilizing Sudan and moving in on the country’s gold reserves, is also funding the RSF. At present, 99 percent of the gold mined in RSF-held areas goes to the UAE, whose capitalists have amassed the world’s second-largest gold reserves in a move to diversify away from exclusive reliance on oil revenues (Arab News, 11/20/25).   

The UAE is a crucial U.S. imperialist ally among the Gulf States, providing a massive U.S. air base and more U.S. Navy port visits than any other port outside the U.S. (UAE Embassy in Washington, DC). Weakening the Russia- and China-backed SAF strengthens U.S. imperialism in the region.  As with Gaza, years of calls for a Sudan cease fire by state terrorists Joe Biden and Donald Trump are cynical lip service. The RSF could not sustain its mass killing campaign without military support from the UAE, as well as Chad and Kenya, two other U.S. allies.

This muddled cast of monsters set the stage for genocide in Sudan. As U.S. imperialism continues to decline, and new bloodthirsty actors emerge, it opens a path to even more chaos and heartbreak for the international working class. Like the U.S. rulers before them, all of these imperialists are ready and willing to sacrifice millions of workers’ lives, in Sudan and worldwide, as they maneuver for more power and profit.

Communism vs. genocide 

In 2019, masses of women-led workers shut down Sudan and forced the butcher Bashir to flee (Reuters, 4/30/19).  Workers have never stopped fighting back, no matter how dark the political period might seem. Building a mass international PLP means we can and must smash ALL capitalist gangs, big and small, once and for all. From Gaza to Sudan, the international working class is paying a heavy price for the instability of the profit system. From Washington, DC to Beijing, as they scheme for the next world war, the bosses offer genocide as the new normal. 

Our aim of lasting victory over this lethal capitalist system is shared by tens of millions of workers of all nations.  We must make the PLP their party. We’ll end the bosses’ genocides when the workers of the world reunite under the banner of revolutionary, working-class internationalism–and when they fight for communism, a world run by and for the working class. Join us!

Chinese imperialism is no lesser evil forward to communism!

As 2025 finished, the Chinese imperialist ruling class sent the first of two batches of troops to join a UN “peacekeeping” mission to oil-rich South Sudan for a one-year mission of base facility construction, engineering, and “humanitarian relief”  (PRC Ministry of National Defense, 12/17/25).    
More than thirty years after apartheid was supposed to be defeated in South Africa, these troops are serving Chinese capitalism by imposing apartheid conditions on development projects across the continent.  Racist, two-tiered wage structures and segregated housing are the rule. In Sudan, safety equipment and training are prioritized for Chinese staff, while Black workers face higher risks, especially in mining and construction.  Public humiliation, arbitrary fines and firings impose conditions that harken back to European colonialism  (Lee, Ching Kwan, The Spectre of Global China: Politics, Labor and Foreign Investment in Africa, 2017). The contrast with the 1960s, when workers in China were forging a path forward toward communism, could not be more stark. 

For instance, the TanZam Railway from Tanzania to Zambia was built from 1970-75 with Chinese loans, engineers and labor at a time when China was still mainly a peasant society.  Chinese and African workers shared hardship and pride in completing a transport corridor that allowed landlocked Zambia an outlet to the sea that was free from control of white-dominated regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa.   In capitalist terms the TanZam was a money-losing project for Chinese socialism.  As a political project it was an antiracist railway, and it is a glimpse of what internationalist workers’ power was able to achieve despite already being on a course of compromise with world capitalism.  

PLP broke with the right wing elements of the Chinese Communist Party determined to compromise with capitalism in 1968.  Their betrayals morphed a once-socialist and internationalist China into a racist, fascist imperialist power challenging U.S. imperialism for world domination.   

No more retreats!

Seeds of a different future exist in international communist history and class struggle worldwide today.   We draw strength from the internationalism that led Cuban soldiers to volunteer to fight alongside Angolan comrades in a war against apartheid South Africa. We draw strength from the internationalism of the youth today who - without the leadership of a world communist movement - shut down campuses across the globe in 2024 demanding their universities divest from imperialist/Zionist destruction of Gaza.  Their aspirations can only be realized by the movement Progressive Labor Party is building today.  The imperialists may succeed in launching WWIII. PLP carries forward the fight of the millions who sought and millions who seek the final defeat of imperialism. Join us!