Germany in the 1920s was a liberal democracy. Within a few years, that same society was killing millions of workers led by the Nazi Party. The causes of the holocaust, resulting in nearly  12 million people systemically killed, were a response to capitalism in crisis and showed that the only future for our class, the working class, is a communist revolution.
If we fail to understand this fact and instead accept liberal myths of Adolf Hitler’s evil as the cause, we will not understand how liberal capitalism today will follow down a similar path as German liberalism of the 1920s.
The communist economist R. Palme Dutt in 1934, five years before the start of World War II  and eight years before the mass cremations started, understood the needs of capitalism in crisis to destroy not just excess machinery and food that starving people could not afford to buy, but to destroy the people themselves.
“For war is only the complete and most systematic working out of the process of destruction. Today they are burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. Tomorrow they will be burning living human bodies”(Fascism and Social Revolution, Dutt). Dutt was prophetic in predicting the ovens of the holocaust, yet his prediction wasn’t based on the evils of Hitler, but on the needs of the capitalists.
Capitalism in crisis needs fascism
German capitalism in the 1930s was in extreme crisis. The German ruling class was defeated in World War I and the Great Depression that ravaged the capitalist countries at the time had caused massive unemployment as factories sat idle because the working class was unable to buy anything. Milk and wheat were systematically destroyed rather than given away to starving people. Dutt correctly pointed out that those decisions had nothing to do with some existential “evil” but everything to do with the capitalists trying to prop up food prices. Systematically killing people was the predictable next step for a society that saw the working class as expendable.
The politics of Nazism and the mass acceptance of the holocaust intertwined with the needs of capitalism. The politics and the actions fed off of each other. The politics of fascism grew more openly barbaric as the crisis and chaos of the system sharpened. Liberals became fascists because lacking confidence in the possibility of anything other than capitalism, they desperately sought to justify, or at a minimum ignore, what was happening.
The understanding of how liberalism becomes fascism is desperately relevant today. We need look no further than present-day New York to see before our own eyes tens of thousands of workers left to die from the coronavirus. The capitalists put their resources into propping up the stock market instead of protecting the working class. Thousands died while the Dow Jones hit record heights.
Liberal politicians pave the way to fascism
The capitalists acting to protect their interests was predictable. The bigger problem was the acceptance by so many of the daily lies told by politicians like Andrew Cuomo that there was little else that could’ve been done. As the bodies piled up in freezer trucks, Cuomo, promoted by CNN, the New York Times, and the like, fed us lie after lie. The acceptance of Cuomo as the hero of New York City liberals is the warning we should all heed. In the deadly drama that played out of a terrified middle and upper class looking for something to latch onto, we saw how today’s liberalism becomes tomorrow’s fascism.
Hitler became the driving force in German politics after the 1932 election when the Nazi Party received 37 percent of the vote (Who Voted for Hitler, 1980). The Nazi strongholds in that election were in the wealthy neighborhoods of Germany’s most liberal cities.
“It is a point of some irony that the educated upper- and upper-middle-class populations, who react so enthusiastically to the claims of mass-society theories, should themselves have been the victims of a process that they, with such evident disdain, assume to be moving other people. In this case, it would appear that the demagogues, with some aid from the media, had considerable success in moving the upper- and upper-middle class masses” (Who Voted For Hitler).
Workers: reject fascism with communism
While it is easy for many people to see the obvious and call Trump a fascist, the bigger threat to the working class is in large numbers of wealthy liberals defending the coming atrocities of war and extermination when carried out by one of their own champions such as Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. The bosses will spare no expense in hiring proxies to try to bring the working class along to comply with our own destruction.
The lesson of the German Holocaust and what we are seeing now is the folly of following the ruling class. The path forward in the face of capitalism’s crisis is with the working class and the fight for communist revolution.

Gorman’s poem whitewashes U.S. history
I don't like poetry stuffed with cliches. And, as a communist, I detest the deeply hypocritical American Exceptionalist doctrine that the United States is the standard-bearer for freedom and justice around the world. So while the mass media have been swooning over Amanda Gorman's delivery of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the January 20 Presidential inauguration, I have been gritting my teeth.
Advocate of liberal multiculturalism were overjoyed that this young Black woman proclaimed the U.S.  to be "benevolent but bold, fierce and free," and that the legacy of "our forefathers" who "first realized revolution" is one worth celebrating. But the poem's central metaphor of "the hill we climb" recalls the famous "City on the Hill" invoked by Puritan John Winthrop before the "settlement" of Boston in 1630 (and subsequent genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of Massachusetts).
This image of the U.S. as a glorious model for the rest of the world to look up to and worship has over the centuries figured as the supreme expression of American Exceptionalism. The "City on the Hill"  would be repeatedly invoked in the 1980s by none other than quintessentially racist and imperialist Ronald Reagan. The metaphor announced in the poem's title is hardly politically innocent.
The media's talking heads just *loved* Gorman's poem because it reaffirmed the false–but oh so consoling–belief that the U.S.  was not and is not based upon racist exploitation and oppression; that U.S. "democracy" is alive and well; that, in the wake of the Donald Trump years, "we" will "raise this wounded world into a wondrous one."
Gorman's delivery of the poem on the steps of the Capitol did the job "Hamilton” has done on Broadway over the past several years—namely, to whitewash U.S. history.
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Bosses’ forum admits the threat of world war
Both Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, made statements at the Davos World Economic Forum that the growing threat of trade wars and conflicts points to a heightened likelihood of war on a global scale. From Syria and Iran to Afghanistan, from the South China Sea to Venezuela, from Africa to Haiti, political, economic, and military conflicts are taking on more ominous threats to humanity.
The pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis sharpened contradictions between the three great imperialist powers of today: the United States, Russia, and China. U.S. economic and military power, while still dominant, is quickly receding as its rival China expands its economic grip on world commerce. It has successfully extended its influence in Africa, Latin America, and Asia with its infamous ‘Belt and Road Initiative.’ As a result of this new pressure, U.S. imperialism is desperate to resort to military conflict while it still has the upper hand. The split in the ruling class between the imperialist finance capitalists and domestic capitalist rivals has yet to be resolved.
Progressive Labor Party says workers’ blood should not be shed in support of the power struggles, both internal and global, of these capitalist scum. Their interest is furthering the accumulation of profits through never-ending exploitation of workers, unsafe working conditions and ultimately, another global war that will threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of workers on six continents.
It is our responsibility to educate our working-class brothers and sisters of the serious nature of this real threat and share that the only real solution to our problems is a communist revolution led by the international Progressive Labor Party.
Concretely, this also means distributing and discussing the content of our Party newspaper CHALLENGE. We must increase party-led study groups to recruit many, more workers to build PLP into the mass leadership of our class. We must take off our blinders and realize opportunity and necessity have synthesized to build the mass party we have talked about for years. We cannot rest on our laurels. The rise of fascism, racism, and global war requires our total effort.
Ask each reader to join a party study group. Be creative. Write for CHALLENGE. No matter how “feeble” you think your skills are, write the articles. Your comrades are here to help. Recruit, Recruit, Recruit! Smash imperialist war with the communist revolution!

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Connection between Capitol Insurrection and Imperialist Tactics
The premises of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 were near reenactments of the false ideologies used to justify U.S. imperialist wars.
Much has been made, by the mass media of every stripe, of the violent and racist (Confederate flag laden) invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6.  Thousands acted in a threatening manner toward anyone in their path, based on two elements:
First, repeated lies that led to their belief that the election had really been stolen and that Donald Trump had actually gotten more votes but that they had been deliberately miscounted by members of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and
Second, they thought that something  they wanted, but which was not in their interest – namely Trump’s victory—was being threatened.
The Capitol insurrection is parallel to the following. First, mainly working-class soldiers are sent to invade other countries under the influence of their belief in the repeated lies that the U.S. is the world’s greatest democracy and the freest country, and it has the responsibility to deliver democracy to every other country in the world, and second, they believe that invading other countries is done in order to protect the homeland from invasion and to keep all of us in the U.S. safe.
This is the way that U.S. imperialism is able to convince our class, the working class, that it is in our interest to take part enthusiastically in their  “heroic” missions.
In reality, Trump lost the election, his victory (like that of any capitalist politician) would be against the interest of his supporters, and U.S. imperialist wars are not to defend the homeland and our families but rather for the purpose of making and keeping the world safe for U.S. capitalist profits. This is also against the interest of the working class everywhere in the world, including in the U.S.
Many participants in the invasion of the Capitol were trained by the U.S. military and believe in a mission that really is intended by its organizers to save U.S. profits and believe in the idea that Trump is their savior.
It is further the case that under an exploitative system that is capitalism is in place, no politician or political party—including the liberals and Democrats, not just Trump and the Republicans—can possibly act in the interests of the working class since they must all act to preserve the system. And that is always going to be against the interests of the victims of that exploitation that defines the essence of the capitalist system.

Stalin Over Wisconsin: The Making and Unmaking of Militant Unionism, 1900–1950 by Stephen Meyer documents the struggle to organize the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in Wisconsin. At its peak, the factory employed over 10,000 workers.  In 1935 the Communist Party (CP) and United Auto Workers (UAW) both sought to organize the workers resulting in a red witch hunt that brought to light the limits of reform struggles and the need for a united and militant working-class revolution worldwide.
Role of the CPUSA
In 1935, the Communist Party took a direct role in the organizing campaign. They began to meet with workers from the plant to plan the campaign. However, in the book, Meyers makes no clear statement that any of the workers in the plant were members of the Communist Party. The company constantly attacked the worker’s organizing efforts as communist-led as did the AFL unions that had members in the plants. But the CPUSA did not respond to this red-baiting nor did it explain why communist leadership was important.
John Blair, an Alis-Chalmers worker and a communist, believed there were about 100 party members in the plant and most of them were shop floor leaders. The book gives no indication of what it meant to be a CP member other than to organize the fight against the bosses and to provide leadership in the 1939, 1941, and 1946 strikes.
Throughout various campaigns, Allis-Chalmers refused to create a union shop. They insisted on an absolute right to terminate workers at their discretion. Their only concession was to give workers a written explanation for their termination.
The 1941 strike was the most successful. This was helped by the National War Labor Board which ordered the company to withhold union dues from members’ checks and send them to the union. It shifted the balance of power in the plant by establishing an independent arbitrator to settle grievances, Allis-Chalmers management would no longer have the final say in worker discipline. It did not resolve disputes over wages and job classifications.
Issue of racism
The UAW Local 248 took on the issue of racism. It supported the 1941 march on Washington for jobs in the defense industries for Black workers. They also protested the requirement that Black sailors wear an “N” insignia to indicate they were “Negroes” in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy. The Local supported the efforts of R. J. Thomas, the international president of the UAW in his efforts to integrate some Detroit locals. At Allis-Chalmers in 1941, there were 141 Black workers. This grew to 693 by 1945. The Local fought for the advancement of Black workers in the plants. Luther McBride, a Black worker, was a shop steward who helped lead this fight.
Harry Christoffel, the local president, was determined by management to not be an essential worker and he was then drafted into the Army in 1944.
When WWII ended and the U.S.-Soviet alliance ended, there began a vigorous attack on unions that were considered to be influenced by the Communist Party. Local 248 was considered one of the unions that communists were in the leadership of. This set the stage for an 11-month strike in 1946-47.
At the start of the strike, 11,000 workers walked off the job. But at the same time, in Wisconsin and around the country there was a growing anti-communist sentiment. Joseph Mc Carthy was elected senator from Wisconsin and the Taft-Hartley Act was passed. The Act prevented members of the Communist Party from being on the union negotiating committee or being a union officer.
The leadership of Local 248 was unprepared. The attacks came not only from the company and right wing politicians but also from Walter Reuther and other national leaders of the CIO. After 11 months, the workers returned to work without a contract. Over 80 rank and file strike leaders were fired by the company and put on a blacklist by other local employers.
The key lessons
The red-baiting by the company and various AFL unions were never seriously addressed, so the workers were vulnerable to these attacks. There was also no clear understanding of what it meant to be a communist. These are mistakes of the old communist movement and that is this PLP fights to expose the misleadership of union leaders and make revolution primary over reform. We cannot hide communism from the workers.
Christoffel never admitted to being a communist. He was convicted in 1950 of lying to a Senate committee. After a series of appeals, he spent three years in jail, being released in 1956.
Did the 100 or so party members in the plant have a clear understanding of Marxism-Leninism and the need for a revolutionary party?  The book does not address any of these questions.
The closest it comes is a quote from Christoffel at the 50th anniversary of the founding of Local 248 in 1986. He stated, “To hell with the nickel. I am interested in much more than that. I want to make a better world…”
Winning workers to a communist vision of the future and fighting for it by building the party must be one’s main goal.

In recent weeks across Russia, tens of thousands of workers in over 100 cities have taken to the streets. Many have risked beatings and jailing to protest the bosses’ oppression and the arrest and imminent imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, the racist, arch-nationalist misleader who is challenging the fascist regime of President Vladimir Putin.
Workers united in militant solidarity can grind the bosses’ profit system to a halt. But when that passion is misdirected in defense of capitalist reformists like Navalny, workers cannot win. There are no good bosses! Though their strategies and tactics may differ, all capitalist rulers rely on racism, sexism, and the exploitation of the working class. They are driven by one principle: maximum profit.
While we don’t know for sure which capitalist forces have orchestrated the latest wave of protests in Russia, we do know that workers there have ample cause for rage: economic stagnation, gaping inequality, repressive security laws, and a deadly bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic. Each day they watch the bosses cheat the working class while ramping up the military for the next inter-imperialist war.
The only solution to capitalist state terror is the total destruction of the profit system:  international communist revolution. Choosing one oppressor over another will never liberate our class. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) calls on workers and students in Russia and worldwide to reject all bosses and build for communism and workers’ power.
New nationalist on the block
Navalny has emerged as a symbol of defiance against Putin’s 21-year rule. He first surfaced in the late 2000s with a blog that attacked corruption within the Russian leadership. Despite his blunt criticism of the status quo, Navalny has shown himself to be even more openly racist than Putin’s crew. In a video post from 2007, he compared immigrant Muslim workers from the Caucasus to “cockroaches” that need to be exterminated with “a pistol” (Salon, 4/2/17).
In 2014, after Russia seized Crimea, Navalny applauded the annexation: "The reality is that Crimea is now part of Russia… Crimea is ours” (BBC, 1/23). Russia’s imperialist land grab set off a conflict in Eastern Ukraine between U.S.-backed nationalists and Russian-backed separatists. It has killed at least 10,000 and displaced many more (The Balance, 8/21/20).
With shrewd public relations moves and backing from liberal media, Navalny has rebranded himself as a freedom fighter in front of a small but growing mass movement. In reality, however, his vision for Russia is for a new set of bloodsucking bosses to cash in. Although Navalny has faced assassination attempts as well as legal sanctions, he’s succeeded in securing political office for allies in Siberia, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk (Guardian, 9/13/20).
A weakening of Russia’s dominant bosses
Much like the Donald Trump phenomenon in the U.S., the inroads made by a worm-like Navalny reflect a weakening of the country’s dominant bosses and Putin’s once-iron grip on state affairs. As the contradictions within Russia grow even sharper, we can expect more intense infighting between ruling-class cliques and ramped-up attacks on workers.
In the second half of 2020, Covid-19 lockdowns caused Russia’s GDP to contract by close to 10 percent (Reuters, 7/17/20). According to government sources, unemployment is up at least 30 percent since last spring (Moscow Times, 5/20/20). Even before the pandemic, Putin’s approval ratings took a hit when his government raised the retirement pension age, which brought out thousands to protest (NBC News, 9/10/18).
Seeing the writing on the wall, Putin’s group has pushed through more openly fascist legislation to protect their control over the state apparatus. One law allows Putin to remain in power until 2036 and grants him life immunity from prosecution, while others make it easier to brand dissidents as “foreign agents” and clamp down on social media (Washington Post, 12/27/20).
Russian, U.S. imperialists on a collision course
Putin and his thieving gang understand the need for a unified ruling class, both to challenge their imperialist rivals and to contain worker fightback. While the isolationist Trump mostly deferred to Putin, new U.S. Imperialist in Chief Joe Biden, represents finance capital, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class. As such, he’ll seek to re-establish U.S. dominance around the globe. The U.S. and Russia are on a collision course.
In his first official phone call as president, Biden warned Putin that the U.S. “will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies” (Wall Street Journal, 1/26). Beyond Crimea, Russian expansionism is evident in proxy conflicts in Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Libya, and Venezuela. U.S. finance capital was alarmed by Russia’s massive SolarWinds cyberattack last December and repeated hacks into the U.S. election apparatus.
As Washington’s arms modernization efforts lag behind Moscow’s, main-wing mouthpieces are clamoring for Biden to renegotiate a Russia treaty that would limit further proliferation of nuclear weapons (Foreign Affairs, 1/19). The finance capital bosses are also troubled by expanded joint military exercises between China and Russia that hint at a potential future alliance (AP News, 12/22/20). For the main-wing U.S. rulers, Navalny is a useful lightning rod—and a possible pretext for imperialist countermoves. On February 2, after Navalny was sentenced to more than two years in prison for trumped-up parole violations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for his immediate release and said the U.S. “would coordinate closely with allies about how to hold Russia accountable” (Reuters, 2/2).
Although we cannot predict when or where the next global conflict will begin, the laws of capitalist development tell us that imperialist contradictions are never resolved peacefully. As Putin himself acknowledged at the World Economic Forum, “[T]here is a possibility that we may experience an actual collapse of global development that might result in a fight of all against all” (CNBC, 1/27).
The revolutionary communist tradition
When the international working class takes to the streets, we need to be clear about what we’re fighting for. To support bosses like Navalny or Biden serves to strengthen the brutal hand of the capitalist bosses. Only by marching under the red banner of communism and workers’ power can we advance our class struggle for liberation from the capitalist parasites.
The one future worth fighting for is international communist revolution, led by the Progressive Labor Party. Over a century ago, workers and soldiers in Russia helped point the way to that future. They seized state power from the bosses amid the carnage of imperialist war and established the first workers’ state. Learning from both their triumphs and their errors, we can and will take power again. Workers of the world, unite! Join PLP!