DeepL Translation

Today we commemorate another anniversary of the glorious and victorious feat in which the socialist and internationalist USSR, led by the CPSU under Stalin’s leadership, defeated Nazi Germany.

This is what we revolutionary communists uphold today: a true patriotic war waged by the working class and the Russian people, who sacrificed 27 million heroic lives defending socialism and generously supporting the liberation of Eastern European countries and the entire world from Hitler and his fascist regime.

This great proletarian victory opened the door to the proletarian revolution in China and to the spread of socialism to one-third of humanity.

Beginning in 1957 in the USSR and in 1978 in China, revisionism seized power within the communist parties, which led to the restoration of capitalism and a severe defeat for socialism and the proletariat on an international scale. But during the decades in which socialism developed, it demonstrated its superiority over capitalist imperialism, leaving behind a rich revolutionary legacy.

Today, the proletariat and the oppressed peoples and nations of the world continue the struggle for their national and social liberation, while finance capital and its monopolies promote imperialist wars and the super-exploitation of workers and the natural resources of oppressed countries.

Yankee imperialism, in the decline of its hegemony and in its dispute with China, has become more aggressive; it has invaded Venezuela, intensified the blockade against Cuba, allied itself with the Zionist-fascist state of Israel—which is committing genocide in Gaza—in the war against Iran, and threatens the entire world with trade sanctions and force, thereby exacerbating the danger of a third world war.

We commemorate this anniversary with deep admiration and gratitude for the working class and the Russian people, and by condemning those who restored capitalism in Russia and today use this heroic anniversary to cover up capitalist exploitation and their imperialist ambitions.

Eternal glory to the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany!

The events marking this 80th anniversary were tinged with inter-imperialist rivalry. In Putin’s Russia, at the military parade in Moscow, there were nearly 30 heads of state, including Xi Jinping of imperialist China. In Germany, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian leader was not invited.

These events also took place amid the rise of far-right and fascist currents in several European countries and in the United States under Trump, who seek to rewrite true history through a vile campaign that equates Nazis with communists, covering up both Hitler’s crimes and the heroic resistance of those who defeated him.

On April 30, 1945, the Soviet Red Army had entered Berlin, defeating Hitler’s troops, and on May 2, the red flag flew over the Reichstag (Parliament) building. Eight days later, Hitler’s high command formally surrendered. Thus fell German Nazism.

This terrible war, which took place between 1939 and 1945, claimed more than 60 million victims, of whom nearly 30 million were civilians. The Soviet people and the Red Army suffered nearly 27 million deaths. In the Nazi concentration camps alone, 6 million Jews died in what is known as the Holocaust, and it is estimated that another 5 million Soviet and foreign prisoners of war, Roma, homosexuals, communists, and dissidents of various nationalities were murdered. In addition, millions died from starvation and disease.

How World War II Began

World War II formally began in September 1939, when German Nazi imperialism occupied Poland. The next day, France and England declared war on Germany.

Let us recall that between 1914 and 1918, the so-called First World War had taken place, in which the powers of the time sought a new division of the world. Then came the Russian Revolution in 1918, Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, and German rearmament, as well as key events such as the Spanish Civil War, imperialist Japan’s invasion of China, and the growing confrontation between the Western powers and the Soviet Union.

In this context, German Nazism began its military aggressions against other countries, taking steps toward expansionism. Similarly, Italian fascism under Mussolini advanced in the occupation of Ethiopia in Africa.

The program of our PCR, adopted at its 13th Congress in October 2022, analyzes: “The global economic crisis of imperialist capitalism that began in 1929 and continued throughout the 1930s led to the rise of fascism as the crudest expression of imperialism and to the intensification of the inter-imperialist conflict pitting France, England, and the United States, on the one hand, against the countries that formed the fascist Axis—Germany, Italy, and Japan—on the other, giving rise to World War II.

“In 1941, when Germany attacked the USSR (at that time still under the dictatorship of the proletariat), the inter-imperialist war transformed into an anti-fascist world war. The USSR, led by the Communist (Bolshevik) Party under Stalin, bore the main burden of the struggle against fascism from that point on.

“Nazi-fascist imperialism—against which the Spanish people had waged an unequal and heroic war, against which the Chinese people had been waging a national war since the mid-1930s, and against which the struggle of the popular fronts, first political and then armed, had been waged throughout nearly all of Europe—became the principal enemy of the proletariat on a global scale. The defense of the first socialist country merged with the liberation struggle of the peoples subjugated by German Nazism, Japanese militarism, and Italian fascism.”

The Invasion of the Soviet Union

When Hitler’s Germany launched a war of aggression against it, the USSR waged a patriotic war of liberation against the invading fascist army, a war that lasted nearly four years, at the cost of 27 million casualties, while the United States suffered 420,000 throughout the entire war. The Soviet resistance against Hitler’s powerful army is one of the greatest heroic episodes in the entire history of humanity.

The Red Army resisted and triumphed; the proletariat and the masses resisted and triumphed, and all of this was possible because they were defending their socialist state and their homeland, and they had confidence in the Communist Party and its leadership, headed by Stalin.

The anti-fascist liberation movement that spread to every corner of the world also played a fundamental role in this victory, with the key factor being the role of the communists, who placed themselves at the forefront of the struggle.

The Defeat of German Nazism

Our comrade Eugenio Gastiazoro, who served as director of the publication until his death in 2022, wrote in the fourth volume of his *Historia Argentina* about the end of World War II: “In December 1944, the Germans went on the offensive in the Ardennes region [a region of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg], inflicting a very serious blow on the Anglo-American armies. Then, in January 1945, the Red Army launched an offensive on the front stretching from the Carpathians to the Baltic, covering a distance of 1,200 kilometers.

“By the end of February, Poland had been completely liberated, as had a very large part of Czechoslovakia. Having occupied almost all of East Prussia and German Silesia, the Red Army approached the outskirts of Berlin. Meanwhile, the Allied armies were able to close the gaps created by the Germans, launching a counteroffensive in March 1945.

“Under these circumstances, the Yalta Conference was held in February 1945 in the Crimean city of Yalta, attended once again by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, and which served merely to ratify on the diplomatic level what was the result of a specific balance of power on the political and military fronts.

“In April 1945, the Red Army broke through the enemy’s defenses along the Oder and Neisse rivers, advancing toward Berlin. Hitler committed suicide. On May 2, Berlin was captured. On the night of May 8–9, representatives of the German military command signed the act of unconditional surrender in Berlin…

“On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9, the Japanese city of Nagasaki was also subjected to atomic bombing. The barbaric nature of these actions, in which thousands upon thousands of peaceful inhabitants perished, demonstrated once again the bloodthirsty nature of imperialism. On September 2, 1945, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the act of Japan’s unconditional surrender was signed. This event marked the end of World War II.”

Regarding this period, the PCR Program concludes: “With the struggle against fascism and its defeat in 1945, revolutionary proletarian and national liberation positions were strengthened throughout the world. The revolution triumphed in some Eastern European countries.

The peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America took their place at the forefront of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist struggle, waging revolutionary armed struggles and achieving great victories that changed the face of the postwar world. This inspired the world proletariat and the peoples of all countries in their revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle.”

Exposing the dangers of a new inter-imperialist war

Today, amid the growing dispute between the major imperialist powers, a battle for historical truth is also being waged. The imperialist bourgeoisies of the West seek to equate Nazism with communism, and we have a president like Milei who takes offense if called a “Nazi,” yet pursues fascist policies. The same Milei who once raved that “Hitler was a lefty.” Russian and Chinese imperialism are escalating their confrontation with the U.S., in the interests of their own ruling classes, not the peoples of the world.

The victory over Hitler’s Nazism 80 years ago was a turning point in history, and its commemoration today reaffirms our struggle to defeat the government’s disastrous policies of starvation and capitulation in our homeland, and to advance along a revolutionary path that will free us from large-scale landownership and dependence. This is the best contribution, alongside proletarian internationalism and solidarity with all peoples fighting for their self-determination, to denounce the dangers of a new world war, without aligning with any imperialist bloc.