Welcome, comrades, to the 32nd National Convention period of the Communist Party USA. Delegates to the convention will gather in Chicago, June 7–9, but the work of the convention starts today. All members are called to participate in the process of deliberation that will shape the party’s strategy and tactics for the next four years. This will be the first national convention period for the large number of new members who’ve joined the CPUSA in recent years, members bringing their energy and questions to the struggle. Welcome, comrades, to working class democracy in action!

Capitalism today lurches from one crisis to another. Overstretched supply chains, accelerating global warming, escalating imperialist violence, and the rise of extreme right and fascist movements threaten the survival of humanity. The capitalist class creates these crises. They profit from these crises. But they pass the burden onto the working class in the form of lower wages, higher prices, poisoned air and water, and mass human displacement.

The most reactionary section of the capitalist class refuses even limited, capitalist democracy as an intolerable obstacle to their profits. Here in the U.S., this fascist section of the ruling class embraces, funds, and organizes for a presidential candidate who refers to leftists as “vermin” and accuses migrants of “poisoning our blood.”

But as the fascist threat grows in the United States, the struggle for democracy does as well. The African American freedom movement led 25 million people into the street against racist police murder, in the largest protests in U.S. history, then marched to the polls in defiance of right-wing attempts at voter suppression. Native Americans faced down fossil fuel companies to defend their land and water rights. Latinos struggled for voting rights, healthcare access, bi-lingual education, and against deportations and anti-immigrant racism. Women mobilized powerfully against attacks on reproductive choice. When right-wing extremists tried to take over school boards, LGBTQ+ people organized their communities to defend teachers and students. Spontaneous, youth-led demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza sparked a ceasefire movement that now includes racial justice, faith, peace, and anti-imperialist groups, along with a growing section of the trade union movement.

Our multiracial, multinational, multigender working class, with organized labor in many cases in the lead, is putting its stamp on the broad struggle for democracy. From the wave of strikes and workplace organizing, to labor’s mobilization for a ceasefire, to the Poor People’s Campaign and struggles for housing justice, workers are demanding a system based on our needs and our rights, rather than on billionaires’ right to profit from our work. CPUSA is in the thick of those struggles, helping our class build its unity, sharpen its understanding, and apply its collective strength and boundless creativity to winning a better world, from here to socialism.

The tasks ahead are challenging. A ceasefire in Gaza must be won. Racist violence against people of color, including using migrants as political props, must be stopped. Public housing, public schools, and public aid programs must be protected from the looters and parasites who seek to privatize them. Housing, food, education, and health care must be made accessible to all. Economic justice, environmental justice, and peace demand moving money from the war economy to meet the needs of people and the planet.

Addressing these challenges requires creativity, discipline, and above all, unity. Our working class includes people of color, the global majority, who are under constant attack from systemic racism. More than half of our working class are women, who face toxic, weaponized misogyny in all areas of life. Anything that turns one section of our class against another is an attack on all of us, so CPUSA must be consistent and determined in confronting white supremacy and male supremacy — in party collectives, in movement spaces, and in society at large.

It is in this context of struggle that the CPUSA holds its 32nd National Convention. The contribution of every member of the party is needed. Participants in the Pre-Convention Discussion, of club conferences and district conventions, and of the National Convention will craft a strategic analysis and define tactical goals to map out our party’s activity for the next four years. Once the convention is completed, those discussions will pivot toward implementing the decisions of the convention based on the principle of democratic centralism.

Together, in our clubs and districts, let’s strategize, explore, learn, engage, collaborate, and theorize. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Publishers, let’s remember that ideas solidify into a world-changing material force when they are taken up by mass movements. Let’s build the CPUSA and People’s World while we unite and organize with our coworkers, neighbors, and friends in the fight for a better world. From here to socialism: struggle, and struggle alone, will determine how far we go.

Forward to victory!

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Image: CP and YCL at the End Fossil Fuels march by People’s World (CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)

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