The Communist Party USA and the People’s World are organizing an online Conference for Peace, to bring together activists from every corner of the movement for democracy and justice, and to affirm our unity in the struggle for peace at home and abroad. We aim to forge a vision of a democratic, multilateral world that meets the needs of its people through peace, solidarity, and respect for the planet. The Conference is in two parts:

On Thursday, November 6, 7 pm Eastern, the People’s World will be hosting a panel discussion among leaders in movements from beyond the traditional peace movement, addressing their perspectives on the vision and how to achieve it.

On Saturday, November 8, noon to 4 pm Eastern, CPUSA activists will finalize a proposal for a Program for Peace that will serve as a link that unites anti-MAGA forces and provides a practical and effective blueprint for clubs and districts to advance toward our Party’s vision in their own communities. This proposal will be the culmination of many months of preparation.

Comrades are invited to read the Call, below, and put the Conference on their calendars.

Call to CPUSA Peace Conference 2.0

War is a disaster for the working class in the U.S.A. and threatens the existence of human and other life on the entire planet. Never has the need for a strong movement for peace been more urgent. The federal budget is overwhelmingly a war budget and takes huge sums of money away from people-helping programs, including healthcare, education, and social support services. U.S. military build-up across the world heightens the danger of nuclear war. How can the CPUSA draw on its deep history to grow unity and help build a multi-ethnic, multi-gendered mass coalition against war and MAGA to create instead an equitable peacetime society?

The winds of war blow hot and strong. With the U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran, the specter of a new general war in the Middle East is looming. Genocide in Palestine, and wars in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan and the Congo are raging. The U.S. cold war 2.0 directed against China, Cuba and Venezuela is intensifying, and there is a record $1 trillion U.S. military budget. Threats of regime change abound as does talk of using tactical nuclear weapons. Fascist warmongers fuel the flames. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, the U.S. is the “greatest purveyor of violence” in the world. Working for peace is urgent!

At home, war brings militarization and repression. Trump and MAGA scapegoat and terrorize immigrant communities while tax cuts for the rich drain the social budget that supports working people. Women, LGBTQ+, Asian-Americans and Muslims are targeted. Police departments are militarized and racist police murder of young African Americans and Latinos remains unchecked. Rising tariffs hurt farmers and rural communities are ignored. Factual history about U.S. slavery, genocide of native Americans and war on Mexico is distorted or eliminated in public education, museums, and government websites.

Trump 2.0 talks of taking over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. He withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accord. MAGA exerts “maximum pressure” sanctions doctrine against Cuba, and Trump’s bogus talk of ending the Ukraine war means dictating terms and stealing natural resources. The U.S. funds and supplies Israel’s criminal acts. Trump sometimes misrepresents himself as pro-peace but as recent events prove, he really means war. He talks about the working class but actually favors the capitalist elite.

Historically, CPUSA was part of campaigns to ban the bomb and nuclear weapons and to end apartheid, and we opposed the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. The party fought against fascist wars in the 1930s; it educated on the economic basis of modern wars such as control of resources and profits for the military industrial complex, and on the nature of imperialism. The first CPUSA peace conference in November 2023 was a big success! Banners read “No Cold War 2.0,” “End the Occupation,” and “Cease Fire Now” as members attended intersectional workshops that explored many themes such as moving money from war to social programs and building peace work in the people’s movements. Since the conference, U.S. imperialism has continued its war and aggression while a new peace movement has surged up to focus on stopping the genocide of the Palestinians. But a bigger, broader movement is needed as an important part of the anti-MAGA resistance.

It’s time to meet again! CPUSA Peace Conference 2.0, will be held online. We will discuss, strategize, and adopt an action agenda. We need to build a working-class led new peace front – an important part of the people’s coalition against the far right!

People, Peace, and Planet over Profits!

Images: Tax the rich, house the poor, money for jobs, not the war by People’s World (CC BY-NC 2.0);