Greetings: It is our pleasure to welcome all of you to our Party of Communists holiday event here in our John Reed Center in the heart of Seattle, Washington. We want to extend a special welcome to our internet viewing audience from all around the world.
Let me begin by wishing all our comrades a wonderful holiday season and the very happiest, healthiest of New Years.
If one word, one theme could describe the passing year, we would call it “Change.” As we look back at the passing, event-packed year, it seems that just about everything and everyone is going through some dramatic changes – some good, some very good and some not very good.
Let’s begin with the very good. In the past, we would begin a year-end wrap up of the changes on the US political, economic and social scene and end with what’s happening in our Party.
Today, we want to do something special in keeping with change and begin with the exciting, history-making changes in the life of our Party.
Our Party is celebrating its 11th anniversary this year as a political party of the working class, deeply immersed in all the good fights for a better life today and for a socialist tomorrow.
Coming out of a history born in 1919 out of the sharp class battles for a living wage, decent working conditions and unions, our Party’s lineage has been and is in the forefront of every struggle and movement for social progress, human and civil rights in our country’s history.
For the past 11 years, our Party has continued the fight against racism and for equality. We have been involved in and helped to lead struggles against racism and all forms of discrimination – in jobs, housing and education and social life.
We are very proud that our Party, along with the Cuban Communist Party, was for a long time one of the few American Communist organizations to fight for LGBT rights, racial equality and against all forms of bigotry and prejudice.
It is time we ponder the year that is passing and the year that is coming into being: what has been, what will be, for our family, our friends, our neighbors, our communities, our people and our country.
This holiday season brings about perhaps the greatest changes in many a year. With the second election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and his reactionary cohorts in Congress, it seems just about everything and everyone has changed. It seems that 2025 has been a year of great change for the American people in their struggle to defend democracy and extend freedoms that were originally empowered by the Bill of Rights.
You know, Communists are, first and foremost, political people. We believe that life gets better or worse as the result of the political struggles between the filthy rich, the haves, and the poor, the have-nots. At the year’s end, we look back at the class struggles from the year 2025 so that we can predict what’s ahead in 2026. So let’s take a peak of how things look now, going into the new year, 2026.
2025 was a great year for the peoples struggles. From the election of Mamdani as Mayor of New York City, the biggest and most powerful city in our country, to the growth of unionization, the people have come to realize the threat of Trump’s MAGA movement.
Trump’s proto-fascist threat and his Republican Rightist contract against the achievements of FDR’s New Deal coincide the constant shootings and gun violence across our land. After the attacks on Medicare and Medicaid, welfare, social security and public education, after the downsizing of jobs and the privatizing of government positions, after the attacks on immigrants and LGBT people, hate mongering, the people say they have had enough.
Black, brown and white, the people are making history by going to the polls and rejecting Trump’s agenda. Trump’s popularity has plummeted to the low 30s. The people have challenged the attacks against progressive legislation and have put the MAGA program on notice. The people pushed back the fascist threat to our social programs, services, benefits and democratic rights.
In the recent primaries, both corporate Democrats and MAGA Republicans have fallen from grace as progressive candidates are ascending to office. Every time corporate Democrats play footsy with a bipartisan dance, they must deal with a more powerful, militant, progressive peoples movement. They have to be reminded that their mandate comes from labor and its allies and not corporations.
After all said and done, what kind of a year will 2026 be? That will be determined by the bottom line word: struggle. Without struggle, workers’ wages will continue to decline. Corporations will continue to downsize and lay off. Without struggle, racism, chauvinism, antisemitism will increase. Without struggle, the poor will become poorer and the homeless will increase. Without struggle, Trump will continue to attack our America. Without struggle, more children will go hungry and more elderly will die.
And what is the power that can change all of this? We need peoples unity and struggle and a pledge for a bigger Party of Communists USA.
So let us end by wishing you all many, united, victories and struggles for 2026. And lastly, if you should decide to join our Party, the Party of Communists USA, you will be most welcome.
Chris Bovet, General Secretary
Angelo D’Angelo, National Chair
Central Committee
Party of Communists USA