Our Annual Conference (1945)

Party News the May 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday, delegates from the various branches of our Party sat in Conference at Conway Hall, discussing plans for a future that never before looked so bright, in spite of the devastating effects of over five years of modern warfare. Economic and political circumstances are forcing the workers, at an increasing rate, to give more consideration and a more sympathetic hearing to our message. It was a realization of this that heightened the enthusiasm of delegates and visitors to the Conference.

Plans were discussed for increasing the number of party propagandists, including speakers and writers; for spreading our influence wider by means of paid London and Provincial Organisers and propagandists; for organising study groups over the country; for contesting local and parliamentary elections and in many other ways spurring the movement for Socialism forward. The immediate future will see the fruits of this work.

On Saturday evening at the Annual Reunion the Hall was literally crowded with members and sympathisers who spent a very friendly and enjoyable evening.

On Sunday evening there was a meeting addressed by four speakers. The hall was full and the audience exhibited an enthusiasm and optimism that was a fitting climax to a very successful conference.

One striking feature of the conference, the Reunion and the meeting was the number of women present, and particularly young women. They participated in the Conference and spoke with knowledge, clearness and confidence.

Another striking fact was the large attendance during such difficult times, with the menace of the rocket and the flying bomb as a repellent threat to keep them out of London. That so many workers should have been willing to spend three days of the best holidays in the year cooped up in a hall in a City, is of itself an instance of their enthusiasm for the cause for which they are working.

And so the Party commences a new year with the prospect that the ideas we are propagating will have more influence on the future of the world than will the ending of the biggest, the most devastating, the most brutal and the most insane war the world has ever known. But in spite of all its abhorrent ugliness, capitalism holds within it the embryo of a new society which, when the restraining bonds are sundered, will burst forth and, like a jewel, reflect many dazzling facets to the light. By the time we hold our next Conference we should be measurably nearer our goal and those who sympathise with our ideas but have not yet joined us can help the movement on by taking an active part in a struggle that is well worth while. May we be able to welcome many of them as delegates or members next year.