Letter to the Editors of the Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik and Népszava in Budapest

Author(s)	Frederick Engels
Written	3 December 1890

First published in the Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik, No. 50, December 14, 1890 and in Népszava, No. 50, December 14, 1890
Printed according to the Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 27

Collection(s): Népszava, Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik

This is Engels' reply to the congratulations he received on November 26, 1890 from the Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik and the Népszava on the occasion of his 70th birthday, and simultaneously to the invitation to take part in the congress of the Hungarian Social Democrats scheduled f r December 7 and 8, 1890. Read out at the opening of the congress , Engels' letter was printed , apart from the newspapers mentioned above, in Protokoll des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratie Ungarns in Budapest vom 7. und 8. Dezember, Budapest, 1891, and, simultaneous-ly, in the Hungarian edition of these minutes, as well as in the Berliner Volksblatt, No. 292, December 14, 1890.

A passage from this letter was first published in English in : K . Marx,

F. Engels , V. I . Lenin , On Scientific Communism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967, p . 163.

London, December 3, 1890

I would like to thank you most sincerely for the best wishes on my seventieth birthday conveyed in your letter of November 26.

I realise only too well that by far the greater part of the honours shown me on this day by yourselves and so many others, only falls to me as the surviving representative of Marx, and beg your permission to be allowed to lay it on his grave as a wreath of honour. However , what I can do to show myself belatedly worthy of him I shall do ; you may count on this.

Many thanks for your kind invitation to the Hungarian Party Congress.^[1] I shall sadly not be able to accept the invitation in person, but in spirit I shall be amongst you on the 7th and 8th inst.

The existence of a Hungarian Social-Democratic Workers ' Party is a fresh proof that modern large-scale industry cannot install itself in any country without revolutionising the old pre-capitalist society, without creating not only a capitalist class but also a proletariat and thus producing the class struggle between the two and a workers' party striving for the overthrow of the bourgeois capitalist world order. This workers ' party, which is now developing ever more strongly in Hungary too, as I learn from the Arbeiter-Wochen-Chronik you were kind enough to send me, has from the start the advantage of being international, of embracing Magyars, Germans, Romanians, Serbs and Slovaks. Please be kind enough to convey my warmest greetings to this young party upon its Congress.

Long live international Social Democracy!

Long live the Hungarian Party Congress!

Frederick Engels

↑ The congress of representatives of Hungarian workers ' organisations held on December 7 and 8, 1890 in Budapest was an important event in the history of the Hungarian working-class and socialist movement. It was attended by 121 delegates (87 from Budapest and 34 from provincia l branches). The congress discussed the state of the working-class movement in Hungary, the political position and the rights of workers, their attitude to social reforms, the condition of the rural proletariat, the trade unions, etc . It adopted a declaration of principles (party programme ) based on the main provisions of the programme of the Austrian Social Democrats approved by the Hainfeld Congress of 1888 (see Note 181). The congress decided to call the workers ' party founded in Hungary the Social-Democratic Party of Hungary.

[1] The congress of representatives of Hungarian workers ' organisations held on December 7 and 8, 1890 in Budapest was an important event in the history of the Hungarian working-class and socialist movement. It was attended by 121 delegates (87 from Budapest and 34 from provincia l branches). The congress discussed the state of the working-class movement in Hungary, the political position and the rights of workers, their attitude to social reforms, the condition of the rural proletariat, the trade unions, etc . It adopted a declaration of principles (party programme ) based on the main provisions of the programme of the Austrian Social Democrats approved by the Hainfeld Congress of 1888 (see Note 181). The congress decided to call the workers ' party founded in Hungary the Social-Democratic Party of Hungary.

[1]