| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 26 June 1891 |
ENGELS TO VICTOR ADLER
IN VIENNA
[Draft]
[London, 26 June 1891]
Dear Adler,
I would request you to pass on to the conveners of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party's Second Congress my sincere thanks for their kind invitation to this your party congress and to convey to them my regrets at being unable to attend in person as also my best wishes for a successful outcome to the proceedings.
Since Hainfeld, when the Austrian Workers' Party came into its own again, you have made immense progress. That is the best guarantee that your Second Party Congress will be the point of departure for even more significant triumphs.
How invincible is our party's inner strength is evident not only from the rapid succession of external victories, not only from the fact that last year in Germany, just as this year in Austria, it overcame the state of emergency.[1] This, its strength, is even more evident in the party's ability in every country to surmount obstacles and accomplish things in the face of which the other parties, who are recruited from the propertied classes, are helplessly halted in their tracks. While the propertied classes in France are engaged in an implacable struggle with the propertied classes in Germany, French and German Social-Democrats work hand in hand in full accord. And while in Austria the propertied classes in the various Crown Lands are forfeiting, in the mindless squabble over nationalities, the last vestige of their competence to rule, your Second Party Congress will project a picture of an Austria in which the squabble over nationalities is a thing of the past, of the Austria — of the working people.[2]