London, December 19, 1893

Dear Citizens,

While thanking you for your kind invitation to the Congress of
Socialist Students, I greatly regret that I am unable to accept,
being detained by some urgent and important work. I must
therefore limit myself to wishing your Congress all the success
which it deserves. May your efforts succeed in developing among
students the awareness that it is from their ranks that there must
emerge intellectual proletariat which will be called on to play a
considerable part in the approaching revolution alongside and
among their brothers, the manual workers.

The bourgeois revolutions of the past asked nothing of the
universities but lawyers, as the best raw material for their
politicians; the emancipation. of the working class needs, in
addition, doctors, engineers, chemists, agronomists and other
experts; for we are faced with taking over the running not only of
the political machine but of all social production, and in that case
what will be needed is not fine words but well-grounded
knowledge.

Fraternal greetings,

F. Engels