Marx To Vera Zasulich In 1881

Is historical materialism a deterministic theory? Must all societies (in particular, Russia) go through the same stages, including feudalism, capitalism, and, eventually, socialism? Perhaps Marx says otherwise in the following letter.

London, 8 March 1881
41 Maitland Park Road, N.W.

Dear Citizen,

A nervous complaint which has assailed me periodically over the last ten years has prevented me from replying any sooner to your letter of 16 February. I am sorry that I cannot provide you with a concise exposé, intended for publication, of the question you have done me the honour of putting to me. Months ago I promised the St Petersburg Committee to let them have a piece on the same subject. I hope, however, that a few lines will suffice to dispel any doubts you may harbour as to the misunderstanding in regard to my so-called theory.

In analysing the genesis of capitalist production I say:

'At the core of the capitalist system, therefore, lies the complete separation of the producer from the means of production ... the basis of this whole development is the expropriation of the agricultural producer. To date this has not been accomplished in a radical fashion anywhere except in England... But all the other countries of Western Europe are undergoing the same process' (Capital, French ed., p. 315).

Hence the 'historical inevitability' of this process is expressly limited to the countries of Western Europe. The cause of that limitation is indicated in the following passage from Chapter XXXII:

'Private property, based on personal labour ... will be supplanted by capitalist private property, based on the exploitation of the labour of others, on wage labour' (l.c., p. 341).

In this Western movement, therefore, what is taking place is the transformation of one form of private property into another form of private property. In the case of the Russian peasants, their communal property would, on the contrary, have to be transformed into private property.

Hence the analysis provided in Capital does not adduce reasons either for or against the viability of the rural commune, but the special study I have made of it, and the material for which I drew from original sources, has convinced me that this commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia, but in order that it may function as such, it would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it from all sides, and then ensure for it the normal conditions of spontaneous development.

I have the honour to be, dear Citizen,

Yours very faithfully,

Karl Marx

Is the above in agreement with a letter of Engels?

I think of Georgi Plekhanov as having introduced Marxism into Russia. Vera Zasulich, however, was another who had an early interest. Others include Pavel Axelrod, Nikolai Danielson, Ivan Fesenko, Julius Martov, Pyotr Struve, and Nikolai Ziber. The founders in exile in Geneva of the Emancipation of Labour group provide another list. Danielson translated Capital. Struve was part of the school of legal Marxism before becoming a liberal. Axelrod and Martov became prominent Menshevik. Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Pyotr Lavrov are of interest. The former wrote a novel, What is to be done?, from which Lenin took the title. The latter headed a movement opposed to the Narodniks.