Letter to V.I. Zasulich

Also known as Reply to V.I. Zasulich. Marx’s reply to the Russian woman revolutionary V.I. Zasulich, an important work by Marx on the historical fate of the Russian rural commune and the prospects for the development of Russian capitalism. Written in 1881, first published in Russian in the Arkhiv K. Marksa i F. Engelsa, Year 1924, Vol. 1. It was translated into Chinese by Zhang Guangda and He Xu in 1955 and published in the History Translation Series, No. 3.

In February 1881, the Russian female revolutionary, V.I. Zasulich, wrote a letter to Marx, in the letter, Zasulich explained to Marx that the circulation of Capital in Russia had given rise to a controversy over the question of land and rural communes in Russia, and she implored Marx to share his views on the question of the path of social development in Russia: “You would be doing us a very great favor if you were to set forth your ideas on the possible fate of our rural commune, and on the theory that it is historically necessary for every country in the world to pass through all the phases of capitalist production.” Marx attached great importance to Zasulich’s letter. He overcame the difficulties of old age and infirmity, and successively drew up four drafts, before giving a formal reply to Zasulich on March 8, 1881. In the letter, Marx analyzed in depth the characteristics of the Russian rural commune, expressed his views on the prospects of social development in Russia in a more comprehensive manner, and clearly pointed out the possibility for Russia to leap over the “Caudine Forks” of capitalism under certain conditions, i.e., the theoretical conception of crossing over the the capitalist stage of social development and directly entering socialism.

First of all, Marx pointed out that what kind of path a country or nation takes must be analyzed concretely in terms of the historical context in which it is situated. In discussing the genesis of capitalist production in Western Europe, Marx pointed out that a complete separation of the producer from the means of production came about through the expropriation of the agricultural producer. This process took place mainly in Western Europe. To be specific, England had already completed the expropriation of the peasants, while other countries in Western Europe were following such a course. Thus, Marx clearly pointed out: “I expressly restricted this ‘historical inevitability’ to the ‘countries of Western Europe’.” On the contrary, as far as Russia was concerned, the problems it faced were different from those in Western Europe. The process of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe was the replacement of one form of private property with another, i.e., the replacement of “private property, founded on personal labor” with “capitalist private property, which rests on exploitation of the labor of others”. In contrast, in Russia it is the replacement of the existing communal property of rural communes in Russia with a capitalist private property in the means of production based upon wage-labor. It was precisely the existence of this difference, Marx pointed out, that made it impossible to simply apply the account of the genesis of capitalism as originally applied to Western Europe directly to Russian society. It was obviously inappropriate to simply copy and paste the Western European path of development without taking into account the above-mentioned peculiarities of the economic and social development in Russia.

Next, Marx pointed out that the destiny of the development of the Russian commune should be analyzed in terms of internal basis and external conditions. First, in terms of the internal basis, the dualistic character of the Russian commune could either give it a sturdy life or become a source of disintegration. Marx pointed out that the Russian “rural commune” at that time had its own distinctive features compared to the “communistic communal” communes typical of the ancient society: dualism of common and private property in the means of production. In the Russian commune, the house and the yard were the private property of the peasants, while the arable land was communal property that could not be alienated. That is why Marx pointed out two possibilities for the historical destiny of the Russian “rural commune”: “Its constitutive form allows of the following alternative: either the element of private property which it implies gains the upper hand over the collective element, or the reverse takes place. Everything depends upon the historical context in which it is situated... both solutions are a priori possibilities, but each one naturally requires a completely different historical context.” Second, in terms of external conditions, it was only by absorbing the material conditions of large-scale common labor provided to it by the capitalist market that Russia was able to do so without having to pass under the harsh tribute [Caudine Forks] of the capitalist system. The contemporaneity of Russia with capitalist countries “enables Russia to build into the commune all the positive achievements of the capitalist system, without having to pass under its harsh tribute”, thus to take a completely different path of development from that of capitalism in Western Europe. For, “the historical context—the contemporaneity of capitalist production—provides it with ready-made material conditions for huge-scale common labor. It is therefore able to incorporate the positive achievements of the capitalist system, without having to pass under its harsh tribute.” Conversely, if Russia existed in isolation from the world, it was doomed to die with the development of Russian society. Third, to save the Russian commune, there must be a Russian revolution. After the Russian Reform in 1861, the rural commune in fact tended to disintegrate. Therefore, in order to act as a fulcrum for social regeneration in Russia “the harmful influences assailing it on all sides must first be eliminated, and it must then be assured the conditions for spontaneous development”. And this required the outbreak of a revolution in Russia in time, and then the concentration of all its forces to ensure the unfettered rise of the rural commune.

Marx to V.I. Zasulich is an important work on the theory of development in the East in Marx’s later years. In the letter, following the dialectics of concrete analysis of the concrete question, and by starting from the larger context of the development of world history, Marx proposed that in an economically and culturally backward country such as Russia, there is the possibility crossing over the capitalist society and directly entering socialism due to the dualism of common and private property of the rural commune itself. This further enriched the historical dialectics and the Marxist theory of social development and is the best example for the advancement of Marxism with the times. The theory in the letter was further elucidated in the 1882 Preface to the Russian Edition of the Communist Manifesto.