A nervous disease that I have been suffering from periodically for the last ten years has prevented me from replying earlier to your letter of 16 February.  To my regret I am unable to give you a conclusive reply, intended for publication, to the question which you did me the honour to ask. Already several months ago I promised the St Petersburg Committee  to write a paper on the same subject. I hope however that a few lines will suffice to remove all doubt in your mind about the misunderstanding concerning my so-called theory. In analysing the genesis of capitalist production I say: Hence the historical inevitability of this process is expressly limited to the countries of Western Europe. The reason for this limitation is indicated in the following passage of Chapter XXXII: In this development in Western Europe it is a question of the transformation of one form of private property into another form of private property. In case of the Russian peasants one would on the contrary have to transform their common property into private property. Thus the analysis given in Capital does not provide any arguments for or against the viability of the village community, but the special research into this subject which I conducted, and for which I obtained the material from original sources, has convinced me that this community is the fulcrum of Russia s social revival, but in order that it might function in this way one would first have to eliminate the destructive influences which assail it from every quarter and then to ensure the conditions normal for spontaneous development. I have the honour to remain, yours very sincerely
Letters: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence 1881