| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 27 May 1893 |
ENGELS TO ISAAC A. HOURWICH
IN CHICAGO
London, 27 May 1893
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dr. Isaac A. Hourwich Dear Sir,
Many thanks for your interesting study on the Economics of the Russian Village,[1] which I read, I hope, not without profit.
As to the burning questions of the Russian revolutionary movement, the part which the peasantry may be effected to take in it, these are subjects on which I could not conscientiously state an opinion for publication without previously studying over again the whole subject and completing my very imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case by bringing it up to date. 210 But for that I am sorry to say I have not at present the time. And then, I have every reason to doubt whether such a public statement by me would have the effect you expect of it. I know from my own experience of 1849-52 how unavoidably a political emigration splits itself up into a number of divergent factions, so long as the mother-country remains quiet. The burning desire to act, face to face with the impossibility of
doing anything effective, causes in many intelligent and energetic heads an over-active mental speculation, an attempt at discovering or inventing new and almost miraculous means of action. The word of an outsider would have but a trifling, and at best a passing effect. If you have followed the Russian emigration literature of the last decade, you will yourself know how, for instance, passages from Marx's writings and correspondence have been interpreted in the most contradictory ways, exactly as if they had been texts from the Classics or from the New Testament, by various sections of Russian emigrants. Whatever I might say on the subject you mention, would probably share the same fate, if any attention was paid to it. And so from all these various reasons, I think it best for all whom it may concern, including myself, to abstain.
Yours very truly
F. Engels