London, 5 August 1880 
122: Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Madam, 

Further to my brief note sent to Biarritz,> all I can tell you is that 
I don’t in fact know of any documents or reports I could recommend 
to you other than those first enumerated by yourself in your previous 
esteemed letter.*5 However, after the school holidays, when the vari- 
ous people I’m acquainted with return, I shall make further inquiries, 
and if I find anything new, shall send it to you in Moscow *° or report 
to you further. In order that such correspondence should appear per- 
fectly innocuous, I shall write in English and sign myself E. Burns. 
When communicating with me from there, you could address your 
letters: Miss E. Burns, 122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W., London. An 
inner envelope is unnecessary; she is my niece. 

I was most interested to hear about your activities in Moscow and 
about the prospect of your setting up an industrial school with the 
help of the president of the aemcrso‘ 3’; we, too, have the statistical 
reports of all the Russian 3semcrsa over here, as in general quite excel- 

4 112 in the manuscript.-> See previous letter.-° Zemstvo 

14. Engels to Minna Gorbunova. 5 August 1880 2) 

lent material on economic conditions in Russia, but unfortunately 
I cannot look it out at this moment as it is at Marx’s house and he and 
all his family are away at the seaside.? However it wouldn’t be much 
help to me in answering your inquiry, °° since this calls for a knowl- 
edge of the relevant branches of the cottage industry, its operation, 
products and competitiveness, and that can only be acquired on the 
spot. All in all it seems to me that most, at any rate, of the branches of 
industry you mentioned would probably be capable of competing 
with large-scale industry for some time yet. Industrial revolutions 
such as these progress extremely slowly; even the handloom has not 
yet been entirely superseded in some branches in Germany, whereas 
in England those same branches did away with it 20 or 30 years ago. 
In Russia that process might well be even slower. After all, the long 
winter provides the peasant with a great deal of spare time, and even 
if he only earns something during the day, that is still so much gain. 
Admittedly these primitive forms of production cannot escape their 
ultimate demise, and in a highly developed industrial country, as 
here, for example, one might claim that it would be more humane to 
accelerate this process of dissolution rather than prolong it. In Russia 
the situation may well be different, especially as there is some pros- 
pect there of violent changes in the political situation as a whole. The 
minor palliatives which have proved virtually useless in Germany, as 
you yourself have of course discovered, and also elsewhere, might in 
Russia help the people on occasion to surmount the political crisis 
and keep their industry going until such time as they also have a say. 
The schools, however, might perhaps enable them to get at least some 
idea of what they ought to say. And all genuine educative elements 
that are dispersed among the people will, to a greater or lesser extent, 
contribute to that end. Technical instruction might perhaps best 
achieve its aim if it sought, on the one hand, to organise the operations at 
any rate of the more viable branches of traditional industry in a more 
rational way and, on the other, to provide the children with sufficient 
training in general technology to facilitate their transition to other 
industries. Aside from such generalisations there is, at this distance, 
little to be said. Except that this much seems pretty clear to me: The 
Moscow gouvernement is unlikely to become a seat of large-scale indus- 
try in the near future, since it is remote from the coal-mining areas, 
and wood fuel is already in short supply. Cottage industry in some, if 
not always the same, form might persist there for a bit longer even if 
protective tariffs were to make feasible the introduction of this or that 

large enterprise, such as the cotton industry of Shuya and Ivanovo in 
the Vladimir gouvernement. And, after all, the only way one can really 
help the peasants is to see that they get more land and cultivate it in 
associations. 

Your report about the incipient decay of the o6uymHa**° and the 
artel *' confirms news that has also come to us from another quarter. 
Nevertheless this process of disintegration may go on for a very long 
time. And since the general current in Western Europe is flowing in 
precisely the opposite direction and, with the next convulsion, must 
acquire a strength of a quite different order, it may be expected that 
in Russia, too, which has certainly produced a great many critical 
minds over the past 30 years, this current will still be strong enough 
to make a timely appeal to the people’s innate, millennial urge to as- 
sociate before that urge is completely extinguished. For this reason, 
productive associations and other means of promoting the associate 
system among the people in Russia should also be looked at from an 
aspect other than the Western one. Admittedly they still remain no 
more than minor palliatives. I remain, 

Yours most respectfully, 
F. Engels