Marx’ letter on Russia is of singular significance. Many socialist theoreticians have sought to contest the “legitimacy” of the Russian revolution on the basis of a pedantic construction placed up on the classic Marxian formula: “No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society.” Marx’ letter explicitly denies the “supra-historical” validity of this fundamental law of social evolution. That “leap over” bourgeois democracy and into proletarian democracy which Lenin spoke of in 1919, is of a piece with the thoughts expressed in Marx’ letter. The letter, apparently written in 1877, was addressed to Nikolai—on (N.F. Danielson), prominent spokesman of the Russian Populists (Narodniki), economist and publisher of the first Russian translation of Capital. The polemic was directed at N.K. Mikhailovsky, the leading theorist of Russian Populism, who remained a staunch anti-Marxist till his death in 1904. Very little known in Marxian circles, the letter was reproduced in the appendix to the French translation of Nikolai—on’s book on Russian economic development, published in 1902. The three explanatory paragraphs preceding the letter itself are from the pen of the Russian author. The letter is published here for the first time in English, translated from the French in which it was originally written-by Marx. – Ed.
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Another interesting late Marx letter is the drafts and reply to Vera Zasulich: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/
One of the really neat things about the drafts it that Marx's deletions (in the manuscript, crossed out) are indicated with square brackets. Really gives a sense of Marx's thought in process. Also lots of indications of him rephrasing to be less rude.
Note: Marxists.org has placed quotation marks around first and second. This is because the 'second' draft was actually written first (Riazanov mislabelled it in MEGA1 😔 )
The draft labelled 'second' on Marxists.org actually begins discussing the very topic of the (lack of) suprahistorical validity: