Esteemed Comrade! We have received your letter and hasten to reply.

If you regard the transmission of my words to Mr. G. as "retribution," as an unpleasant obligation, then I am, of course, compelled to take back my request. If it will not be disagreeable for you, then convey my words when the opportunity presents itself, in conversation not in the form of a claim, but in the form of a correction. In any case, bear in mind that I do not insist.

Under the rubric of "the revolutionary organization Social-Democrat" 43 we do not appear — we wrote and emphasized to you that we constitute an independent literary enterprise*.

Whether there will be an "impossible" polemic between us — this is a question on which we have already expressed ourselves in the previous letter.

We do not at all intend to renounce personal acquaintance with one or another ally, but we do not presently see the utility in special relations between the Literary group** and the Union*** because of mistrust

* See the present volume, p. 43. Ed.

** Reference is made to V. I. Lenin, Yu. O. Martov, and A. N. Potresov. Ed.

*** The "Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad." Ed.