15/I. (From Lenin.) Dear comrades! Thank you very much for the detailed letter on the state of affairs: we are written to with such letters very rarely, although we desperately need them and they are necessary in tenfold greater quantity if we truly want to create a living connection between the foreign editorial board and local workers and make "Iskra" a complete reflection of all our labor movement both as a whole and in its particular aspects. Therefore we very earnestly request that you continue in the same spirit, providing even occasionally direct pictures of conversations with workers (what is being discussed in the circles? what complaints? perplexities, requests? what are the topics of discussion? etc., etc.).

Your organization's plan appears to approach a rational organization of revolutionaries, insofar as one can speak of "rational" given such a shortage of people and insofar as the plan is clear from the brief account.

* The reference is to V. P. Krasnukh, who was arrested in November 1902. Ed.