9. XI.

Today I received your letter, dear Georgy Valentinovich, and immediately sent you by registered parcel: 1) Puttman's article "What Has Happened?"; 2) Byvalov's article; and 3) D. Koltsov's article on the Paris Congress 64.

V. I. found this last article completely unsuitable, and I entirely concur with her opinion: the article is uninteresting, wholly inappropriate for the journal (especially since you will be writing about Millerand 65), and excessively long for a newspaper. It contains 22-27 thousand letters, whereas for a newspaper we need a note of 6-9 thousand letters or only slightly more than that.

We would therefore think it advisable to ask Rakovsky to write an article of such dimensions for the newspaper, and to reject Koltsov's article. We decided to send this to you, all the more since you were planning to reply to Rakovsky: do as you find most expedient—either reject Koltsov's article and commission Rakovsky, or else instruct Koltsov to undertake, under your guidance, a revision and condensation of the article. It seems to us more likely that you will choose the first course, and in that case you can, of course, refer to us before Koltsov, and we can write to him ourselves as soon as we receive your reply.