Reply:
To the ed[itorial office] of the C.O.
3/XII 03 [Geneva].
Dear comrade! I would, of course, prefer the publication of the letter in no. 53¹; I need only a proof-read for stylistic corrections. In the Iskra I think to write about Novobrancев² and about Meschersky's Friendly Speeches³, in the Zarya — on the agrarian question.

With s.d. greetings, N. Lenin.

¹ The reference is to a "Letter to the Editorial Office" concerning Plekhanov's article "What Is Not To Be Done?", which, in accordance with Lenin's expressed wish here, was published in no. 53 of the Iskra, in connection with which the first part of his article "The Bourgeoisie Posing as a People and the Bewildered Populists," already set in type for no. 53, was transferred to no. 54.

² Here Lenin means the second part of his article "The Bourgeoisie Posing as a People and the Bewildered Populists." The plan of the entire article was ready with him already in November (see "Lenin Miscellany" VII, document 96, pp. 238—247), and at the same time the first part of the article was completed, published in the Iskra and devoted to a critique of L.'s article "On the Agrarian Question" ("Osvobozhdenie," no. 9 (33) of November 1 (October 19) 1903), which presented an exposition of the programmatic tasks of the agrarian policy of the "liberationists" — the future nucleus of the Cadet party. The second part of the article, which Lenin intended to devote to an analysis of P. Novobrancев's (A. V. Peshekhonov's) article "Fundamental Questions of the Russian Revolutionary Program" ("Revolutionary Russia," nos. 32 and 33 of September 28 (15) and October 14 (1) 1903), at this moment (December 3, 1903) had not yet been written and subsequently did not appear in the Iskra. It is unknown whether this article was completed by Lenin at all. In the archive of the Lenin Institute, at any rate, there are no traces of the existence of a manuscript that would represent the continuation of this article. One may suppose that Lenin did not write the second part of the article at all, being diverted from this task almost immediately by the intensifying intra-party struggle with the opposition in the C.O. and in the Party Council.

³ "Friendly Speeches" — a weekly, illustrated Black Hundreds journal, calculated for the broad masses, published in Petersburg from 1903 to 1917. The founder and first editor-publisher of the journal was Prince V. P. Meschersky. From 1913 the editor of the journal became E. Baftalovsky, the publisher — V. Baftalovsky.