The Russian communist revolutionary and politician Vladimir Lenin began his active revolutionary activity in 1893, and continued till assuming power in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Following on from his early life, during which he had become devoted to the cause of revolution against the Tsarist regime in the Russian Empire and converted to Marxism, Lenin moved to St. Petersburg. There he joined a revolutionary cell, and became a vocal advocate for Marxism within the revolutionary socialist movement. Entering a relationship with fellow Marxist Nadezhda Krupskaya, he toured Western Europe to build ties with other Russian revolutionary emigres and learn more about the international Marxist movement. Upon returning to Russia, he was arrested for sedition in 1895 and exiled to Shushenskoye in the Minusinsky District of eastern Siberia for three years. There, he devoted his time to translating and writing revolutionary texts, marrying Krupskaya in July 1898.
His exile over, in 1900 he moved to Western Europe, where he joined the editorial board of Iskra, the publication of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Iskra'''s base was moved from Munich to London and then to Geneva, each time accompanied by Lenin. At the party's second congress, held in London in 1903, a major schism erupted between Lenin and his supporters (the Bolsheviks) and Julius Martov and his supporters (the Mensheviks); Lenin emphasised a strongly centralised party controlled largely by the leadership, whereas Martov accepted a wider party with more independence of thought. Lenin returned to Russia briefly during the Revolution of 1905, but fled again when the Tsarist authorities defeated the revolutionary forces and cracked down on dissent.
Living in Paris and then Kraków, he focused on internal conflict within the Marxist movement, opposing the ideas of the Mensheviks and Alexander Bogdanov; he penned Materialism and Empirio-criticism to counter his critics. During the First World War, he relocated to Switzerland, where he argued that socialists should work toward converting that "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" in which the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. He summarised his thought in the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and also re-interpreted Marxism on the basis of reading Hegelian philosophy. When the February Revolution of 1917 led to the abdication of the Tsar and the development of the Russian Provisional Government, Lenin returned to St. Petersburg, now called Petrograd. There, he urged the Bolsheviks to oppose the new government, and support proletariat revolution.
Saint Petersburg and foreign visits: 1893–1895 In autumn 1893, Vladimir moved to Saint Petersburg, taking up residence in a Sergievsky Street flat in the Liteiny district, before moving to 7 Kazachy Alley, near the Haymarket. Employed as a lawyer's assistant, he joined a revolutionary cell run by S.I. Radchenko, whose members were primarily students from the city's Technological Institute. Like Vladimir, they were Marxists, and called themselves the "Social Democrats" after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany. Impressed by his extensive knowledge, they welcomed him and he soon became a senior member of the group. Championing Marxist thought among the revolutionary socialist movement, in January 1894 he publicly debated with Marxist Theorist Vasily Vorontsov at a clandestine meeting, attracting the attention of police spies. Intent on building Marxism in Russia, Vladimir contacted Petr Berngardovich Struve, a wealthy sympathizer whom he hoped could aid in the publication of literature, encouraged the foundation of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres, and befriended Russian Jewish Marxist Julius Martov.
Vladimir entered into a relationship with fellow Marxist and schoolteacher Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, who introduced him to socialist proletariat. By autumn 1894, Vladimir was leading a workers' circle who met for two hours on a Sunday; known by the pseudonym Nikolai Petrovich, they affectionately referred to him as starik (old man). He was meticulous in covering his tracks, knowing that police spies were trying to infiltrate the revolutionary movement. He wrote his first political tract, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats; based largely on his experiences in Samara, around 200 copies were illegally printed.
Although Lenin was influenced by agrarian-socialist Pëtr Tkachëvi, he and the Social-Democrats clashed with the Socialist–Revolutionary Party (SR), who were inspired by the defunct People's Freedom Party. Advocating a Narodnik agrarian-socialist platform, the SR emphasised the revolutionary role of the peasant, who in 1881 numbered 75 million, in contrast to the 1 million urban proletariat in Russia. In contrast, the Marxists believed that the peasant class' primary motivation was to own their land, and that they were capitalists; instead, they saw the proletariat as the revolutionary force to advance socialism.
He hoped that connections could be cemented between his Social-Democrats and the Emancipation of Labour group; an organisation founded in Geneva, Switzerland by Georgi Plekhanov and other Russian Marxist emigres in 1883. Vladimir and E.I. Sponti were selected to travel to Switzerland to meet with Plekhanov, who was generally supportive but criticised the Social-Democrats for ignoring the bourgeoisie's role in the anti-Tsarist revolution. Traveling to Zurich, Vladimir befriended Pavel Axelrod, another member of Emancipation of Labour. Proceeding to Paris, France, Vladimir met Paul Lafargue and researched the Paris Commune of 1871, which he saw as an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before traveling to Berlin, Germany, where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met Wilhelm Liebknecht. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary literature, he traveled to various cities, aware that he was being monitored by the police, and distributed literature to striking workers in Saint Petersburg. Involved in producing a news sheet, The Workers' Cause, he was among 40 activists arrested on the night before the first issue's publication and charged with sedition.
Siberian exile: 1895–1900 Imprisoned at the House of Preliminary Detention in Shpalernaya Street, Vladimir was refused legal representation, so denied all charges. His family helped him, but he was refused bail, remaining imprisoned for a year before sentencing. Fellow revolutionaries smuggled messages to him, while he devised a code for playing chess with the neighbouring inmate. Spending much time writing, he focused on the revolutionary potential of the working-class; believing that the rise of industrial capitalism had led large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, he argued that they became proletariat and gained class consciousness, which would lead them to violently overthrow the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. By July 1896 he had finished Draft and Explanation of A Programme for the Social Democratic Party and had commenced work on his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia.
Vladimir was sentenced without trial to 3 years exile in eastern Siberia. Given a few days in Saint Petersburg in February 1897 to put his affairs in order, he met with fellow revolutionaries; the Social-Democrats had been renamed the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, and with many of its leading intelligentsia imprisoned, workers had taken over many senior positions, a move that caused rifts but which gained Vladimir's cautious support. In 1896–97, strikes hit Saint Petersburg, aided by the Marxists; believing his predictions to be coming true, Vladimir was unhappy at having to abandon the movement. The Russian government made use of a large network of prison camps and areas of exile on the verges of its empire to deal with dissidents and criminals; by 1897 there were 300,000 Russian citizens in this system, and Vladimir was now one of them. Permitted to make his own way there, the journey took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Considered a minor threat, Vladimir was exiled to Shushenskoye in the Minusinsky District, a settlement that Vladimir described as "not a bad place". Renting a room in a peasant's hut, he remained under police surveillance, but corresponded with other subversives, many of whom visited him, and also went on trips to hunt duck and snipe and to swim in the Yenisei River.
In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organizing a strike. Although initially posted to Ufa, she convinced the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, claiming that she and Vladimir were engaged; they married in a church on 10 July 1898. Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, the couple translated Sidney and Beatrice Webb's The History of Trade Unionism (1894) into Russian, a job obtained for them by Struve. Keen to keep abreast of the developments in German Marxism – where there had been an ideological split, with revisionists like Eduard Bernstein advocating a peaceful, electoral path to socialism – Vladimir remained devoted to violent revolution, attacking revisionist arguments in A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats. He was also critical of the "Economists", members of the Social-Democratic movement who campaigned for economic reforms to improve workers' conditions rather than fighting for socio-political revolution. Vladimir also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which offered a well-researched and polemical attack on the Social-Revolutionaries and promoting a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of "Vladimir Ilin", it would be described by biographer Robert Service as "a tour de force", but received predominantly poor reviews upon publication.
Munich, London and Geneva: 1900–1905 His exile over, Vladimir was banned from Saint Petersburg, instead settling in Pskov, a small town two hours' train ride from the capital, in February 1900. His wife, who had not served the entirety of her sentence, remained in exile in Ufa, where she fell ill. Intent on founding a newspaper, Vladimir and Struve raised money for the publication of Iskra (The Spark), a new organ of the Russian Marxist movement, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). After visiting his wife, on 29 July 1900, Vladimir left Russia for Western Europe. In Switzerland and Germany, he met with Axelrod, Plekhanov and Potresov, and lectured on the Russian situation. On 24 August 1900, a conference of Russian Marxists was held in the Swiss town of Corsier to discuss Iskra, but both Vladimir and Potresov were shocked at Plekhanov's controlling nature and antisemitism. It was agreed that the paper would be produced in Munich, where Vladimir moved in September 1900. The first issue was printed on Christmas Eve, and contained an article written by Vladimir decrying European intervention in the Boxer Rebellion. A second RSDLP publication, Zarya, appeared in March 1901, and would run for four issues, but Iskra was far more successful, being smuggled into Russia illegally, becoming the most successful Russian underground publication for 50 years. It contained contributions from such figures as the Polish Rosa Luxemburg, the Czech-German Karl Kautsky, and a young Ukrainian Marxist, Leon Trotsky, who became a regular contributor from the autumn of 1902.