In autumn 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg.[43] There, he worked as a barrister's assistant to M.F.Wolkenstein [44]and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell who called themselves the "Social Democrats" after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany.[45] Publicly championing Marxism among the socialist movement,[46] he encouraged the foundation of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres.[47] He befriended Russian Jewish Marxist Julius Martov,[48] and began a relationship with Marxist schoolteacher Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya.[49] By autumn 1894 he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and was meticulous in covering his tracks, knowing that police spies were trying to infiltrate the revolutionary movement.[50]
Lenin (left) in December 1895 and his wife Nadezhda.
Although he was influenced by agrarian-socialist Pëtr Tkachëvi,[51] Lenin's Social-Democrats clashed with the Narodnik agrarian-socialist platform of the Socialist–Revolutionary Party (SR). The SR saw the peasantry as the main force of revolutionary change, whereas the Marxists believed peasants to be sympathetic to private ownership, instead emphasising the revolutionary role of the proletariat.[52] He dealt with some of these issues in 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.[53]
Lenin hoped to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and the Swiss-based Emancipation of Labour group of Russian Marxist emigres like Pleckhanov, travelling to Geneva to meet the latter,[54] before heading to Zurich, where he befriended another member, Pavel Axelrod.[55] 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.[56] 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.[57] Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he traveled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers in Saint Petersburg.[58] Involved in producing a news sheet, The Workers' Cause, he was among 40 activists arrested and charged with sedition.[59]
Imprisoned and refused legal representation, Vladimir denied all charges. He was refused bail and remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing.[60] He spent the time theorising and writing, focusing his attention 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 Tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie.[60]
In February 1897, he was sentenced without trial to 3 years exile in eastern Siberia, although given a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order; he met with the Social-Democrats, who had been renamed the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.[61] His journey to eastern Siberia 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. 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.[62]
In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising 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.[63] Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian.[64] 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.[65] 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 received predominantly poor reviews upon publication.[66]