Editing Vladimir Lenin (section)

==== St. Petersburg and foreign visits: 1893–1895 ====
In autumn 1893, Vladimir moved to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg St. Petersburg], taking up residence in a Sergievsky Street flat in the Liteiny district, before moving to 7 Kazachy Alley, near the Haymarket. Employed as assistant to the lawyer M.F. Volkenstein, he joined a revolutionary cell run by S.I. Radchenko, whose members were primarily students from the city's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_State_Institute_of_Technology Technological Institute]. Like Vladimir, they were Marxists, and called themselves the "Social Democrats" after the Marxist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany 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 openly debated with theorist V.P. Vorontsov at a clandestine meeting, where his outspoken behaviour was noted by a police spy. Intent on building Marxism in Russia, Vladimir contacted Petr Bernardovich Struve, a wealthy sympathizer whom he hoped could aid in the publication of literature, and encouraged the foundation of further revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. He also became friends with a young Russian Jewish Marxist named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Martov Julius Martov], who encouraged his comrades to spend more time engaged in revolutionary activity.
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| colspan="3" style="padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0;"|Vladimir entered into a relationship with fellow Marxist and schoolteacher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Krupskaya Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya], who introduced him to several socialist proletariat. By autumn 1894, Vladimir was the leader of a workers' circle who met for two hours on a Sunday; known to them by a 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 also 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.
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Although sharing ideas, Lenin and the Social-Democrats clashed with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist%E2%80%93Revolutionary_Party Socialist–Revolutionary Party] (SR), who were inspired by the example of the defunct People's Freedom Party. Advocating an agrarian-socialist platform, the SR emphasized 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 own land, and that they were capitalists; instead, they saw the proletariat as the revolutionary force to advance socialism. Lenin nevertheless retained an influence from the thought of militant agrarian-socialist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Tkachev Pëtr Tkachëvi].

He hoped that connections could be cemented between his Social-Democrats and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_of_Labour Emancipation of Labour] group; an organisation founded in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva Geneva], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland Switzerland] by Pleckhanov and other Russian Marxist emigres in 1883. Vladimir and E.I. Sponti were selected to travel to Switzerland to meet with Pleckhanov, who was generally supportive but criticised the Social-Democrats for ignoring the role that the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie bourgeoisie] could play in the anti-Tsarist revolution.Traveling on to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurich Zurich], Vladimir met and befriended [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Axelrod Pavel Axelrod], another member of Emancipation of Labour. Proceeding to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris Paris], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France France], Vladimir met with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lafargue Paul Lafargue] and undertook research into the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune Paris Commune of 1871], which he saw as an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he returned to Switzerland to stay in a health spa before traveling to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin Berlin], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany Germany], where he studied for six weeks at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatsbibliothek Staatsbibliothek] and met with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Liebknecht Wilhelm Liebknecht]. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary literature, he traveled to various cities, becoming aware that he was being monitored by the police. Coinciding with a series of strikes in St. Petersburg, centered on the Thornton textile mill in 1895, he distributed Marxist literature to the workers, and was involved in the production of a news sheet, ''The Workers' Cause''. However, both he and 40 other activists were arrested on the night before the first issue's publication and charged with sedition.