An fitar da shi daga Jami'ar Kazan Imperial don shiga cikin zanga-zangar adawa da gwamnatin Tsarist na Daular Rasha. An kore shi daga Jami'ar Kazan Imperial don shiga cikin zanga-zangar adawa da gwamnatin Tsarist na Daular Rasha, ya ba da shekaru masu zuwa ga digiri na doka. Ya koma Saint Petersburg a 1893 kuma ya zama babban dan gwagwarmayar Marxist. A shekara ta 1897, an kama shi saboda fitina kuma ya yi gudun hijira zuwa Shushenskoye na tsawon shekaru uku, inda ya auri Nadezhda Krupskaya. Bayan gudun hijira, sai ya koma Yammacin Turai, inda ya zama fitaccen masanin ilimin tauhidi a cikin Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (PDL). A shekara ta 1903, ya taka muhimmiyar rawa a cikin ra'ayin RSDLP, ƙungiyar Bolshevik da ke adawa da Martov Mensheviks.
Nadezhda Krupskaya