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 koma Saint Petersburg a 1893 kuma ya zama babban dan gwagwarmayar Marxist. A shekara ta 1897, an kama shi da laifin tayar da hankali kuma ya yi 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 ta Martov Mensheviks.
Fabrairun 1917