The Narodniki resented the new Marxist movement and became bitterly hostile towards them.
During this time, Vladimir became dedicated to the transformation of Russia into "a modern, international, industrialized, urban oriented Marxist society." This he believed could be achieved through a carefully organized revolution which he planned with dedication and skill. He became leader of a collection of scattered groups entitled the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. It was because of this, that he was arrested and imprisoned from December 1895 to 1897. While in prison, he began his first major work, The Development of Capitalism In Russia, which he completed while in exile in Siberia. In addition to finishing his book in Siberia, he was also married there on July 10, 1898 to Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya who was a revolutionary associate of the previous years. .
In January of 1900, Lenin returned to European Russia and soon thereafter returned to self-imposed exile in Western Europe finally settling in Switzerland. There, the Lenins edited a new Russian revolutionary periodical entitled Iskra. Nadezhda took responsibility for smuggling and correspondence and other details involved with getting the paper into Russia. In addition, Vladimir completed and published another major work, What Is to Be Done? In this book, he carefully outlines his concept of political action and completely rejects the Western role of a democratic political party working within the framework of parliamentary democracy. It was around this time that he began to attack another enemy, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Vladimir became convinced that "real change could be brought about only by and through the dictatorship of the proletariat." .
Lenin returned to Russia in November 1905 only to be hunted by the Tsarist police. He almost lost his life in December of 1907 fleeing across the ice from the Finnish mainland to a Finnish island where a ship carried him back into exile.