As a young man Lenine, like most of the Intelligentsia of the period, gave up a good deal of his spare time to teaching small groups of uneducated working-men the somewhat abstract and intricate theories and doctrines of Socialism. To that excellent practice, no doubt, much of Lenine's skill as a lucid expositor and successful propagandist is due. He has written a number of important works, most of them being of a polemical nature and dealing with party disputations upon questions of theory and tactics. The work by which he was best known in Socialist circles prior to his sensational rise to the Premiership is a treatise on _The Development of Capitalism in Russia_. This work made its appearance in 1899, when the Marxian Socialist movement was still very weak. In it Lenine defended the position of the Marxians, Plechanov and his group, that Russia was not an exception to the general law of capitalist development, as was claimed by the leaders of the People's party, the _Narodniki_. The book gave Lenine an assured position among the intellectual leaders of the movement, and was regarded as a conclusive defense of the position of the Plechanov group, to which Lenine belonged. Since his overthrow of the Kerensky regime, and his attempt to establish a new kind of social state in Russia, Lenine has been frequently confronted by his own earlier reasoning by those who believe his position to be contrary to the true Marxian position. From 1903 to 1906 Lenine's views developed farther and farther away from those of his great teacher, George Plechanov. His position in the period of the First Duma can best be stated, perhaps, in opposition to the position of Plechanov and the Mensheviki. Accepting the Marxian theory of historical development, Plechanov and his followers believed that Russia must pass through a phase of capitalist development before there could be a social--as distinguished from a merely political--revolution. Certainly they believed, an intensive development of industry, bringing into existence a strong capitalist class, on the one hand, and a strong proletariat, on the other hand, must precede any attempt to create a Social Democratic state. They believed, furthermore, that a political revolution, creating a democratic constitutional system of government, must come before the social revolution could be achieved. They accepted the traditional Marxian view that the achievement of this political revolution must be mainly the task of the bourgeoisie, and that the proletariat, and especially the Socialists, should co-operate with the enlightened bourgeoisie in attaining that political revolution without which there could never be a Socialist commonwealth.