In the fall of 1887 Vladimir entered Kazan University and soon became involved in student disorders. He was arrested and lived for a while under police surveillance. A short time later, at the age of eighteen, he started reading Karl Marx and soon was expounding Marxist principles to his sister Anna and organizing Marxist discussion groups. In 1891, in Saint Petersburg, he passed his law examination with honors and was admitted to the bar. Although young in years, he was “old” in disposition. At the age of twenty-four, a companion remarked, Lenin already had a tired-looking face. His head was entirely bald, except for fringes of hair at the temples. “The most striking thing about him,” went another description, “was his large head, with its large white forehead. His rather small eyes seemed perpetually narrowed, his glance was serious....” Within a few short years Lenin was to dominate the Russian Marxist movement. This man who loved to play with children, who, after he became dictator of all Russia, occasionally liked to sleep in a hayloft rather than in a bed, was utterly cynical and ruthless. In one instance an associate in Stockholm complained that couriers were not delivering newspapers on schedule. “Please send me their names,” Lenin curtly ordered. “These saboteurs shall be shot.” Another time a companion complained about his work. Shut up, were Lenin’s orders. “I will turn you over to the party court; we will shoot you.” Without tenderness, with not a muscle responsive to mercy, he had one goal—revolution. For twenty years, whether as an exile in Siberia or as a wandering conspirator in Europe, he kept working, dreaming, and thinking about revolution. Guided by his “evil genius,” he never deviated from that goal. Russia, by the 1880’s, was seething with discontent. A strong revolutionary movement, dating from the 1820’s, was in rebellion against the despotic Czarist regime. Many of the suggested revolutionary programs were impractical. Some demanded greater voice for the peasants or industrial workers; some espoused violent revolution; others, democratic reform. But on one point they all agreed: there must be a change. The more radical groups believed in political terrorism. Their violent escapades, however, such as assassinations, led only to greater oppression. Marxist writings had early found their way into Russia. The first language into which Marx’s _Das Kapital_ (originally written in German) had been translated was Russian. Many revolutionaries were attracted by these new communist ideas. In 1883 a Marxist group was founded. Ten years later, when Lenin joined an underground group in Saint Petersburg, the movement was strong. These early Russian Marxists, however, were deeply divided. They were babblers of theory, not apostles of action. Lenin immediately undertook to change the situation. But in December, 1895, he was arrested, imprisoned, and later exiled to Siberia.