Around the turn of the century, in addition to his journalism, Peshekhonov became increasingly active in the left-liberal political world - i.e., he was co-founder in 1903 of a "Union for Liberation" (Soiuz osvobozhdeniia).

After the "Bloody Sunday" events of January 1905, he was locked up in the Peter and Paul Fortress, then banished until October of that year, and again arrested for several months in 1906.

In February 1917 Peshekhonov assumed leading roles as an NS delegate in the Petrograd Soviet of Worker's and Soldier's Deputies, with strong engagement on agrarian issues.

In the fall of 1922, Peshekhonov was included in the list of intellectuals to be exiled abroad by a Central Committee decree (although he does not seem to have travelled on the famous "Philosophers' ships" that took the bulk of them to Germany).

[1]Exiled against his will, more left-wing than most of his co-expellees, Peshekhonov unhappily pursued his economic and political studies in Berlin and Prague, but repeatedly applied for permission to return to the Soviet Union.