First exile of Trotsky

Being imprisoned and exiled from 1900 to 1902, Trotsky married and actively engaged in both self-education (which included reading the classics of Marxism) and journalistic work.

Under the pseudonym "Antid Oto" Trotsky collaborated with the newspaper Vostochnoye obozreniye (Russian: Восточное обозрение, "The Eastern Review"), which published three dozen of his articles and essays, warmly accepted by the audience.

During his first exile, the future Soviet People's Commissar was involved in literary studies, was writing about general issues of sociology and creativity, plus – about the themes of Siberian peasant life.

Traveling between the villages of Ust-Kut, Nizhne-Ilimsk and the city of Verkholensk, Trotsky came into contact with many former and future revolutionary personalities, including Moisei Uritsky and Felix Dzerzhinsky.

The printed works of Trotsky, published even in Western Europe, as well as his public lectures in Irkutsk, attracted attention of the leaders of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) to the young revolutionary: he was escaped from the Siberian exile.