After receiving his diploma as a veterinary doctor, Bauman began work at the village of Novye Burasy in the Saratov Region and dreamt of becoming involved in revolutionary propaganda there.

It was at that congress that Plekhanov's group decided to merge with the Union of Struggle and launch the revolutionary Marxist paper Iskra – "The Spark", which was to be published abroad and smuggled into Russia.

After Vladimir Lenin had arrived in Munich in 1900, after serving a term of exile, and took on the management of Iskra, Bauman worked closely with him in getting the project organised.

[8] This story had gained wide currency among Russian political exiles by the time Bauman reappeared in Switzerland in 1902, after the escape from Kiev.

[citation needed] Some of those involved in producing Iskra, including Lenin's closest friend and collaborator, Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod, one of the founders of Russian Marxism, wanted Bauman expelled from the organisation.

[9] Lenin's widow noted that just before the decisive vote "Axelrod was reproaching Bauman ('Sorokin') for what seemed to him to be a lack of moral sense, and recalled some unpleasant gossip from exile days.

[11] In the wake of the October Manifesto, the Left started the chain of unrests in big Russian industrial centres, including the city of Moscow.

Mikhalin voluntarily gave himself up to the police within an hour of the incident and was sentenced by the Moscow District Court to 18 months of imprisonment for disproportional use of force causing death to the victim.

As a result, tens of thousands attended his funeral procession, people who saw in Bauman's death 'the fate of the Revolution' if they 'did not unite against' the reactionaries.

As night came, several thousand torches were lit; this caused the large red banners achieve a sort of glow, further contributing to the spectacle.

His self-proclaimed widow Kapitolina Medvedeva (they were not officially married under the law of the Russian Empire) urged the crowds to avenge the death of her husband Nikolay.

[citation needed] Due to decommunization policies the street named after Bauman in (Ukraine's capital) Kyiv was renamed after Janusz Korczak in 2016.

Historian Orlando Figes, contends that Bauman was quite unworthy of the 'inflated honours' given him after his death, due to his cruel history of practical jokes; he also notes how his martyrdom cleansed the memory of him.