firms suggested to Riazanov a relative weakness of Russian middle-classes and a significant possibility that there would be forces of the Russian Marxist movement which would lead the revolution against Tsarist autocracy and thenceforth immediately towards socialism. Riazanov returned to Russia shortly after the start of the 1905 Russian Revolution, going to work in the trade union movement in the capital city of St. Petersburg. The uprising ended in failure by the revolutionaries, however, and Riazanov was arrested and sentenced to deportation once again in 1907. Second period of exile Shortly after his 1907 conviction, Riazanov emigrated to the West. During this second interlude abroad, Riazanov dedicated himself to historical scholarship, studying the history of the International Workingmen's Association in the archives of the German Social-Democratic Party and in the British Museum in London. While in London, Riazanov read extensively from the files of the New York Tribune and other newspapers, collecting material written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels for the periodical press. This journalism of Marx and Engels which Riazanov so painstakingly gathered was eventually published in book form in 1917, a publication which cemented Riazanov's reputation as one of the world's leading experts in the literary output of these two leading lights of modern socialism. During Riazanov's second period of exile he became a close political associate of Leon Trotsky, contributing regularly to the latter's Vienna newspaper, Pravda. Riazanov actively supported Trotsky's Interdistrict Committee (the Mezhraionka), a group which shared the internationalist views of the Bolsheviks on the question of the war but which disagreed with them on organizational matters, seeking unity with revolutionary elements in the Menshevik camp. Riazanov was also a participant in the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference of the Second International. Riazanov rejected both the social-patriotic support of World War I advanced by many Western European socialists as well as the revolutionary defeatism advanced by the Bolsheviks. During the war, Riazanov lived in Paris, where he was a frequent contributor to the Russian-language socialist newspapers Golos (The Voice) and Nashe Slovo (Our Word). After the 1917 revolution Riazanov returned to Russia following the February Revolution in 1917. There he was active in the growing trade union movement, helping to form the Russian Railway Union. Together with the rest of the Mezhraiontsy, Riazanov joined the Bolshevik Party headed by V.I. Lenin in August 1917. Riazanov was opposed to the October Revolution, however, and was instead involved