He began his studies at Verniy (present-day Almaty), and in 1904 he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University.[3][4] At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London (1903), during the ideological split between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, the two main party leaders, over party tactics (Martov argued for a large party of activists, whilst Lenin wanted a small group of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe group of sympathisers), Frunze sided with Lenin's majority, the so-called Bolsheviks ("majoritarians"), opposed to Martov's minority, the Mensheviks (or "minoritarians").