Although actively involved in many European countries' socialist movements, prior to 1917 Rakovsky's focus remained on the Balkans and especially on his native country and Romania; his activities in support of the international socialist movement led to his expulsion, at different times, from Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, France and Russia. In 1897 he published "Russiya na Istok" ("Russia in the East"), a book sharply critical of the Russian Empire's foreign policy, which, according to Rakovsky, followed one of Georgy Plekhanov's guidelines ("Tsarist Russia must be isolated in its foreign relations"). On several occasions, he publicly criticized Russia's policies towards Romania and in Bessarabia (describing Russia's rule over the latter as "absolutist conquest", "mischievous action", and "abduction"). According to Rakovsky, "Russophile papers" in Bulgaria had begun to target him as a consequence. After completing his education as a physician at the University of Montpellier (with the thesis "L'Éthiologie du crime et de la dégénérescence" – "The Cause of Crime and Degeneration", submitted in 1897), Rakovsky, who had married the Russian student E. P. Ryabova, was summoned to Romania in order to be drafted in the Romanian Army, and served as a medic in the 9th Cavalry Regiment stationed in Constanţa, Dobruja (1899–1900). He rose to the rank of lieutenant. Rakovsky subsequently rejoined his wife in Saint Petersburg, where he hoped to settle down and engage in revolutionary activities (he was probably expelled after an initial attempt to enter the country, but was allowed to return). An adversary of Peter Berngardovich Struve after the latter moved towards market liberalism, he became acquainted with, among others, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, while authoring articles for "Nashe Slovo" and helping distribute "Iskra". His close relationship with Plekhanov led Rakovsky to a position between the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, one he kept from 1903 to 1917; the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was initially hostile to Rakovsky, and at one point wrote to Karl Radek that "we [the Bolsheviks] do not have the same road as his kind of people". Initially, Rakovsky was expelled from Russia and had to move back to Paris. Returning to the Russian capital in 1900, he remained there until 1902, when his wife's death and the crackdown on socialist groups ordered by Emperor Nicholas II forced him to return to France.