On entering the third grade of the Russian Gymnasium in 1879, Zhitlowsky came into contact with revolutionary circles, and, for the time being was estranged from Yiddish and other matters of Jewish interest. He was sobered, however, by the pogroms of the early 1880s, and his naive cosmopolitanism was quickly dissipated. He left the gymnasium, went to Tula in 1881 and there was engaged in spreading Socialist Revolutionary propaganda. Shocked by the view of some members of that party, that pogroms were a step toward the liberation of the Russian people, he left the party. When he returned to Vitebsk he was caught in the current of the then rising Palestine movement. He was inspired by the vision of the Jewish colonies and a Jewish peasantry, but the religious character of that Palestinism did not appeal to him. He sought to publish a magazine to propagandize "his idea"—a synthesis of Jewish nationalism and socialism. At first his father was willing to finance this enterprise, but was talked out of it by an ardent Palestinian friend.