The Swiss-Russian economist Nikolaj Sieber was one of the first who wrote
about Marx in Russia. In this article we reconstruct the development of his
thought by mobilising evidence about the intellectual and political context he
lived in. We document his involvement within the Ukrainian national movement
of the 1870s and argue that this closeness was consistent with his take on the
capitalist evolution of the Russian Empire. We discuss his importance in the
Russian debates on the future of the peasant commune and of Russia and
conclude that his interpretation of Marx and capitalism was crucial for the
development of the Russian social-democratic party.