Why was Lenin treated lightly when he was imprisoned?

Question by The Ninja: Why was Vladimir Lenin treated lightly when he was imprisoned?
He often read books to spend most of his time because the guards allowed books to be sent in to him whenever he wanted. And also, when he was sent to exile, he received a state allowance and lived a comfortable life. Well, why is that? I thought people who oppose the Tsarist government, including those exiles, were to be shown no mercy?

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Answer by Spellbound
It was standard practise to allow prisoners, especially from the intelligentsia and minor aristocracy (Lenin was a minor aristocrat), certain privileges and freedoms, also prison officials could be bribed into allowing contraband items into the prisoner’s cell (Trotsky bribed some policemen when he escaped from Siberian Exile). These increased when the prisoner was sent to internal exile. There (mostly in Siberia) prisoners were allowed to live freely, they just had to report to the local police office periodically.
If you read Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky you see a similar situation when Raskolnikov is imprisoned and exiled.

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