Shaumian was arrested by the Tsarist government for taking part in student political activities on campus and exiled back to Transcaucasia. Shaumian made his way to German soil, where he met with such exiles from the Russian Empire as Lenin, Julius Martov and Georgi Plekhanov. Upon returning to Transcaucasia, he became a teacher, and the leader of local Social Democrats in Tiflis, as well as a prolific writer of Marxist literature. At the 1903 Congress, he sided with the Bolsheviks. By 1907 he had moved to Baku to head up the significant Bolshevik movement in the city. In 1914, he led the general strike in the city. The strike was crushed by Imperial Army and Shaumian was arrested and sent to prison. He escaped just as the February Revolution of 1917 was beginning.