Gradually Stalin became frustrated under the harsh regime. Years later, Stalin told an interviewer "In protest against the outrageous .methods prevalent in the seminary, I was ready to become, and actually did become, a revolutionary." .
In 1898 Stalin took his first step towards a revolutionary lifestyle when he joined a Marxist group in Tiflis. The group that Stalin had joined merely met to discuss Marx's ideas. During these meetings Stalin would go into a rage if anyone disagreed with anything he said. He soon began a double life, slipping out of the seminary at night to talk to workmen about Marxism. Stalin was more interested in these passionate interactions than in his studies. When he didn't show up for any of his exams, he was expelled. A friend of Stalin's remarked, "He took with him a ferocious and enduring hatred against the college administration, against the bourgeoisie, against everything in the country that embodied tsarism. He had an overwhelming hatred for authority." .
After Stalin was expelled at age 19, he earned just enough money to survive by tutoring students. At the end of the year he got a job at the Tiflis Observatory. After work he went to the railroad yards and talked with the workers about Marxism and was very successful at spreading his political ideas. The next year, Stalin joined the Russian Social Democratic Party after meeting one of its members. The Party was founded in 1898. The members were socialists dedicated to putting Marxist ideas into practice. Vladimir Lenin was one of the leaders of the party. At first Stalin had a minor role in the party, making some articles to put into an illegal Marxist magazine: Brdzola (The Struggle). .
Stalin's first major revolutionary act was when he organised a May Day celebration where the Tsar's police began a crackdown on the organisers. Stalin escaped the police roundup and was sent to Bantum by the party for safety. Stalin was now a wanted revolutionist known as Koba.
