ABSTRACT
A number of Georgians had decided to initiate a movement against Tsarism, grouping themselves round the journal Kvali (The Furrow). The moderates favoured a cultural propaganda by means of small clubs, like that which Koba had managed at the seminary. Koba, without hesitation, joined the partisans of direct action. He had not left his club merely to manage another similar organization. His temperament, his vocation, his faith in his special mission, his philosophy, on which Tchaadaieff had left his imprint, all steered him in the direction of radical action, and urged him to join the partisans of the latter. The police captain Zavarzine gave orders that Joseph Djugachvili was to be found and interrogated as to his part in fomenting the strike in the railway workshops, in co-operation with a certain Michel Kalinin, a locksmith by trade. The year 1900 marked a fresh stage in his apprenticeship as a professional revolutionist.
