The LSDP was very nearly obliterated at birth by the Tsarist secret police, which over the course of 1897 to 1899 managed to arrest a number of the party's leading activists. Approximately 280 socialist and trade union organizers were apprehended during this period, with subsequent trials leading to the Siberian exile of more than 40 people, including Domaševičius and Dzerzhinsky. Other top leaders, including Moravskis, were forced to flee the country to avoid being swept up in the Okhrana's dragnet. With the party leadership jailed or chased from the country, the LSDP very nearly ceased to exist as the 19th Century drew to a close.