At the age of twenty, he formed a workers' soviet in Echmiadzin. In 1915 Mikoyan formally joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (later known as the Bolshevik Party) and became a leader of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus. His interactions with Soviet revolutionaries led him to Baku, where he became the co-editor for the Armenian-language newspaper "Sotsyal-Demokrat" and later for the Russian-language paper "Izvestia Bakinskogo Soveta". During this time, he is said to have robbed a bank in Tiflis with TNT and had his nose broken in street fighting.