Out of school, Jughashvili briefly worked as a part-time clerk in a meteorological office, but after a state crackdown on revolutionaries, he went underground and became a full-time revolutionary, living off donations.
When Lenin formed the Bolsheviks in 1903, Jughashvili eagerly joined him. Jughashvili proved to be a very effective organizer of men as well as a capable intellectual. Among other activities, he wrote and distributed propaganda, organized strikes, and raised funds through bank robberies, kidnappings, extortion, and assassinations. Jughashvili was arrested and exiled to Siberia numerous times, but often escaped. His skill, charm, and street-smarts won him the respect of Lenin, and he rose rapidly through the ranks of the Bolsheviks.
Jughashvili married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906, who bore him a son. She died the following year of typhus. In 1911, he met his future second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, during one of his many exiles in Siberia.
Sometime between 1910 and 1912, he began using the alias "Stalin" in his writings.[citation needed]