 He attracted a group of supporters through his classes in socialist theory, and co-organised a secret workers' mass meeting for May Day 1900, at which he successfully encouraged many of the men to take strike action.By this point, the empire's secret police — the Okhrana — were aware of Stalin's activities within Tiflis' revolutionary milieu.They attempted to arrest him in March 1901, but he escaped and went into hiding, living off the donations of friends and sympathisers.