He moved to Moscow and joined Narodnaya Volya, through which he met Stepan Zorian and Simon Zavarian, and which informed his conversion to revolutionary socialism and Bakuninism.

[4] That same year, an ukaz by the Russian imperial government decreed the closing of all parochial schools in Armenia, in a move that was protested by Mikaelian, who printed and distributed anti-Tsarist pamphlets.

[10] That year, he attempted to establish a revolutionary journal together with Stepan Zorian, but the operative costs were prohibitively high, despite the support of the Free Russian Press.

Mikaelian and Zavarian resolved to employ terminology that recognised the goals of the labor movement, while also eschewing specific references to "socialism", which was briefly successful in convincing both parties.

[21] Before long Mikaelian and Zavarian had returned to Tbilisi, where they established a political bureau to act as the revolutionary movement's executive body within the party's new decentralized structure.

From the bureau, they sent field workers to carry out agitation work in Western Armenia, coordinated the decentralized executive bodies in various regions, distributed funds and oversaw the implementations of proposals from the party's congresses.

[22] At the ARF's first congress in 1892, the party agreed to its political programme, written with the collaboration of Mikaelian and Zavarian, which called for: the liberation of Ottoman Armenia through an insurrection and the establishment of a social democracy in its place; the carrying out of propaganda, education and armed action, including sabotage and assassinations, against the Ottoman Empire; and the decentralization of the party's structure, in order to create a "dynamic network" of autonomous organizations.

[20] From this position, he gathered together several Armenian journalists and writers to collaborate on Droshak, including Avetis Aharonian, Avetik Isahakyan, Khachatur Malumian and Sarkis Minassian.

He also secured written work from foreign sympathizers such as the Italians Amilcare Cipriani and Ricciotti Garibaldi, and the French Francis de Pressensé, Urbain Gohier and Pierre Quillard.

[27] Mikaelian also oversaw the establishment of the French publication Pro Armenia,[28] edited by Quillard, which solicited contributions from across Western Europe in support of Armenian national liberation.

[27] Financed by Mikaelian's Geneva bureau, Pro Armenia published two issues per month until October 1908 and was widely distributed to prominent figures throughout Europe.

[21] Mikaelian and the ARF gradually radicalized in response to Abdul Hamid II and his centralizing[32] and colonial policies, exemplified by the creation of the Hamidiye Corps, tasked with controlling Eastern Anatolia and involved in numerous massacres targeting Armenians.

[37] In order to fund such an action, Mikaelian oversaw command of the Potorig operation, which extorted a "revolutionary tax" from Armenian capitalists,[38] collecting 432,500 Francs in total.

[51] Mikaelian initially suggested that they attack the Sultan during a bayram, when he was scheduled to visit the Dolmabahçe Palace, in the old Narodnik method of throwing bombs at his passing carriage.

[58] In it, he stated:[58] His home was the revolutionary hub from which the calls to action originated, where people came to seek advice from this freely chosen leader, whose authority stemmed not from any hierarchical appointment but from the trust of all: a house open to all comrades passing through, who would sit at the communal table.

[...] His comrades and the people of Sofia gave him glorious funerals there, and in all the towns of the Caucasus, Armenians held memorial ceremonies in his honor such as had never been seen for any head of state or any leader of men; he who had never sought the acclaim of the crowds entered into the irrevocable night amidst the lamentation of an entire people; and I also think, while weeping, of the autumn day when I surrendered, unable to regain my composure, to the mastery and friendship of the fraternal hero.After Mikaelian's death, Markarian took command of the operation and carried out the assassination attempt on 21 July 1905.

[62] When the conspirator Edward Joris was arrested,[63] the Ottoman authorities discovered the role of the ARF in the assassination attempt, forcing the revolutionaries to also abort Mikaelian's planned action in Smyrna.

[66] The following year, the ARF formed a pact with the Committee of Union and Progress and participated in the Young Turk Revolution, despite Mikaelian's widely known opposition to an alliance with the Turkish nationalists.

[68] Following the independence of the South Caucasus, on International Workers' Day in 1918, the ARF-led government of the Armenian Republic held a mass demonstration in which they carried pictures of ARF founders Mikaelian, Zavarian and Zorian, alongside those of Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Lenin and Stepan Shaumian.