The Centennial of the Armenian Genocide is an opportunity to not only examine the tragic events of 1915, but also shed light on the Hamidian period as a socio-political harbinger that prepared the ground for what took place during the Great War. In this respect, the Armenian Revolutionary Movement that emerged in the 1890’s is an important phenomenon the scrutiny of which enables us to understand the dynamics through which the Hamidian Regime categorized different people and hence identified the “undesired” or “perfidious” elements of the Empire. As the first serious party attempting to alter the existing social order, this paper will particularly focus on the Hunchakian Revolutionary Party, and the way in which it organized its underground cells throughout the years 1891-1895, exploring thus the trade networks it created, as well as the propaganda medium it used inside Ottoman territories. The terminology used to describe the Hunchakian Party in official Ottoman documents provides us with insights to comprehend the way in which the Hamidian Regime perceived such activities and the counter-measures it adopted to thwart them. Positing the history of the Hunchakian Party within the local socio-economic landscape of 19th century Anatolia and the larger Ottoman Empire will help us understand some of the motives of the massacres of 1894-1896 as well as the nuances that are overlooked when adopting some monolithic notions as “Armenians” vs. “Turks” or “Kurds”. Therefore, analyzing the local context in which the Party operated helps us comprehend the link between “National Ideology” and “Revolutionary Activism” and suggest some new analytic tools when approaching the history of the Armenian Revolutionary Movement in a pre-Genocide landscape.