After finishing the Lisitsian School he entered the Bolshevik party in 1917. During the years of the Genocide he went to the front as a volunteer. On February 25, 1918 he was awarded "Georgean Cross" for participation in the battle for Erzrum. In 1921 he took up party work in Yerevan. He continued his state-party activity in Moscow, until he was arrested by his own party regime in 1937. Several months later Areg’s wife Amalia Pilliposian was also imprisoned. She returned from exile in 1946. Their six-year-old daughter Sourma was sent to the Danilovian monastery orphanage (Russia) and stayed there until her aunt Ashkhen took her home to Tiflis. Areg was shot in 1938 in Boutovo (near Moscow) in an execution place called "Komunarka" which was formerly the summer residence of people's committee Yagoda. In the beginning of the 21st century an orthodox monastery was founded on that very place with St Martyrs’ church. Areg was rehabilitated in 1955. In 1923, Areg had "stolen" his father’s heart from the morgue of the Ostroumov hospital and transferred it to Tiflis. Now the heart is buried in the yard of Toumanian’s paternal house in Dsegh.