Born into a family of Kumyk nobility, Korkmasov was the first Dagestani to study at the University of Paris, and he was a leader of anti-government protests by peasants during the Russian Revolution of 1905.

As leader of Dagestan Korkmasov invested heavily in agricultural improvement and development, taking inspiration from Benito Mussolini's drainage of Italian marshes.

Korkmasov was also the leader of the Temir-Khan-Shura branch of the All-Russian Peasant Union, and advocated for the expropriation of landlords' properties, refusing to pay taxes, militarisation of the peasantry and the establishment of zemstvos in Dagestan.

Researcher M. A. Abdullayev has claimed that the Temir-Khan-Shura branch of the Peasant Union was responsible for establishing the Bolsheviks among the highlander peasantry in the North Caucasus.

He studied at the university's faculty of law, and became a member of the Young Turks movement supporting the Committee of Union and Progress in the Ottoman Empire.

After moving to the Ottoman Empire, he founded a Russian-language pro-Young Turk newspaper, known as Constantinople News (Russian: Стамбульские новости, romanized: Stambulskiye novosti).

Upon his return, he proclaimed that "whether the mullahs want it or not, the revolution will decide the land question and the status of women in its own way", in remarks that incensed the general population.

They soon scored a significant victory after bringing Ali-Hajji of Akusha, the sheikh of a Naqshbandi tariqa who was the de facto ruler of the Dargin, Kaitag-Tabasaran and Temir-Khan-Shura districts.

[11] In the leadup to the 5 August 1917 election to Dagestan's local government, the Regional Executive Committee, Korkmasov heavily emphasised the Socialist Group's proposed land reforms.

[11] Korkmasov earned the derogatory nickname of keşiş (Cyrillic: кешиш), a Kumyk term for an Islamic preacher, from his political opponents in reference to his oratory skills and devotion to socialism.

[11] Though the event had been scheduled upon the conclusion of the First Congress of the Union of Highlanders of the North Caucasus [ru] in May,[14] the socialist victory gave the imams further impetus to undertake drastic action.

[11] Najmuddin was briefly appointed as Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya [ru] by a group of five thousand local supporters from the Dagestani highlands,[14] before being forced to relinquish the title three days later.

[16] Korkmasov, as with all other members of the Socialist Group, strongly condemned the overthrow of the Provisional Government and expressed support for the deposed Russian Constituent Assembly.

[18][16] Korkmasov and the remainder of the Socialist Group continued to primarily involve themselves in fighting the Dagestan National Committee [ru] as the Russian Civil War escalated and began spreading to the North Caucasus.

[20] Korkmasov enlisted the aid of Islamic scholar ʿAlī al-Ghumūqī [ru] in convincing Najmuddin to step down by dismissing his claim to the title of imam as unjustified and illegal.

[21] The First Battle of Port-Petrovsk [ru] began on 23 March 1918 as Najmuddin's forces entered the city at the Regional Executive Committee's urging in an effort to crush the soviet.

[22] In the aftermath of the battle, the Mountainous Republic quickly descended into anarchy, as militias loyal to Uzun-Hajji looted and destroyed [ru] the city of Khasavyurt.

Ṭahaq̇adiqala would later allege that none of the Socialist Group's members were active of this time besides himself, with Korkmasov travelling in the Terek Oblast[6] due to involvement in a sheep theft case.

They were engaged by the British Army under Lionel Dunsterville, as the United Kingdom was fearful of the possibility of the Ottomans acquiring the oil of Baku and the raw cotton of Central Asia across the Caspian Sea.

[24] After the victory of the Ottomans' Islamic Army of the Caucasus at the Battle of Baku, they launched an intervention against the Bolsheviks with the intention of restoring order in the Mountainous Republic.

[27] Facing opponents to the west and south, Korkmasov came under continuous demands from Bicherakhov to join him in defecting from the Bolsheviks to fight the Ottomans and the German Empire.

Bicherakhov's soldiers and the Red Army units loyal to Korkmasov reached an agreement on 2 September 1918, as a result of which the former would gain Port-Petrovsk in exchange for non-interference in the latter's affairs.

As September came to an end, mass repression of Bolsheviks in Dagestan [ru] ensued; Dahadayev was summarily executed by soldiers under Bicherakhov's command, while Korkmasov was placed under arrest.

As the government of the Mountainous Republic collapsed, Prime Minister Pshemakho Kotsev fled to the Dargin District to negotiate an alliance between Ali-Hajji and Uzun-Hajji against the Russian invasion.

[32] The RCP(b) endorsed the uprising[32] and made several attempts to co-opt the Security Council of the Northern Caucasus and Dagestan, the insurgents' provisional government.

15,000 people attended the October Revolution Canal's opening ceremony on 2 August 1923, including representatives from the other North Caucasian republics and metropolitan Russia.

He was also a delegate at the 12th Congress of the RCP(B) in April 1923, during which he was included in a committee for discussing the matters of ethnic non-Russians within the newly established Soviet Union.

[42] Fourteen years later, Samurskii would condemn the former members of the Socialist Group, saying that their activities "not only strengthened the rule of the bourgeoisie and their supporters, the clergy, but disorganised the working masses of Dagestan, amongst whom they helped to sow petty bourgeois illusions" in 1934.

[46] Some academics, such as Kharisova, have credited Korkmasov with bringing a Dagestani national consciousness to the general population during the Russian Revolution,[2] and he has been occasionally been described as the founder of Dagestan.

[6][47] Alex Marshall, a historian at the University of Glasgow, has placed Korkmasov and the Socialist Group's other members as among those responsible for establishing the Soviet Union as a unique and less Russian-centred entity compared to the Russian Empire that preceded it.