The brothers subsequently joined the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), in order to fight against the Turks and Albanian kachaks.

Dolgač stayed with the IMRO until 1904, disappointed with the Bulgarian attacks within the organization against Serb villages around Prilep.

Together with Gligor Sokolović he joined the Serbian Chetnik Organization and became a commander (vojvoda) of a band active in Prilep.

In the work of Grigorije Božović, "Striko Dolgač" (Uncle Dolgač) was displayed as being a type of old Christian hajduk, who refused to believe that a Serb Muslim in his band could be a Serb and not a Turk; he became the embodiment of the Balkan understanding of religion as a divider of nations.

Because of an attack on a Turkish wedding in 1913, he was arrested by the Serbian authorities but was eventually freed in order to fight in the Second Balkan War.