Djelal ed-Din Korkmasov

Djelal ed-Din Korkmasov
Qorqmas Celaletdin
Къоркъмас Желалетдин
Джелал-эд-Дин Коркмасов
Korkmasov photographed by Fridtjof Nansen, 1925
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
In office
5 December 1921  29 December 1931
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byKarim Mammadbeyov
Chairman of the Dagestan Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)
In office
11 April 1920  26 November 1920
Preceded byPosition re-established
Succeeded byBoris Sheboldayev
Chairman of the Dagestan Regional Executive Committee of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus
In office
5 August 1917  April 1918
CommissarBasiyat Shakhanov
Preceded byIbrahim Gaydarov
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born(1877-10-01)1 October 1877
Kumtorkala, Dagestan Oblast, Caucasus Viceroyalty (now Republic of Dagestan, Russia)
Died27 September 1937(1937-09-27) (aged 59)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Russia)
Cause of deathExecution by firing squad
Political partyAll-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) (from 1919)
Other political
affiliations
Alma mater
Military service
Allegiance
Battles/wars
Central institution membership

Djelal ed-Din Aselder oğlu Korkmasov (1 October [O.S. 19 September] 1877 – 27 September 1937) was a Dagestani revolutionary and Soviet politician who served as Chairman of the Dagestan Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in 1920 and as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 1921 to 1931. Despite originally being a Menshevik or anarchist, he led the Bolsheviks to victory over various anti-communist groups in the Russian Civil War, and he is sometimes described as the founder of Dagestan.

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. In exile, he supported the Young Turks before returning to Russia in May 1917, amidst the Russian Revolution. He led the Dagestan Socialist Group, a non-Bolshevik left-wing party within the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, and led the party to a landslide victory in the August 1917 regional election. He was a political rival to Najmuddin of Gotzo and the Dagestan National Committee, and following the First Battle of Port-Petrovsk he joined the Bolsheviks, quickly becoming their leader in Dagestan. Taken prisoner by forces under the control of the Ottoman Empire and warlord Lazar Bicherakhov in late September 1918, later leaving prison and joining an anti-White Russian insurgency that led to him becoming leader of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

As leader of Dagestan Korkmasov invested heavily in agricultural improvement and development, taking inspiration from Benito Mussolini's drainage of Italian marshes. He was also involved in Turkic affairs, helping to draft the Yañalif Latin-script Turkic alphabet and negotiating and signing the 1921 Treaty of Moscow between Russia and Turkey. He was appointed to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union in 1931 before later being executed during the Great Purge.