On January 19, 1871 Dame Gruev was born in the village of Smilevo. He is one of the instigators and founders of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1893, in Thessaloniki, its first secretary and member of the Central Committee, voivode propagator and organizer of the first secret revolutionary groups, town and village committees of the organization, president of the Smile Congress (1903) and the Rila Congress (1905), teacher.
Together with a number of other Macedonian actors and ideologues of the Macedonian revolutionary work, he advocated the inclusion of the entire population of Macedonia in the ranks of the Organization, regardless of religion and nationality. He actively participated in the work of the Resensko council (1894) and the VMRO Congress in Thessaloniki in 1896. After the outbreak of the Pop-Stavreva Affair in Bitola (1900) he was imprisoned and sent to prison in Podrum Kale, in Asia Minor. After the liberation, he actively participated in the preparations of the Ilinden Uprising as a member of the Main Uprising Headquarters of the Bitola Revolutionary District, and after the Uprising he stayed in Macedonia in order to reorganize the Organization. After the outbreak of the Pop-Stavrev Affair in Bitola (1900) he was imprisoned and sent to prison in Podrum Kale, in Asia Minor. After the liberation, he actively participated in the preparations of the Ilinden Uprising as a member of the Main Uprising Headquarters of the Bitola Revolutionary District, and after the Uprising he stayed in Macedonia in order to reorganize the Organization. His stance after the Uprising was to maintain the centralized form of the revolutionary activity, but he openly cooperated with the reformist wing that demanded decentralization and democratization of the work, while advocating the unity of all ideologically opposed parties in the reorganization of the MRO. His activity as the president of the Rila Congress in October 1905, when the organization was renamed the Internal Macedonian-Odrin Revolutionary Organization (VMORO), is notable. On December 23, 1906 he died during an Ottoman ambush near the peak of Petelec, village. Rusinovo, Berovsko.
