Creation of Agents of Influence

The empire kept secret agents inside the administration of the Imamate of Shamil (the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest). Historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes from imperial military materials: "Akhverdy-Magoma replaced the chief of the guard posts between the Argun and the Sunzha, Mulla-Gazi, who had been a secret agent of the tsarist government" (Akhverdy-Magoma - the deputy of the imam in Lesser Chechnya; the Argun and the Sunzha - rivers in Chechnya)^[1]. The second agent was an elder of the trans-Argun communities: general Zavadovsky, temporarily commanding the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), in a report to general Neidhardt, head of the empire's troops in the Caucasus, of 24 February 1845, forwarded a dispatch from the left flank about information received "through a messenger who came to him from the trans-Argun elder, a man of weight among the people who is in secret communication with lt.-gen. Gaksfort": the agent reported that Shamil was convening a council of naibs (the imam's deputies) in Dargo, the imam's residence^[1]. Defectors the empire formalised into agents and guides on the terms of a bargain. General Labyntsev, commander of the Sunzha Line, in a report to Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus, in summer 1846 described the terms of the Chechen Topi: "Having promised, should this be carried into effect, not only to be a scout in the mountains and a guide for our troops, but, acting in our favour by his example and persuasion, to incline others to the offering of submission... I permitted the families of Topi... to settle among the resettlers located by the fortification"^[2]. The agent was paid not in money but with his family's right to live by the fortification - under the control of the same empire.