in the campaign “"Neither plow nor sow": the pogrom of Chechnya, organized famine, the buying-up of elites and the institutions of subjugation (1852-1857)”
The empire demonstratively rewarded defectors from the leadership of the resistance with ranks, money and land. Bata Shamurzayev, a naib of Shamil (deputy of the Imam, leader of the highlanders' resistance of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest), went over to the empire in the autumn of 1851 and received rewards. Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), in a letter to Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus, of 24 February 1852, requested - "what a great reward Bata deserves, and I ask you to pardon him, then for Avtur to return him his rank and a pension of 400 rubles a year; I also ask you for an officer's rank for his son... who has often served us as a guide"[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "Bata Shamurzayev took an active part in the war against the Imam, was promoted to captain and awarded 500 desiatinas of land... as an example for other potential defectors"[2]. Through Bata, Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus, conveyed ultimatums to the Chechens - in a letter to Baryatinsky of 21 March 1852: "I asked Bata to insistently repeat to the inhabitants of the northern part of Greater Chechnya that we will not allow them to sow or to mow, unless they declare submission"[1]. Imperial historian Volkonsky admitted the system of bribery plainly: the empire acted "through their own co-religionists and persons like Bati Shamurzov," and "not with words alone, but with something more enticing and substantial - especially in the times of Vorontsov and Baryatinsky"[3].