Aggressors may establish direct control over the fiscal system in seized territories, redirecting levies collected from the local population straight into their own treasury. Introducing new taxes, shifting the financial burden of imperial wars onto the shoulders of an Indigenous people, and artificially lowering the social status of local residents in order to subject them to maximum economic taxation allow the colonizer to systematically siphon off resources and exhaust the region's economy.
The occupation administration imposed tribute on the highland Nokhchi societies: an extract from the book of the Terek town's Prikaz office records that the administration sent people «to the Michkizes for the sovereign's yasak»[1].
The occupation administration used the physical loss of documents to artificially lower the social status of local residents for the purpose of taxing them economically: an extract of the Posolsky Prikaz concerning a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich states that after «the sovereign's charter of grant was lost», the heirs of the deceased Nokhchi delegate were stripped of their privileges and «made equal in everything with the Okochans, with the plowing people, and carts and wagons are exacted from them», whereas previously «no taxes whatsoever had been taken» from them[1].
The occupation administration imposed an annual tribute in kind on the Nokhchi mountain communities (the Shibutians): a report from the Terek voivodes Ivan Andreyevich Dashkov and Bogdan Gerasimovich Priklonsky to the Posolsky Prikaz states that when subjecthood was formalized in 1627, the mountaineers were required «to give yasak at one kul (sack) of honey per year»[1].
Direct extraction of the autonomy's economic resources: "The collection of taxes from the Ukrainian population (except for the Cossack estate) was entrusted to the tsarist administration. The collected funds were channeled into the tsar's treasury"[2].
Having gained political power over the Left Bank, Moscow immediately attempted to seize the right to collect taxes in order to extract resources directly: "the attempts of Russian voivodes... to introduce their own taxation system in Ukraine led only to revolts (for example... the attempted census of 1666...)"[3].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy imposed discriminatory levies on Nokhchi societies for the internal movement of goods: the historian Sh. B. Akhmadov emphasizes that «the Okochans (Akkin Chechens) living in the town of Terki were obliged without exception to pay duty on the various goods and wares they took out for sale to their compatriots in Chechnya and Ingushetia»[4].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire levied discriminatory duties on the movement of goods of the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov quotes the customs books, stating that in 1726 "on the travel document of the Terek resident, the Okochanin Kurman Bogomatov... duties of 24 altyns in money were collected by decree"[6].
Lowering the social status of the indigenous population for the purpose of economic extraction: "The Cossacks and their helpers were turned into military settlers and taxed with the poll tax," and those with the right to distill horilka "now had to pay… 95 kopecks per soul to the treasury"[7].
In September 1832, corps commander Rosen imposed on the villages of Chechnya and Ichkeria an annual tribute from each household as a condition of being spared. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: "from the village of Metso-erzo-yurt, amanats (hostages) were taken along with a tribute of one ruble per hearth"; the villages of Eshta-kale and Eyni-kale undertook "to pay henceforth a tribute of 1 ruble per hearth"[8]. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev: the village of Gurdali "handed over an amanat and undertook to pay tribute"[9]. The tribute was exacted from a people whose villages and crops were in those very days being exterminated by the troops.
On 27 August 1836, Colonel Pullo imposed tribute on the aul of Zandak on the Yaman-su river, devastated by his detachment on 23 August 1836 (campaign C1156): payment of tribute became a condition for accepting the crushed village's "submission". In a report to General Petrov dated 27 August 1836, Pullo recorded the obligation accepted by the elders at the Groznaya fortress: "to pay, on a par with the Aukhovites and other submissive tribes, the established tribute"[10]. The tribute was not the village's counter-offer but the empire's standing norm for taxing the societies it deemed "submissive"; refusal would have meant the return of the "avenging arms of the Russians" - the village had just survived devastation, the captivity of its inhabitants, and the seizure of its livestock[10].
The amanat-and-tribute system of Pullo, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line (a chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), imposed a tribute on the seized auls of Chechnya. Pullo in a memorandum of 1840: "As the highland communities were subjugated, each handed over amanats, paid a tribute of one silver ruble per saklia, handed over all Russian captives held by it" (saklia - a highlander's house: the tribute was levied on every house; amanats - hostages whom the empire took away from the auls to control them)[10]. The 1840 register of the highland peoples, published in the documentary collection «Движение горцев северо-восточного Кавказа в 20-50 гг. XIX века» together with Pullo's memorandum, calls the tribute a punishment outright: the Qachqalyq people, the Michik Chechens and the Aukhovites (Chechen communities of eastern Chechnya) "pay a tribute imposed on them as punishment for repeated revolts", and the Chechens living beyond the Sunzha river, "as punishment for revolt, have been burdened with a tribute"[10]. The money was squeezed out regularly: general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line and Pullo's superior, in a report to the empire's Minister of War Chernyshev of 23 March 1840, named the regular payment of tributes a sign of the "tranquility" that had set in - the report lists the "regular payment of tributes and duties" weeks before the uprising[11]. Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi, the chronicler of Shamil (Shamil - imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest), named this exaction - one ruble from every house and one gun from every ten houses - as the reason the Chechens called upon Shamil.
The winter expeditions of general Pullo, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), collected money from the Chechen auls under the name of tribute. The imperial historian Yurov tallied the December 1839 march: "In all, during this bloodless military promenade, 3779 rubles and 455 rifles were collected, and 97 abreks, 7 captives and two fugitives were handed over" (abrek - the empire's label for an outlawed highlander)[12], and the January 1840 march along the Michik river: the auls "obediently presented 2463 rubles, 545 rifles, cattle for the detachment's provisioning, and handed over 30 abreks"[12]. After the suppression of the uprising the levy was fixed as a fine: point 10 of the "Conditions prescribed to submitting highlanders", issued by general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line, on 15 June 1840, prescribed "As punishment for participation in Shamil's uprising, to pay a fine of two rams from every saklia" (saklia - a highlander's house; Shamil - the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest)[10].
Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes: from the 1860s the administrative apparatus in Chechnya and Ingushetia "was maintained chiefly on funds collected from the people"[13]. The empire did not trust the highlanders with military service - and taxed them in money instead: by the laws of 2 and 9 June 1887 a monetary levy in place of military service was introduced for the Muslims of the Terek oblast, its size "did not exceed 22 kopecks per 'dym'"[13] ("dym" - a separate household, homestead)[13]; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov confirm: "in 1887 the Russian government introduced a special monetary levy for them"[14]. From then on the levies only grew: "From 1887 to 1905 the sum of taxes rose from 228.1 to 678.8 thousand rubles, that is, it nearly tripled over these years", while the podymnaya tax - the tax on each household - "in the Terek oblast reached in the 1890s up to 70 kopecks per desiatina, while at that time in the interior provinces of the country it was no more than 17 kopecks, or four times less"[13]. On top of the levy, village communities bore obligations in kind: maintaining the elder and the village board, the roads, ditches and watch posts[14].
From the formation of the Chechen regiment in 1914 the Russian Empire laid its upkeep on the Chechen communities themselves: the full equipment of each horseman cost 300 rubles, and it was paid not by the treasury but by the village communities that had recommended the man into the regiment. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "the upkeep of the national regiments lay as a heavy burden on the peasant-highlanders"[14]. State funds did not suffice for the rest either: the new horses assembled to replenish the division in the autumn of 1916 were, as the same historians write, "very poor", and the division's command sought the allocation of funds to buy horses[14].
The USSR ruined the Chechen peasants with taxes and forced deliveries of grain and meat. Officials taxed those entered as "kulaks" at a higher rate by a special list ("individual taxation"), and Larin, chairman of the North Caucasus krai control commission, held in February 1930 that too few households made the lists: in the Vedeno okrug, "of 8,513 households only 80 households were taxed on the individual basis"; in Tsentoroy "of 464 households, 406 are exempted from the unified agricultural tax", in Belgatoy 295 of 335, in Dargo 439 of 501. The tax struck at random, to the point of absurdity - of the village of Day Larin said: "a kulak in Day was assessed at 4 kopecks, while a Komsomol member there was assessed at 4 rubles 39 kopecks"[15]. The colonizer laid "grain assignments" - delivery quotas of grain - on the mountain auls, though there was hardly any grain there. Larin reported: the oblast committee of the party gave the Nozhay-Yurt okrug an assignment of 15,000 poods - about 240 tonnes of grain; further in Larin: "and on the spot they raise it to 25,000, and on the single aul of Benoy, where there are hardly 5 thousand poods to be had at all, fall 5 thousand poods"; for non-delivery the colonizers inventoried property for confiscation and imposed fines - in Shali, Larin reported, "a decision was passed to fine 60 households"[15]. In 1932, write historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov, on top of the confiscated livestock "a meat procurement plan was also handed down, which meant, in essence, the confiscation of a significant part of the livestock"[14]. The colonizer taxed the clergy as well: historian K. G. Dendiev places the imposition of income tax on the mullahs as the first step of their displacement from the life of Chechnya[16].