Aggressors may forcibly conscript the local population into heavy, dangerous, or unpaid labor in the interests of the metropole. This technique serves the direct extraction of benefits through the use of free or extremely cheap labor for the implementation of the colonizer's state megaprojects and military or industrial needs. At the same time, this practice is used for the neutralization of defenses: the removal of the able-bodied population from the region's economy and labor under conditions associated with high mortality physically exhaust the society and reduce its demographic potential.
The appointed administration forced the Indigenous population into unpaid labor: historian E. N. Kusheva points out that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky compelled the service Okochans of the Terek town subordinate to him «to make all manner of wares for him, to plow the fields and to mow the hay»[1]. The metropole itself went years without paying for the military service of the Indigenous population: a report from the Terek voivode Pyotr Petrovich Golovin to the Astrakhan voivode Ivan Nikitich Odoyevsky records that they «serve the sovereign tsar... in all manner of the sovereign's Terek... services... yet have not been granted the sovereign's monetary and grain salary for the tenth year now»[2].
The occupation administration deliberately exhausted the Indigenous population materially, forcing them to perform compulsory service at their own expense: in a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Okotsky murza Kokhostrov Biytemirov and the serving Okochans of Tersky Town reported that, because their allowance went unpaid, they «were left without grain, have utterly perished from hunger and every hardship, have fallen, sovereign, into great debt, and are dying a death of starvation together with our wives and little children»[3].
The mass conscription of the population for the construction of military installations in Moscow's interests. The tsar officially thanked the hetman and the starshyna for their "diligent zeal (and considerable labors borne) in the making of the Pechersk fortification" and promised for this "service and labors in the making of the said fortification" his "most exalted favor"[4].
The mass mobilization of Cossack regiments for penal construction labor: the digging of the Ladoga Canal "was carried out chiefly by the hands of Ukrainian Cossacks," and there "tens of thousands of people perished from back-breaking labor, hunger and the harsh climate"[6]. In 1721 a "10,000-strong Cossack corps" headed by P. Polubotok was dispatched to the canal[7]; the works continued through 1721–23[8].
The transfer of Cossacks to the status of rightless military settlers (the Arakcheev system), which provoked the uprising of 1817: "The trigger was the order abolishing the Buh Cossack Host and turning the Cossacks into military settlers… The reprisal against the rebellious Cossacks was extraordinarily brutal: many were cut down with sabers, drowned in the Southern Buh, flogged to death"[9]. There were two acts, on opposite sides of the uprising: the nominal decree of April 17, 1817 transferred the Buh Host's district "into direct military administration" (PSZRI, vol. XXXIV, no. 26,802) - this was the trigger; the decree of October 8, 1817 (no. 27,081), issued after the suppression, formalized the liquidation: "the name of the Buh Cossack Host is abolished"[10].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire forced Chechen villages to make deliveries and perform labor for the construction of the fortress. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes": "the villages from which we held amanats were ordered to deliver timber for the construction"; the nearest villages "dared not show disobedience"[11].
The Russian Empire forcibly compelled the Nokhchi to work for the conqueror — to cut clearings through their own forests. The imperial historian Potto writes that Grekov, commander of the left flank, "gathered the elders of the surrounding villages and ordered them to send out workers with axes for the felling at once," and under threat of reprisal "compelled the Chechens to obey," after which the conscripted inhabitants cut a clearing through their own forest[12].
The Russian Empire compelled the Nokhchi themselves to cut military clearings through their own forests. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that in imposing the line, the conquerors "compelled the subordinated Highlanders to heavy labor building roads and bridges," while those who evaded it were "fined mercilessly, with their livestock and property confiscated"[13]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that the clearings from Amir-Adzhi-Yurt to Oisungur, Isti-Su, and Gerzel-Aul "through the narrow forested strip… were worked by the natives themselves, under the supervision of the Aksai princes"[12].
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), included forced labor: the troops forced the inhabitants of the seized auls of Chechnya to fell their own forest by allotment. The imperial historian Yurov recorded of the December 1839 expedition that under the pressure of the detachment the inhabitants of the auls "felled forest by allotment at Gekhi, at the Valerik tract and between the villages of Shali and Malaya Ataga" (Gekhi, Valerik, Shali, Malaya Ataga - Chechen villages and tracts; "by allotment" - by a forced apportionment imposed by the troops alongside the tribute and the surrender of weapons)[14]. The forest the inhabitants were made to fell was the environment of life and the shelter of the Chechen communities.
The submission taken by Feze's troops in February 1837 immediately turned into labor duty. Rozen's report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 4 March 1837 records: on 21 February "the inhabitants of six neighboring auls declared their submission and sent out workers to cut, together with the Kumyks, a road in the forests through the Qachqalyq mountains along the Michik"[15] - communities just subordinated were set by the empire to cut the forest for a military road against themselves; the duty came as part of the package of submission, as the standard "Conditions Prescribed to Submitting Highlanders" would later codify it.
The "Conditions prescribed to submitting highlanders", issued by general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), on 15 June 1840, imposed labour duty on the Chechen auls. Point 4 prescribed: "in case of a detachment's movement to allot people for building roads and bridges, to keep at the pristav's disposal a sufficient number of people for carrying papers or orders from one aul to another, to give mounted men for escort duty" (pristav - a superintendent over the auls appointed by the empire)[16].
The order of Colonel Lokhvitsky of 17 July 1877 for the Cheberloy uchastok obliged the punished themselves to cut a road for the troops into their own mountains: "the entire uchastok is to be obliged right now, within the very shortest time, to make a wide forest clearing (proseka) from the Bosoevskaya mountain to the Sharo-Argun river over a stretch of upwards of 6 versts" (a verst is slightly over a kilometer)[17].
The use of cheap labor at the mines and plants under conditions of harsh exploitation: "Initially the majority of miners were seasonal workers"[18] – without rights, without settlement, worked to exhaustion.
Use of dekulakized peasants, sent into the emerging GULAG system, as forced unpaid labor for heavy state projects[19].
Lethally dangerous exploitation of the labor of Ukrainian peasants, convicted en masse under the "law of five ears of grain" and exiled to corrective labor camps during the Holodomor[19].
The transfer of hundreds of thousands of people into special settlements and camps as a system of forced labor: in under two years "up to 1,250,000 people (about 10% of the population) were removed to remote regions of the USSR"[20] – the deportees were assigned to labor in remote regions with no right to leave.
The use of captured resistance members and deportees as free labor: the tasks of the GULAG included "using them as cheap labor and transferring them, as needed, from place to place"[21]; deportees from Western Ukraine were sent to special settlements and hard labor - in the summer of 1944 alone "more than 17,000 people were carried off to Krasnoyarsk Krai"[20].