Aggressors may cultivate within the colonized society a layer of collaborators, endowing it with power and privileges over their compatriots: offices, salaries, land, decorations and the aggressor's protection. The layer is manufactured, not bought: the aggressor institutes offices and "traditional" authorities where none existed, appoints the executors and binds them by privileges to the aggressor rather than to their own people. The society splits into the aggressor's intermediaries and those governed by them; everyday coercion is carried out by the hands of the colonized themselves, while they answer only to the aggressor. Colonialism scholarship describes the mechanism precisely: the historian Ronald Robinson showed that the colonizer could "manufacture a small modern elite of collaborators and set them in subordinate authority"; the scholar of colonialism Mahmood Mamdani called this construction "decentralized despotism" - "traditional" chiefs appointed by the colonizer receive unlimited power over their own people while answering only to the colonizer.
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), created within Chechen society a privileged layer with power over its compatriots. The offices of the overseers appointed by the empire over the auls (the pristavs) were handed by the empire to Chechens themselves: the imperial historian Yurov writes that the pristavs "were chosen predominantly, if not exclusively, from among the militiamen" - from the highland militia, armed units of highlanders in the empire's service[1]. The historian N. I. Pokrovsky showed the mechanics of the split: the office of pristav was unpaid, so only "certain representatives of strong families" could take it, and they "took advantage of the opportunity to use their power for further accumulation"; "by creating in Chechnya a local administration, Chechen by nationality, tsarism hoped to create at the same time the Chechen 'aristocracy' it so needed"[2]. The empire gave part of the society power and privileges over the rest and bound this layer to itself, not to the people: the handing of offices to the "strong families" is documented; the calculation of growing a loyal "aristocracy" was formulated by the historian N. I. Pokrovsky.
In November 1858 General Yevdokimov, by his own journal, "found it more advantageous to put the peaceful native population to use": naib (district governor under the imam) Saib-Dulla with more than two thousand armed Chechens forced into surrender the auls of the upper Fortanga and Assa, which "handed over to Saib-Dulla 27 Russian captives and amanats from the best families" (an amanat - a person the empire took from a community as a hostage)[3]. Former naibs of the Imamate the authorities preserved for future service: Colonel Belik, according to Yevdokimov's report of 8 September 1858 cited by historian N. I. Pokrovsky, "was instilling order and establishing the first principles of administration in the newly submitting societies; victims persecuted by the people sought refuge with him"[2]. On 4 July 1859, according to historian D. A. Khozhayev, Chechen elders came to Baryatinsky, commander-in-chief of the Caucasus Army: "a Chechen deputation of honored men, among whom were the former naibs Talkhig, Eski, Edil, Duba, Umalat, appeared at the Groznaya fortress before Prince Baryatinsky" - that is Talkhig Shalinsky, naib of Greater Chechnya and chief of the Imamate's artillery, and Duba Vashendaroyevsky, naib of Lesser Chechnya; the naibs who went over "received tsarist ranks, awards, and were appointed naibs of the same districts where they had once served Shamil"[4]. On 19 August 1859 commander-in-chief Baryatinsky gave "preliminary consent to the allotment of lands in Chechnya and on the Kumyk plain" to Sub-lieutenant Askhanov, Lieutenant colonel Chermoyev and Penzulayev[5]. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky summed up the outcome: "the heads of the tsarist administration in Chechnya and Dagestan after 1859 are persons well known to us as Shamil's naibs"[2].
In Kundukhov's operation in the winter of 1860-1861 marched the "7 hundreds of Chechen militia" of Colonel Chermoyev[6]; Atabi-Mullah Atayev, naib of Lesser Chechnya (Atabai in the imperial documents), surrendered in November 1861, according to a document, "to the commander of the Chechen irregular cavalry divizion, Vagap Aduyev" - Aduyev, who served the empire holding its rank[6]. Against Sheikh Kunta-Haji the authorities mobilized loyal clergy: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "measures were taken to induce the most prominent representatives of the Chechen Muslim clergy to come out openly against Kunta-Haji and the teaching he preached"[6].