SOVIET PARTISANS

The 'Soviet partisans' were members of the anti-fascist resistance movement which fought guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during the Second World War.
The movement was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modelled on that of the Red Army. The primary objective of the guerrilla warfare waged by the Soviet partisan units was the disruption of the Eastern Front's German rear, especially the road and railroad communications.

Contents

Formation of anti-German Soviet resistance

Areas of operations

Map of Soviet partisan activities

Belarus

1942, Vitsyebsk Gate

1942, West Belarus

1943

Ukraine

Russia

Baltic States

Finland and Karelia

Outside the Soviet Union

Poland

Major operations

Controversies

German reprisals

Relations with civilians

Jews and partisans

Fight against the independence movements

Relations with Ukrainian nationalist resistance

Relations with the locals in Baltic States region

Stalinist repressions against partisan veterans

Assessment

List of famous Soviet partisans

Gallery

See also

References

Bibliography

External links

Pro-partisans

Anti-partisans

Analysis

Formation of anti-German Soviet resistance

The program of the partisan war was outlined in the directive of the USSR PCC^[1] and Communist Party^[2] issued on July 29 1941 and in the other following documents. The partisan detachments and diversionist groups were to be formed on the German-occupied territories, road and tele- communications disrupted, German personnel killed, valuable resources destroyed. These outlines were reiterated by Stalin in his radio speech on August 3 1941.
Hitler, when referring to that speech on August 16 1941, pointed out that the declared partisan war in the German rear has its advantages, providing the excuse for destroying "anything that opposes Germans". It is considered, that the partisan war, decided with no consideration of the yet unknown intentions of the occupational authorities and the people's frame of mind, was set exclusively to serve military and political purposes of the USSR.^[3]
Actually, the first partisan detachments, comprising mostly the Red Army personnel, but also the local people, and commanded by the Red Army officers or local Soviet or Communist activists, began to be created since the first days of war: detachment ''Starasyel'ski'' of major Dorodnykh in Zhabinka district (June 23 1941)^[4], detachment of Vasily Korzh in Pinsk on June 26 1941^[5] and others. First awards of the partisans with order of Hero of the Soviet Union occurred on August 6 1941 (detachment commanders Pavlovskiy and Bumazhkov).
During the 1941, the core of the social base of the partisan movement in that period were the straggling remains of the Red Army units destroyed in the Operation Barbarossa, the personnel of the destruction battalions, and the local Communist, Komsomol and Soviet activists. The commonest unit of the period was the detachment.
The "seed" partisan detachments, diversionist and organisational groups were actively formed and inserted into German-occupied territories since the summer of 1941. The urban underground groups were formed as a force complementing the activities of partisan units, operating in the rural terrains. As a controlling body, the network of underground Communist structures was being actively developed on German-occupied territories, and it received the influx of the specially picked Communist activists.
By the end of the 1941, more than 2 thousand partisan detachments (with more than 90 thousand personnel) operated on the German-occupied territories.Літвіноўскі І. А. (Litvinowski) Партызанскі рух у Вялікую Айчынную вайну 1941—1945 // Беларуская энцыклапедыя: У 18 т. Т. 12. — Мінск: БелЭн, 2001. — 560 с. p. 134. ISBN 985-11-0198-2 (т.12). However, the activities of the partisan forces weren't centrally coordinated and logistically provided for until spring of 1942.
In order to coordinate the partisan operations the Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, headed by Ponomarenko, was organised on May 30 1942. The Staff had its liaisons in the Military Councils of the fronts and armies. The territorial Staffs were subsequently created, dealing with the partisan movement in the respective Soviet Republics and in the occupied provinces of the Soviet Russia.
While in Ukraine and Belarus some of the local population was initially supportive to the German occupation that they hoped would end the harsh Stalinist rule, they soon found that the Nazi regime was far more brutal. The occupants mass transferred the working age population to Reich to serve as slave laborers, looted, and arbitrary applied punishments for any infraction, up to burning the entire villages with their population (e.g. see Khatyn). Naturally, under these circumstances, many locals joined the anti-Nazi resistance, and the majority became passive supporters to partisans.
Later NKVD, SMERSH and GRU began training special groups of future partisans (effectively, special forces units) in the rear and dropping them in the occupied territories. The candidates for these groups were chosen among volunteers from regular Red Army, NKVD's Internal Troops, and also among Soviet sportsmen. When dropped behind Axis lines, the groups were to organize and guide the local self-established partisan units. Radio operators and intelligence gathering officers were the essential members of each group since amateur fighters could not be trusted with these tasks. Some commanders of these special units (like Dmitry Medvedev) later became well-known partisan leaders.
''See also'': Partisan detachment, Partisan regiment, Partisan brigade, Partisan group, Partisan united formation

Areas of operations

Map of Soviet partisan activities

The overview map of the Soviet partisan movement activities over the 1941-1944 period.

Legend:


★ Light-green blobs: the territories which were (at least for some time being) under the partisan control.


★ Dark-green lines: the partisan raids (not all of them are put on the map).


★ Red circlets: other base regions of the active partisan units.


★ Black lines with perpendicular hatches: German communications which partisans had systematically put out of operation for a (comparatively) long time.


★ Red flames: locations of the major diversions by the partisans and urban underground.


★ Red inverted triangles: locations of the most important battles of partisans with major German ("enemy") formations.


★ Red stars: locations of the most important military operations conducted jointly by partisans and Red Army.

Belarus

Main articles: Belarusian resistance movement

Men of SS-Sonderbataillon ''Dirlewanger'' execute suspected partisans in Belarus, November 1942.

Soviet partisans on the road in Belorus, 1944.

The Soviet authorities considered Belarus to be of the utmost importance to the development of the Soviet partisan war from the very beginning. The main factors were its geography, with lots of dense forests and swamps, and its strategical position on the communications going from West to Moscow. In fact, Belarusian Communist bodies in the Eastern provinces of Belarus began to organise and facilitate organisation of the partisan units on the day after the first directive issuing (directives No.1 of 1941-07-30 and No.2 of 1941-07-01).
By the Soviet estimates, in August 1941 about 231 detachments were operating already. The «seed» units, formed and inserted into Belarus, totalled 437 by the end of the 1941, comprising more than 7.2 thousand personnel.^[6]
However, as the frontline moved further away, the logistical conditions steadily worsened for the partisan units, as the resources ran out, and there was no wide-scale support from over the frontline until March 1942. One outstanding difficulty was the lack of radio communication, which wasn't addressed until April 1942. The support of the local people was also insufficient.^[7] So, for several months, partisan units in Belarus were virtually left to themselves. Especially difficult for the partisans was the winter of 1941-1942, with severe shortages in ammunition, medicine and supplies. The actions of partisans were prevailingly uncoordinated.
In the circumstances, the German pacification operations in Summer and Fall 1941 were able to curb the partisan activity significantly. Many units went underground, and generally, in the late Fall 1941—early 1942, the partisan units weren't undertaking the significant military operations, limiting themselves to sorting out the organisational problems, building up the logistics support and gaining influence with the local people.^[7]
By the incomplete data, in the end of the 1941, 99 partisan detachments and about 100 partisan groups operated in Belarus.^[9] In Winter 1941—1942, 50 partisan detachments and about 50 underground organisations and groups operated in Belarus.^[10][11]
In the period (1941-12-01), the German guard forces in the Army Group «Center» rear comprised 4 security divisions, 2 SS brigades, 260 companies of different branches of service.^[12]
The Moscow Battle turned the tide in the morale of the partisans and of the local people in general. However, the real turning point in the development of the partisan movement in Belarus, and, in fact, on the German-occupied terrritories in general, came in the course of the Soviet Winter 1942 offensive.

1942, Vitsyebsk Gate

The turning point in the development of the Soviet partisan movement came with the opening of the Vitsyebsk gate in February 1942. The partisan units were included in the overall Soviet strategical developments shortly after that, and the centralised organisational and logistical support had been organised, with Gate's existence being the very important facilitating factor.
The Germans treated the local population abysmally (with the notable exception of the fraction of the civil administration headed by Wilhelm Kube), maintained kolkhozes in East and restored land possessions in West, collecting heavy food taxes, rounded up and sent young people to work in the Germany.^[13] Overwhelmingly, Jews and even small-scale Soviet activists would feel more secure in the partisan ranks. The direct boost to the partisan numbers were the Red Army POWs of the local origin, who were let out "to the homes" in Fall 1941, but ordered by Germans to "return to the concentration camps" in March 1942.^[14]
In the Spring 1942, the aggregation of the smaller partisan units into brigades began, prompted by the experience of the first year of war. The coordination, numerical buildup, structural rework and now established logistical feed all translated to the greatly increased partisan units military capability, which showed, e.g., in the increased number of diversions on the railroads, reaching hundreds of engines and thousands of cars destroyed by the end of the year.^[15]
In 1942, the terror campaign against the territorial administration, which was manned by the local people ("collaborants and traitors") was additionally emphasised.^[16] This resulted, however, in the definite split of the local people's sympathies, resulting in the beginning of the organisation of the Anti-Partisan units with native personnel in 1942.
By the November 1942, Soviet partisan units in Belarus numbered about 47.3 thousand personnel.^[14]

1942, West Belarus

In January 1943, of 56,7 thousand Partisan personnel, 11,1 thousand were operating in the West Belarus, which was 3,5 less per 10 thousand local people than in the East, and even more so (up to 5—6 factor) if accounting for the much more efficient evacuation measures in the East in 1941.^[18]
This discrepancy wouldn't be sufficiently explained by the German treatment of local people, nor by the quick German advance in 1941, nor by the social circumstances then existing in these regions.^[19][20] There is strong evidence, that this was decision of the central Soviet authorities, who abstained from the greater buildup of the Partisan forces in West Belarus, and let Polish underground military structures to grow unopposed in these lands in 1941—1942, in the context of relations with the Polish government in exile of Sikorsky.^[21] Certain level of military cooperation, imposed by the respective commands, was noted between Soviet partisans and Armia Krajowa (AK), the people of Polish nationality were, to a degree, exempled from the terror campaign in 1942.^[22]
After the break of diplomatic relations between USSR and Polish government in exile in April 1943, the situation changed radically. From this moment on, AK was treated as hostile military force.

1943

Belarussian partisans in the forest near Polotsk, Belorussian SSR September 1943.

The buildup of the Soviet partisan force in the West Belarus was ordered and implemented during 1943, with 9 brigades, 10 detachments and 15 operational groups transferred from the Eastern to Western lands, effectively tripling the Partisan force there (to 36,8 thousand in December 1943). It is estimated that ~10-12 thousand personnel were transferred, and about same number came from the local volunteers. The buildup of the military force was complemented by the ensuing buildup of the underground Communist Party structures and propaganda activity.^[23]
The Stalingrad victory, certain curbing of the terror campaign (actually since December 1942, formally in February 1943) and amnesty promised to repenting collaborants were a significant factors in the 1943 growth of the Soviet partisan forces. Desertions from the ranks of the German-controlled police and military formations strengthened, with sometimes whole units coming over to Soviet partisan side — Volga Tartars battalion (900 personnel, February 1943), Gil-Rodionov 1st Russian People's brigade of the SS (2500 personnel, August 1943). Summarily, about 7 thousand people of miscellaneous anti-Soviet formations joined the Soviet partisan force. About 1,9 thousand specialists and commanders were inserted in the Belarusian lands in 1943. However, the local people comprised the core of the personnel influx in the Soviet partisan force.
In the Fall 1943, the partisan force in BSSR totalled about 153,700, and by the end 1943 about 122,000, with about 30,800 put behind the frontline in the course of liberation of eastern parts of BSSR (end 1943). After the liberation of BSSR, about 180,000 partisans joined the Soviet Army in 1944.
During the 1941—1944 period, the turnaround in the Soviet partisan force in Belarus was about 374,000, about 70,000 in urban underground, and about 400,000 in the reserve of the partisan force.
Among Soviet partisans in Belarus were people of 45 different ethnic backgrounds and 4,000 foreigners (including 3,000 Poles, 400 Czechs and Slovaks, 300 Yugoslavians, etc.). Around 65% of Belarusian partisans were local people.
The partisan movement was so strong that by 1943-44 there were entire regions in occupied Belarus, where Soviet authority was re-established deep inside the German held territories. There were even partisan kolkhozes that were raising crops and livestock to produce food for the partisans.[2]. During the battles for liberation of Belarus, partisans considered the fourth Belorussian front. As early as the spring of 1942 the Soviet partisans were able to effectively harass German troops and significantly hamper their operations in the region.
The resistance movement in Belarus was depicted in the movie ''Come and See''.

Ukraine

Next to Belarus, Ukraine was the first and hardest hit by the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in Summer-Autumn 1941. The consequences for the area and for the population that remained under the occupation were devastating. The Nazi regime took little effort in trying to exploit the anti-Soviet sentiments among the Ukrainians that developed from the years of harsh Stalinist rule. Despite some Ukrainians welcomed the Germans initially, the Nazi leadership chose to immediately take a hard line: preserved the collective-farm system, systematically deported the local population to Greater Germany as a slave labour force and carried out genocidal policies against Ukrainian Jews. Under these circumstances most of the population resisted the Nazi onslaught from and a partisan movement spread over the occupied territory.
The first Soviet partisan detachments in Ukraine appeared in Chernihiv and Sumy regions. They developed out of Mykola Popudrenko's and Sydir Kovpak's underground groups, and became a formidable force in 1943. At this stage they were controlled and significantly supported by the Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters in Moscow, operating throughout occupied Ukraine (especially in the northeastern part) and numbered over 150,000 fighters. In 1944 partisans led by Kovpak and Vershigora were even able to raid enemy Axis forces in Romania, Slovakia and Poland.
Although the Soviet partisan leadership has been initially intolerant to the independent nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), local partisan commanders sometimes established neutral relations with its groups. However, from 1941-1942 and after 1943 both sides adopted the annihilation strategy towards each other.
Soviet partisans also targeted families, assistants and supporters of the Ukrainian members of the Waffen-SS Division Galizien (Galicia) for mortal retaliation.

Russia

In Bryansk region the Soviet partisans controlled vast areas behind the German rear. In the summer of 1942 they effectively held territory of more than 14 000 square kilometers with population of over 200,000 people. Soviet partisans in the region were led by Alexei Fyodorov, Alexander Saburov and others and numbered over 60,000 men. Belgorod, Oryol, Kursk, Novgorod, Leningrad, Pskov and Smolensk regions also had significant partisan activity during the occupation period. In Oryol and Smolensk regions partisans were led by Dmitry Medvedev.
In 1943, after Red Army started to liberate western Russia and north-east Ukraine, many partisans, including units led by Fyodorov, Medvedev and Saburov, were ordered to re-locate their operations into central and western Ukraine still occupied by Nazis.

Baltic States

Soviet Partisans also operated in the Baltic States. In Estonia, they were under the leadership of Nikolay Karotamm (a communist official of Estonian SSR). The groups that operated in Estonia were very small (brought by planes from the Soviet-controlled territories). In Latvia they were first under Russian and Belarusian command, and from January 1943, directly subordinated to the central Headquarters in Moscow, under the leadership of Arturs Sprongis. Another prominent commander was the historian Vilis Samsons. His 3,000 man unit is credited with the destruction of nearly 130 German trains.
In 1941, the Soviet partisan movement in Lithuania began with the actions of a small number of Red Army soldiers left behind enemy lines, much like the beginning of partisan movements in Ukraine and Belarus. The movement grew throughout 1942, and in the summer of that year the Lithuanian Soviet partisan movement began receiving material aid as well as specialists and instructors in guerrilla warfare from the territory still controlled by Soviet government. On the 26 November 1942 the Command of Lithuanian Partisan Movement (Lietuvos partizaninio judėjimo štabas) was created in Moscow, headed by First Secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party Antanas Sniečkus, who had fled to Moscow in the wake of the German invasion in 1941. Although the Soviet partisans in Lithuania were nominally under the control of Command of Lithuanian Partisan Movement, the guerrilla warfare specialists and instructors sent by it reported directly to Central Command of Partisan Movement. Modern Lithuanian historians estimate that about half of the Soviet partisans in Lithuania were escapees from POW and concentration camps, Soviet activists, Red Army soldiers left behind the quickly advancing front line, while the other half was made up of airdropped special operations experts. It is estimated that in total, about 5,000 people engaged in pro-Soviet underground activities in Lithuania during the war. In general, role of Soviet dissident groups in Lithuania in Second World War was minimal. Audronė Janavičienė. ''Soviet saboteurs in Lithuania (1941-1944)''. Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras (Centre for investigation of genocide and resistance of population of Lithuania), Last accessed on 3 August, 2006.

Finland and Karelia

Village of Viiangi after the Soviet partisan raid, 7.7.1943

Soviet partisans operated in Finland and in Karelia during the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944. In the beginning of the Finnish occupation 24,000 of the local ethnic Russians (almost half of them) were placed in internment and labor camps and 4,000-7,000 of them died, mostly from hunger during the spring and summer of 1942 due to failed harvest of 1941."The occupiers set in Karelia the network of concentration, transfer and labor camps where over 20 thousand of locals were placed. Thousands of them died"
"Равнение на Победу" (Eyes toward Victory), the Republic of Karelia ^[24] Also the segretation in education and medical care between Karelians and Russians created resentment among Russian population. These actions made many local ethnic Russian people to support the partisan attacks.
Approximately 5,000 partisans altogether fought in the region, although the typical strength of the force was 1,500-2,300. Peculiarities of this front were that partisan units were not created inside the occupied territory, their personnel came all around Soviet Union and that they mainly operated from the Soviet side of the frontline.
The only major operation ended with failure when 1st Partisan Brigade was destroyed in the beginning of August 1942 at Lake Seesjärvi. Most operations at the southern part of the front consisted only few men and women, but on the roadless northern part units of 40 to 100 partisans were not uncommon. Partisans distributed propaganda newspapers "Truth" in Finnish language and "Lenin's Banner" in Russian language. One of the leaders of the partisan movement in Finland and Karelia was Yuri Andropov.
In East Karelia most partisans attacked Finnish military supply and communication targets, but in the Finnish side of the border, almost two thirds of the attacks targeted civilians,^[25] killing 200 and injuring 50, including children and elderly.^[26][27][28] On several occasions the partisans executed all civilians, not wanting anyone to witness the atrocities. One such incident was the partisan attack of Lämsänkylä, Kuusamo, that took place on July 18 1943, in which the partisans attacked a lonely house and killed all of the seven civilians there, including half a year and three year old children, before fleeing.
The partisan operations against Finns were estimated highly ineffectual. Already at Autumn 1941 the report of konisariat of interior affairs was highly critical, and it became only worse as the report of counter intelligence agency at April 1944 assesses. The main explanations which were given to the failure of the operations were the isolated headquarters at Belomorsk which didn't know what operative units were doing, personnel which hadn't local knowledge and partly criminal (10-20% of all personnel were conscripted from prisons) without the knowledge how to operate in harsh terrain and climate, Finnish efficient counter-partisan patrolling (half of the sent small partisan groups were destroyed) and Finnish internment of civilian population to the concentration camps from the regions with active partisan operations at the same time when camp inhabitants were released to secure areas, which prevented partisans to receive local supply.

Outside the Soviet Union

Interestingly, there were formations calling themselves Soviet partisans who operated a long way from the territories of Soviet Union. Usually they were organized by former Soviet citizens who escaped Nazi camps. One of such a formation was ''Rodina'' (Motherland) acting in France. [3][4] Also, in 1944, the Soviet partisans provided "proletarian internationalistic" help to the people of German-occupied Central Europe, with 7 united formations and 26 larger detachments operating in Poland, 20 united formations and detachments operating in Czechoslovakia^[29].

Poland

1939-1945 border changes. Orange line depicts the extent of areas occupied by Soviet Union in 1939-1941

In the former eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic, attached to the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet Republics after Soviet invasion of Poland, the organization and the operations of the Soviet partisans were similar to that in the Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. However, there were notable differences in interaction of partisans with the Polish national forces and the local population.
After initial period of wary collaboration with Polish resistance, the conflicts between these groups vastly intensified, especially as Poles were victims of Soviet terror between 1939 and 1941, and Soviets diplomatic relations with the Polish exiled government in London continued to worsen and were broken off completely in the aftermath of the discovery of the Katyn Massacre in 1943. In addition to their sabotage aimed at the German war machine, the Soviet partisans started extensive operations against both the Polish underground and the civilian population of the areas seized by the Soviets in 1939 and then lost to Germans in 1941. The campaign of terror provoked reports to London of horrifying looting, rape and murder.^[30] This made many local AK commanders consider the Soviets as just another enemy^[31] and eventually on June 22 1943 Soviets partisans were ordered by Moscow to take on the Polish units as well.^[32] The study by German-Polish historian[5] Bogdan Musial suggests that the Soviet partisans, instead of engaging German military and police targets, targeted the poorly armed and trained Belarusian and Polish self-defense forces.^[33] The partisans killed about 128 Poles in Naliboki massacre, May 8 1943.
In the wake of growing hostilities between the Soviets and the AK forces, some local AK units caught up in this conflict, acting against the orders of the AK High Command, cooperated in various ways with local German units fighting the same enemy. The most notorious instance of this practice took place in January-February 1944, when the AK units in the area around Vilnius and Navahrudak, commanded by Aleksander Krzyżanowski, cooperated for a time with the German military units in the fight against the Soviet partisans.According to Piotrowski: "Pressed by the Soviet partisans, the Germans in the Nowogrodek and Wilno areas offered the AK units a deal that some of them simply could not refuse: arms and provisions in exchange for antipartisan warfare against the Soviets. [...] Those were [...] purely tactical, short term arrangements [...]." According to the report of the local Nazi official cited by Piotrowski "three sizeable Polish detachments came over to our side and initially also fought well.", As a consequence of the clandestine, short-term tactical agreement between the local AK leadership and the local Nazi commanders, several AK units aided by the arms and provisions obtained from the Germans in effect fought alongside Germans against Soviet partisans, and by doing so effectively "cleansed" the territory in the Vilnius/Navahrudak area from Soviet partisan units.
However there were no known joint Polish-German actions, and the Germans were unsuccessful in their attempt to turn the Poles toward fighting exclusively against Soviet partisans. Such cooperation of local Polish commanders with the Germans was condemned by AK High Command and the Polish Supreme Commander in London, who on January 17, 1944 ordered it discontinued and the guilty parties disciplined.

Major operations

Partisans take on the village to drive away a German punitive expedition.

★ ''Raid of Vasily Korzh'', Autumn 1941 - March 23 1942. 1000 kilometre raid of a partisan formation over Minsk and Pinsk Oblasts of Belarus.

★ ''Battle of Bryansk forests'', May 1942. Battle of partisans against the Nazi punitive expedition that included 5 infantry divisions, military police, 120 tanks and aviation.

★ ''Raid of Sydir Kovpak'', October 26 - November 29 1942. Raid over Bryansk forests and Eastern Ukraine.

★ ''Battle of Bryansk forests'', May-June, 1943. Battle of partisans of the Bryansk forests with the German punitive expeditions.

★ ''Operation "Rails War"'', August 3 - September 15 1943. A major operation of partisan formations against the railroad communications intended to disrupt the German reinforcements and supplies for the Battle of Kursk and later the Battle of Smolensk.[6], [7] It involved concentrated actions by more than 100,000 partisan fighters of Belarus, Leningrad Oblast, Kalinin Oblast, Smolensk Oblast, Oryol Oblast and Ukraine on the territory of 1000 km along the front and 750 km in depth. Reportedly, more than 230,000 rails were destroyed, along with many bridges, trains and other railroad infrastructure. The operation seriously incapacitated German logistics and was instrumental for the Soviet victory in Kursk battle.

★ ''Operation "Concerto"'', September 19 - November 1 1943. "Concerto"[8] [9] was a major operation of partisan formations against the railroad communications intended to disrupt the German reinforcements and supplies for the Battle of the Dnieper and on the direction of the Soviet offensive in the Smolensk and Gomel directions. Partisans of Belarus, Karelia, Kalinin Oblast, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Crimea participated in the operations. The area of the operation was 900 km along the front (excluding Karelia and Crimea) and 400 km in depth. Despite the bad weather that allowed airlifting of less than a half of the planned supplies the operation lead to decreasing of the railroad capacity on the area by 35-40% that was critical for the success of the Soviet military operations in the autumn of 1943. In Belarus alone the partisans claimed destruction of more than 90,000 rails along with 1,061 trains, 72 railroad bridges and 58 Axis garrisons. According to the Soviet historiography, Axis losses totalled more than 53,000 soldiers.

★ ''Battle of Polotsk-Leppel'', April 1944. Major battle between partisans of Belarus and a German punitive expeditions.

★ ''Battle of Borisovsk-Begoml'', April 22 - May 15 1944. Major battle between partisans of Belarus and a German punitive expeditions.

★ ''Operation Bagration'', June 22-August 19 1944. Belarusian partisans took major part in the Operation Bagration. They were often considered the fifth front (along with the 1st Baltic Front, 1st Belorussian Front, 2nd Belorussian Front and 3rd Belorussian Front. Upward to 300,000 partisans took part in the operation.

Controversies

German reprisals

''Partisan's Mother'', the 1943 painting by Sergey Gerasimov

While the partisan movement in some regions greatly contributed into the outcome of the Great Patriotic War, some historians argue that the price for this was too high.
Partisans are often accused of provoking the brutal countermeasures of Nazi occupants. Trying to limit partisan activities, German command applied the tactic of killing mass hostages among residents of partisan-operated areas. In case of partisan attack (typically, on a railroad bridge), the definite number of locals would be executed. Such hostage operations could happen in the forms of preliminary arrests, post-attack retaliation actions, or compulsory "watch-groups" deployed on vulnerable sites and killed if they haven't averted the attack.
According to Soviet sources, the partisans invented ways to prevent hostage/retaliation murders, like targeting uninhabited areas, developing their own forest agriculture and evacuating the whole population of the villages at risk. However, some historians believe such attempts were of little effect.
The burden of the partisan actions on the locals was feeding a permanent political controversy among partisans, answered by the NKVD in a rapid and violent way.

Relations with civilians

To survive, resistance fighters largely relied on the civilian population. This included food, clothing and other supplies. However, in the areas they controlled, they had limited possibilities to operate their own agriculture. As it is typical to guerrilla activity, Soviet partisans commissioned food, livestock and clothes from local peasants, although in some cases the supply was voluntary. The results of such commissioning were made more severe by the fact that Axis occupational forces have been already seizing food from people in enormous amounts. This led to conflicts with partisans in areas indisposed to Soviet power, mostly in territories annexed by the Soviet Union during 1939-1941.
Among the targets of Soviet partisans were not only Axis military and their volunteerly collaboration units, but also civilians accused in being the Nazi collaborators or sometimes even those who were considered to not support the partisans strong enough. [10]

Jews and partisans

Soviet partisans were not in a position to ensure protection to the Jews in the Holocaust. The fit Jews were usually welcomed by the partisans, however women, children, and the elderly were mostly unwelcome. Eventually, however, separate Jewish groups, both guerrilla units and mixed family groups of refugees (like the Bielski partisans), were subordinated to the communist partisan leadership and considered as Soviet assets.[11]

Fight against the independence movements

In addition to fighting the Nazis, Soviet partisans fought against the organisations and people which sought to reestablish independent non-communist states of Poland,[12] Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine. This included fighting against the nationalist groups in the places such as the Baltic States and Poland where most of the resistance sought to reestablish the independent states.[13]
Due to these reasons, the Soviet partisans are a very controversial issue in the mentioned countries. In Latvia some former Soviet partisans are prosecuted to this day for the alleged war crimes against locals during the occupation.

Relations with Ukrainian nationalist resistance

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a separate resistance force formed in 1942 (as a military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), was engaged in the armed conflicts with the Soviet partisans, Nazi occupants and the Polish resistance at different times. Although UPA initially attempted to find a common ground with the Nazi Germany in the face of the common enemy (the USSR), it soon was driven underground as it became apparent that Germans' view of Ukraine was as of a German colony with an enslaved population, not an independent country the UPA hoped for. As such, UPA was driven underground and fought both the Nazi occupants and the Soviet forces (including partisans) at the same time.
Later, UPA and Soviet partisans leaders occasionally tried to negotiate a temporary alliance, but Moscow NKVD Headquarters began harshly persecuting such attempts by its local commanders. With two sides becoming established enemies, the Ukrainian civil population, which was suffering enormously from the war's hardships, was primarily concerned with the survival and chose to stay politically neutral in the conflict.^[34]

Relations with the locals in Baltic States region

Soviet partisans had very little support from the Baltic Sea countries' populations. Their involvement in controversial actions that affected the civilian population (for example, the murder of the Polish civilians in Kaniūkai, in an event that has come to be called the Koniuchy massacre, and razing to the ground the village of Bakaloriškės).^[35] The anti-Soviet resistance movements in the Baltic states, known as the Forest Brothers (which sprung just before Soviet re-occupation in 1944), and local self-defence units often came into conflict with the Soviet partisan groups, much like the situation between Ukrainian partisans and the UPA in Ukraine. In Estonia and Latvia, almost all the Soviet partisan units, dropped by air, were either crushed by the German forces or the local self-defense units.
In Eastern and South-Eastern Lithuania Soviet partisans constantly clashed with Polish Armia Krajowa (''Home Army'') partisans; AK did not recognise any territorial changes after 1939 and considered this region as a legal part of Poland, while Soviets planned to cede it to the Soviet Union after the war. Only in April of 1944 the Polish and Soviet partisans started coordinating their actions against the Germans.

Stalinist repressions against partisan veterans

Operating thousands of kilometres from the front lines, with little central authority allowed some of the fighters to develop their own ideals that in many cases challenged the Soviet system. The Soviet Union viewed these actions with extreme skepticism, and after the liberation of the territory, all partisan fighters had to pass through NKVD interrogation. Although the local population rarely came under any political pressure, some, particularly the officers were on various grounds with a number ending in labor camps.
Some historians attribute that the Soviet reactions to the partisans were not better than that to Soviet POWs. In any case this continued up until 1955 when a pardon was announced to all POWs and Nazi collaborators.
Many of the early Soviet Partisans, or "Bands" as they were known at the time, were organized from "Destruction Battalions" who were attached to the Red Army to destroy anything of value to the enemy after the Red Army had evacuated the area. Leadership within any given band was almost entirely in the direct hands of the Communist Party, although new recruits were recruited from the local populations. Soviet Partisans operated within a certain range from their principal hideout and moved only when pressed by the enemy. It is impossible for any such action by Stalin against Soviet Partisan Veterans unless they disobeyed orders that came from the "Committee for Defense," which was chaired by Stalin himself. The Soviet Partisans regularly carried out intelligence gathering missions on behalf of the Red Army and naturely kept in constant contact with Partisan General Headquarters and Red Army Liaison Officers. Stalin almost singlehandedly planned the defense of Russia using Chairman Mao's guerilla tactics developed in the initial stages of the Anti-Japanese/Anti-Nationalist war. Mao wrote that the Red Army and Guerilla Movement were like the two arms of a man. Both Stalin and Mao wielded those arms with devastating results. Soviet Partisans were alone responsible for wiping out at least 15 at most 20 German divisions (about 300,000 men). The Germans had "17 Divisions in the West, 14 in Italy..., 17 in the Balkans...." According to Soviet statistics they had about 1,500,000 partisans serving the cause of national liberation.
-"Communist Guerilla Warfare;" C. Aubrey Dixon & Otto Heilbrunn; Praeger Publish. Copyright 1955

Assessment

The partisans' activities included disrupting the railroad communications, intelligence gathering and, typically, small hit and run operations. With the German supply lines already over extended, the partisan operations in the rear of the front lines were able to severely disrupt the flow of supplies to the army that acted deep into the Soviet territory.
In the second half of the war, major partisan operations were coordinated with Soviet offensives. Upon liberation of parts of the Soviet territory the corresponding partisan detachments usually joined the regular Army.
The partisans were an important and numerous force of the war. According to Soviet sources, from 90,000 partisans (including underground) by the end of 1941 it grew to 220,000 in 1942, and to more than 550,000 in 1943. [14] Soviet partisans inflicted thousands of casualties on Axis forces and contributed significantly to the Soviet victory in the WWII. In Belarus alone the partisans claimed to have "liquidated," injured and taken prisoner some 500,000 German soldiers,[15] the claim disputed by certain historians, estimating German losses at between 15,000 and 20,000 (not including those of the Eastern volunteers).According to Matthew Cooper: «Indeed, if early Soviet accounts are to be believed, the Germans suffered more than one million casualties from guerrilla activity alone - about one-sixth of all their soldiers who fought in the East. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, General Jodl, Chief of Operations of the Wehrmacht High Command, in whose interest it would have been to exaggerate the menace of the partisans, doubted whether German casualties in the Soviet Union at their hands were as high as 50,000. Recent studies suggest that they were even less, at between 15,000 and 20,000, not including those of the Eastern volunteers who also took part in security operations. In this sense, at least, the phantom war lived up to its name, appearing to possess immense form but, in reality, having little substance. This, however, was often overlooked by the Germans, who, in the extreme violence of their security measures, appeared not only to have misunderstood the proper conduct of anti-guerrilla warfare, but also to have overestimated the partisan danger. As the Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, admitted a few months before the Germans were driven from the Soviet Union: ‘Perhaps we have overreacted to these bandits, and by this have caused ourselves needless problems.’»''
Matthew Cooper, ''The phantom war: The German struggle against Soviet partisans, 1941-1944'', Macdonald and Janes, (1979), ISBN 0-354-01220-7NB: usually the Soviet and post-Soviet writings on the Soviet partisan movement borrow data directly or indirectly from the Ponomarenko (Пономаренко П.К. Партизанское движение в Великой Отечественной войне. М., 1943.) and Volin (Волин Б.М. Всенародная партизанская война. М., 1942.) books, which could be intentionally exaggerating.

List of famous Soviet partisans

★ Yuri Andropov - later the leader of Soviet Union ★ Petr Braiko ★ Alexander Chekalin ★ Alexei Fyodorov ★ Nikolai Kuznetsov ★ Nikolay Karotamm ★ Vera Khoruzhaya ★ Vsevolod Klokov ★ Vasiliy Kononov ★ Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya ★ Vasiliy Korzh ★ Sydir Kovpak - the best-known partisan in Ukraine ★ Petr Masherov - later the leader of Soviet Belarus ★ Kiril Mazurov ★ Dmitry Medvedev - commander of an NKVD-formed special partisan unit

★ Marytė Melnikaitė (Marija Melnik) ★ Mikhail Naumov ★ Kiril Orlovsky ★ Panteleimon Ponomarenko ★ Mykola Popudrenko ★ Zinaida Portnova ★ Semyon Rudniev ★ Alexander Saburov ★ Vilis Samsons ★ Ivan Sergeichik ★ Arturs Sprongis ★ Yitzhak Witenberg ★ Petro Vershigora ★ Konstantin Zaslonov ★ Simcha Zorin

Gallery

See also

★ ''Come and See''

★ Jewish partisans

★ Partisans (Yugoslavia)

★ People's War

★ Resistance during World War II

★ Young Guard (Soviet resistance)

References

1. People's Commissaries Council.
2. Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party (Bolshevik).
3. Jerzy Turonek. Białoruś pod okupacją niemiecką. Warszawa—Wrocław: WERS, 1989. 186 p., ill. P.75.
4. (HistBel-5) Гісторыя Беларусі: У 6 т. Т. 5. Беларусь у 1917—1945. — Мн.: Экаперспектыва, 2006. — 613 с.; іл. ISBN 985-469-149-7. p.492.
5. ПИНСК В ГОДЫ ВЕЛИКОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ... (Pinsk during the Great Patriotic...) Nik
6. (All-people struggle in Belarus against the German-fascist invaders) Всенародная борьба в Белоруссии против немецко-фашистских захватчиков. Т. 1. С. 84, 112., as cited in (HistB5) Гісторыя Беларусі: У 6 т. Т. 5. Беларусь у 1917—1945. — Мн.: Экаперспектыва, 2006. — 613 с.; іл. ISBN 985-469-149-7. p.491.
7. Turonek, P.76.
8. Turonek, P.76.
9. (All-people struggle...) V.1. p.107., as cited in (HistB5) p.493.
10. (HistB5) p.493.
11. To the end of 1941 only in Minsk area there were at least 50 partisan groups having more than 2,000 fighters.
12. Turonek, P.78.
13. Belarus was the republic hardest hit by the war that took from 25 to 40% of the republic's population. [1] According to the Himmler's plan, 3/4 of the Belarusian population was to be eradicated and the remainder was to be used as a slave labour force. By Summer 1942 all the illusions some Belarusians might have had about the Nazi rule, even compared to the brutal Stalinist regime, were lost and the anti-fascist resistance rose dramatically.
14. Turonek, p.78.
15. By the German sources. Turonek, p.79. Also noted is that this result, while in itself spectacular, was of lesser relevance than expected, as the German offensive in 1942 came out in South.
16. Mentioned as primary in the report of the HQ of partisan movement on 1942-11-09. Turonek, p.79.
17. Turonek, p.78.
18. Turonek, pp.83,86.
19. Turonek, p.83.
20. In fact, small land-owners in West showed "surprising" sympathies to the Partisans. Turonek, p.83.
21. Turonek, p.84.
22. To a certain surprise of Germans, Turonek, p.84.
23. Turonek, pp.84,85.
24. Laine, Antti, ''Suur-Suomen kahdet kasvot'', 1982, ISBN 951-1-06947-0, Otava
25. Eino Viheriävaara, (1982). ''Partisaanien jäljet 1941-1944'', Oulun Kirjateollisuus Oy. ISBN 951-99396-6-0
26. Veikko Erkkilä, (1999). ''Vaiettu sota'', Arator Oy. ISBN 952-9619-18-9.
27. Lauri Hannikainen, (1992). ''Implementing Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts: The Case of Finland'', Martinuss Nijoff Publishers, Dordrecht. ISBN 0-7923-1611-8.
28. Tyyne Martikainen, (2002). ''Partisaanisodan siviiliuhrit'', PS-Paino Värisuora Oy. ISBN 952-91-4327-3.
29. "Великая Отечественная война." Вопросы и ответы. ("Great Patriotic War"; questions and answers, various authors, , , Politizdat, 1985, ISBN
30. Small Nations in Times of Crisis and Confrontation, Yohanan Cohen, , , SUNY Press, 1989, ISBN 0-7914-0018-2
31. Tadeusz Piotrowski, ''Poland's Holocaust'', McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. Google Print, p.88, p.89, p.90
32. Piotrowski, ''Poland's Holocaust'', p.98
33. [http://www.ruf.rice.edu/%7Esarmatia/406/262choda.html Review of ''Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland'' by Bogdan Musial, by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, in Sarmatian Review, April 2006
34. Orest Subtelny, ''Ukraine: a history'', p. 476, University of Toronto Press (2000), ISBN 0802083900
35. Rimantas Zizas. ''Bakaloriškių sunaikinimas'' (Destruction of Bakaloriškės). Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras (Centre for investigation of genocide and resistance of population of Lithuania), 2004. Last accessed on 3 August, 2006.

# Dear I.C.B. ''The Oxford Companion to World War II''. Oxford University Press, 1995.
# Partisan Movement during the Great Patriotic War - V.N. Andrianov ''Soviet Encyclopaedia entry''.
# Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II - Virtual Guide to Belarus.
::'Governmental'
# Partisan Movement in Belarus - Republic of Belarus Defense Ministry.
# Partisan Movement in Bryansk region 1941-1943 - Bryansk regional government.

Bibliography

★ Slepyan, Kenneth. ''Stalin's guerrillas : Soviet partisans in World War II''. University Press of Kansas, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 070061480X ).

★ Hill, Alexander, ''The war behind the Eastern Front : the Soviet partisan movement in North-West Russia, 1941-1944''. Frank Cass, 2005 (ISBN 0714657115)

★ Grenkevich, Leonid D., ''The Soviet partisan movement, 1941-1944 : a critical historiographical analysis'', Frank Cass Publishers, 1999 (hardcover ISBN 0714648744 , paperback ISBN 0714644285).

External links

Pro-partisans

★ Biography of Braiko

★ Account of Partisan activity in Western Ukraine

★ Famous partisan-miners

★ :Jewish partisans directory (searchable)

★ ''People with clear conscience'' — Memoires of Pyotr Petrovich Vershigora

★ ''It happened by Rovno'' — Memoires of Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev

Anti-partisans

★ How "People's Revengers" were revenging their own people

Analysis

★ Fragment of the Review of ''Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland'', by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, in Sarmatian Review, April 2006