The
Lithuanian partisans were
partisansA partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
who waged uniformed
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
during and after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Similar
anti-SovietAnti-Sovietism and Anti-Soviet refer to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.Three different flavors of the usage of the term may be distinguished....
resistanceA resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
groups, also known as
Forest BrothersThe Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
, fought against Soviet rule in
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
,
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
,
RomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and
Galicia.
The
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
occupied the formerly independent Lithuania in 1940–1941 and, after a period of
German occupationThe occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany refers to the occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany from the start of the German invasion of Soviet Union to the end of the Battle of Memel . At first the Germans were welcomed as "liberators" from the repressive Soviet regime which occupied Lithuania...
, again in 1944–1945. As Stalinist
repressionPolitical repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
intensified, thousands of Lithuanian residents used forests in the countryside as a natural refuge and basis for armed
anti-Soviet resistanceAnti-Soviet partisans may refer to:*Chetniks*Čorny Kot*Forest Brothers*Forest Brothers *Green Army of Nikifor Grigoriev*Grey Wolves*Latvian national partisans*Lithuanian Activist Front*Lithuanian partisans...
.
Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defence, to large and well-organized groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle. It is estimated that a total of 30,000 partisans and their supporters were killed during the guerrilla warfare from 1944 to 1953.
Background
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
had re-gained its
independenceIndependence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
in 1918 after the collapse of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. Allied declarations such as the
Atlantic CharterThe Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. It was drafted by Britain and the United States, and later agreed to by all the Allies...
had offered promise of a post-war world in which the three Baltic nations could re-establish themselves. Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime followed by the Nazi regime many people were unwilling to accept another occupation.
Unlike Estonia and Latvia where the Germans conscripted the local population into military formations within
Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
, Lithuania never had its own Waffen-SS division. In 1944 the Nazi authorities created 20,000-strong Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force under General
Povilas PlechavičiusPovilas Plechavičius was an Imperial Russian and then Lithuanian military officer and statesman. In the service of Lithuania he rose to the rank of General of the army in the interwar period...
to combat Soviet partisans led by
Antanas SniečkusAntanas Sniečkus was First Secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party from August 1940 to January 22, 1974.- Biography :Antanas Sniečkus was born in 1903, in the village of Būbleliai, near Šakiai. During the First World War, his family fled to Russia where he observed the Russian revolution of 1917...
. The Germans, however, quickly came to see this force as a nationalist threat to their occupation regime. The senior staff were arrested on May 15, 1944, and General Plechavičius was deported to the concentration camp in
SalaspilsSalaspils is a town in Latvia, the administrative centre of Salaspils municipality. The town is situated on the northern bank of the Daugava River 18 kilometers to the south-east of the city of Riga.-History:...
, Latvia. However, approximately half of the remaining forces formed guerrilla units and dissolved into the countryside in preparation for partisan operations against the Soviet Army as the
Eastern FrontThe Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
approached.
Armed resistance
People killed (MGB data)
| Year |
Partisans |
Soviets |
Pro-Soviet
civilians |
| 1944 |
|
|
|
| 1945 |
|
|
|
| 1946 |
|
|
|
| 1947 |
|
|
|
| 1948 |
|
|
|
| 1949 |
|
|
|
| 1950 |
|
|
|
| 1951 |
|
|
|
| 1952 |
|
|
|
| 1953 |
|
|
|
| Total |
20,103 |
12,921 |
2,619 |
The resistance in Lithuania was well organized, and the
uniformedA uniform is a set of standard clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, security guards, in some workplaces and schools and by inmates...
with
chain of commandChain of Command may refer to:* Chain of command, in a military context, the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed* "Chain of Command" , the fifth episode of the first season of Beast Wars...
guerrilla units were effectively able to control whole regions of the countryside until 1949. Their armaments included
Czech Skoda gunsŠkoda Works was the largest industrial enterprise in Austro-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century...
,
Russian Maxim heavy machine gunsThe PM M1910 was a heavy machine gun used by the Russian Army during World War I and the Red Army during World War II. It was adopted in 1910 and was derived from Hiram Maxim's Maxim gun, chambered for the standard Russian 7.62x54mmR rifle cartridge...
, assorted
mortarsA mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
and a wide variety of mainly German and Soviet light machine guns and submachine guns. When not in direct battles with the Soviet Army or special
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
units, they significantly delayed the consolidation of Soviet rule through ambush, sabotage, assassination of local Communist activists and officials, freeing imprisoned guerillas, and printing underground newspapers. Captured Lithuanian
Forest Brothers themselves often faced
tortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and
summary executionA summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
while their relatives faced
deportationDeportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
to Siberia (cf. quotation). Reprisals against pro-Soviet farms and villages were harsh. The NKVD units, named
People's Defense Platoons (known by the Lithuanians as
pl.In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
stribai, from the -
destroyers) used shock tactics to discourage further resistance such as displaying executed partisans' corpses in village courtyards.
On February 16, 1949 the Joint Staff of the
Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters signed a declaration on the future of Lithuania. It was signed by the commander of the forces -
Brigadier GeneralBrigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
Jonas ŽemaitisJonas Žemaitis was one of the leaders of armed resistance against the Soviet occupation in Lithuania and acknowledged as the Head of State of contemporary occupied Lithuania.Žemaitis was born in Jonas Žemaitis and Petronėlė Daukšaitė's family...
and other commanders of territorial armed forces consisting of:
- Southern Lithuanian: Tauras and Dainavos Apygardos (districts),
- Eastern Lithuanian: Algimantas, Didžioji Kova, Vytis and Vytautas districts,
- Western Lithuanian: Kęstutis, Prisikėlimas and Žemaičiai districts.
The same day new military ranks were awarded for the commanders, and new insignia of rank were sewn on the uniforms.
The declaration stated, that re-instated Lithuania should be a democratic country, that would grant equal rights for every citizen, based on freedom and democratic values. It did declare that
Communist partyA political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
is a criminal organization. The document of the declaration has survived and was preserved by the
KGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
.
The report of a commission formed at a
KGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
prison a few days after the October 15, 1956 arrest of
Adolfas RamanauskasAdolfas Ramanauskas codename Vanagas was one of the prominent leaders of the Lithuanian partisans. Ramanauskas worked as a teacher when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1944–45...
"Vanagas" (Hawk), the last official commander of the
Lietuvos Laisvės Kovotojų Sąjūdis or "Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters", noted the following:
Juozas LukšaJuozas Lukša also known by the pseudonym Daumantas or Skirmantas was one of the most prominent post-World War II leaders of the Lithuanian partisans, the anti-Soviet armed resistance...
was among those who managed to escape to Western states; he wrote his memoirs there and was killed after having returned to occupied Lithuania in 1951.
Pranas KončiusPranas Končius, nicknamed Adomas was the last Lithuanian anti-soviet resistance fighter killed in action by Soviet forces on July 6, 1965...
(code name
Adomas), was the last Lithuanian anti-soviet resistance fighter killed in action by Soviet forces on July 6, 1965 (some sources indicate he shot himself in order to avoid capture). He was awarded the Cross of Vytis posthumously in 2000.
Benediktas MikulisBenediktas Mikulis was a Lithuanian partisan who lived in hiding for 27 years – first from the Nazis during World War II and later from the Soviets during the Cold War.The Mikulis family homestead is located in Prazariškės village in Žaislai elderate...
, one of the last known partisans to remain in the forest, emerged in 1971. He was arrested in the 1980s and spent several years in prison.
Decline of the resistance movements
By the early 1950s, the Soviet forces had eradicated most of the Lithuanian nationalist resistance.
IntelligenceIntelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
gathered by the Soviet spies in the West and KGB infiltrators within the resistance movement, in combination with large-scale Soviet operations in 1952 managed to end the campaigns against them.
Many of the remaining partisans laid down their weapons when offered an
amnestyAmnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
by the Soviet authorities after
StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's death in 1953, although isolated engagements continued into the 1960s. The last individual guerrillas are known to have remained in hiding and evaded capture into the 1980s, by which time Lithuania was pressing for independence through peaceful means. (See
SąjūdisSąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...
) Lithuania regained her independence on March 11, 1990.
Aftermath, memorials and remembrances
Many nationalist partisans persisted in the hope that
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
hostilities between the West,
which never formally recognized the Soviet occupationThe Stimson Doctrine is a policy of the United States federal government, enunciated in a note of January 7, 1932, to Japan and China, of non-recognition of international territorial changes that were executed by force. The doctrine was an application of the principle of ex injuria jus non oritur...
, and the Soviet Union might escalate to an armed conflict in which Lithuania would be liberated. This never materialised, and according to Laar many of the surviving former nationalist partisans remained bitter that the West did not take on the Soviets militarily. (See also
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
,
Western betrayalWestern betrayal, also called Yalta betrayal, refers to a range of critical views concerning the foreign policies of several Western countries between approximately 1919 and 1968 regarding Eastern Europe and Central Europe...
)
As the conflict was relatively undocumented by the Soviet Union (the Lithuanian fighters were never formally acknowledged as anything but "bandits and illegals"), some consider it and the Soviet-Lithuanian conflict as a whole to be an unknown or
forgotten war"The Forgotten War" typically refers to:* The Korean War * The Ifni War * The resistance in Baltic countries, see Forest Brothers...
. Discussion of resistance was suppressed under the Soviet regime. Writings on the subject by the Lithuanian emigrants were often labelled as examples of "ethnic sympathy" and disregarded.
In 1999, the Lithuanian
SeimasThe Seimas is the unicameral Lithuanian parliament. It has 141 members that are elected for a four-year term. About half of the members of this legislative body are elected in individual constituencies , and the other half are elected by nationwide vote according to proportional representation...
(
parliamentA parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
) formally enacted a
declaration of independenceA declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
that had been made on February 16, 1949, the 31st anniversary of the February 16, 1918 declaration of independence, by elements of the resistance unified under the "Movement of the Struggle for the Freedom of Lithuania".
In Lithuania, nationalist veterans receive the pension. The third Sunday in May is commemorated as Partisan's Day. As of 2005, there were about 350 surviving partisans in Lithuania.
Dramatizations
The 1966 film
Nobody wanted to dieNobody Wanted to Die is a 1966 Lithuanian film made in Soviet Lithuania and directed by Vytautas Žalakevičius. Žalakevičius, actor Donatas Banionis, and cinematographer Jonas Gricius were awarded USSR State Prize for the film in 1967.-Cast:...
by Soviet-Lithuanian film director
Vytautas ŽalakevičiusVytautas Žalakevičius was a Lithuanian film director and writer.-Biography:...
shows the tragedy of the conflict in which "a brother goes against the brother". Despite being shot from a Soviet perspective, the film gives many hints that allude to the possibility of alternative points of view. The film brought acclaim to Žalakevičius, and to a number of young Lithuanian actors starring in the film.
The 2004 film
Utterly AloneUtterly Alone is a 2003 film directed by Jonas Vaitkus, based on real events, about Juozas Lukša , a Lithuanian partisan who fought against the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in the years immediately following World War II...
portrays the travails of Lithuanian partisan leader
Juozas LukšaJuozas Lukša also known by the pseudonym Daumantas or Skirmantas was one of the most prominent post-World War II leaders of the Lithuanian partisans, the anti-Soviet armed resistance...
who travelled twice to
Western EuropeWestern Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
in attempts to gain support for the armed resistance.
The 2005 documentary film
Stirna tells the story of Izabelė Vilimaitė (codenames
Stirna and
Sparnuota), an American-born Lithuanian who moved to Lithuania with her family in 1932. A medical student and pharmacist, she was an underground medic and source of medical supplies for the partisans, eventually becoming a district liaison. She infiltrated the local
KomsomolThe Communist Union of Youth , usually known as Komsomol , was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of...
(Communist Youth), was discovered, captured, and escaped twice. After going underground full time, she was suspected of having been turned by the KGB as an informant and was nearly executed by the partisans. Her bunker was eventually discovered by the KGB and she was captured a third time, interrogated and killed.
See also
- Forest Brothers
The Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
- Leśni
Leśni is one of the informal names applied to the anti-German partisan groups operating in occupied Poland during World War II. The groups were formed mostly by people who for various reasons could not operate from settlements they lived in and had to retreat to the forests...
- Romanian anti-communist resistance movement
An armed resistance movement against the communist regime in Romania was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime...
- Cursed soldiers
The cursed soldiers is a name applied to a variety of Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and afterwards. Created by some members of the Polish Secret State, these clandestine organizations continued their armed struggle against the Stalinist government of Poland...
- Ukrainian Insurgent Army
- March deportation
External links