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Soviet partisans
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The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a 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 modeled 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.
Formation of anti-German Soviet resistance
The program of the partisan war was outlined in the Soviet People's Commissaries Council and Communist Party directives issued on July 29 1941 and in other following documents.
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Encyclopedia
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a 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 modeled 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.
Formation of anti-German Soviet resistance
The program of the partisan war was outlined in the Soviet People's Commissaries Council and Communist Party directives issued on July 29 1941 and in other following documents. Partisan detachments and diversionist groups were to be formed on the German-occupied territories, road and telecommunications disrupted, German personnel killed, and valuable resources destroyed. Stalin, in his radio speech on August 3 1941, reiterated these commands and directives to the people. Hitler, when referring to that speech on August 16 1941, pointed out that the declared partisan war in the German rear had its advantages, providing the excuse for destroying "anything that opposes the Germans". It is understood 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 perpetuated exclusively to serve the military and political purposes of the USSR.
The first partisan detachments, consisting of Red Army personnel and local people, and commanded by Red Army officers or local Soviet or Communist activists, were formed in the first days of the war, including the Starasyel'ski detachment of Major Dorodnykh in the Zhabinka district (June 23 1941), the Pinsk detachment of Vasily Korzh on June 26 1941. The first awards of the Hero of the Soviet Union order occurred on August 6 1941 (detachment commanders Pavlovskiy and Bumazhkov).
During 1941 the core of the social base of the partisan movement were the remains of Red Army units destroyed in the first phases of Operation Barbarossa, personnel of destruction battalions, and the local Communist, Komsomol and Soviet activists. The most common unit of the period was the detachment.
The "seed" partisan detachments, diversionist and organizational groups were formed and dropped into German-occupied territories in the summer of 1941. Urban underground groups were formed as a force complementing the activities of partisan units, operating in rural areas. The network of underground Communist structures was actively developed on German-occupied territories to control activities, and it received a steady influx of specially chosen Communist activists. By the end of the 1941, more than 2,000 partisan detachments (with more than 90,000 personnel) operated in German-occupied territories.
However, the activity of partisan forces were not centrally coordinated and supplied until spring of 1942. In order to coordinate partisan operations the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement as Stavka, headed by Ponomarenko (Chief of Staff) and initially commanded by Kliment Voroshilov, was organized on May 30 1942. The Staff had its liaison networks 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 RSFSR.
Although initially in Ukraine and Belorussia some of the local population were supportive of the German occupation that they hoped would bring about the end of Stalinist rule , they soon found that the Nazi regime was far more brutal . The occupiers deported working-age population to the Reich to serve as slave laborers, looted, and arbitrary applied punishments for any infraction, up to burning the entire villages with their population (for example, Khatyn). Many locals joined the anti-Nazi resistance, and the majority became passive supporters to partisans.
Later, NKVD, SMERSH and GRU began training a special group of future partisans (effectively, special forces units) in the rear and dropping them into occupied territories. Candidates for these groups were chosen among volunteers from the regular Red Army, the NKVD Internal Troops, and also from among Soviet sportsmen. When dropped behind the German front-line, the groups were to organize and guide the local, self-established partisan units. Radio operators and intelligence gathering officers were essential members of each group since amateur fighters could not be trusted with these tasks. Some commanders of these special units, such as 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
Belarus
The Soviet authorities considered Belarus to be of 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 strategic position on communication lines going from Moscow to the West. 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 was issued (directives No.1 of 1941-07-30 and No.2 of 1941-07-01).
By Soviet estimates, in August 1941 about 231 detachments were operating already. "Seed" units, formed and inserted into Belarus, totaled 437 by the end of the 1941, comprising more than 7,200 personnel. However, as the front line moved further away, conditions steadily worsened for the partisan units, as resources ran out, and there was no large-scale support from beyond the front until March 1942. One particular difficulty was the lack of radio communication, which was not addressed until April 1942. The partisan unit also lacked the support of local people. For several months, partisan units in Belarus were virtually left to their own devices; especially difficult was the winter of 1941-1942, with severe shortages in ammunition, medicine and supplies. The actions of partisans were generally uncoordinated.
German pacification operations in the summer and autumn 1941 were able to curb the partisan activity significantly. Many units went underground, and generally, in late 1941 to early 1942, the partisan units were not undertaking significant military operations, but limiting themselves to sorting out organizational problems, building up support and establishing an influence over the local people. Although data is incomplete, at the end of 1941, 99 partisan detachments and about 100 partisan groups are known to have operated in Belarus. In Winter 1941-1942, 50 partisan detachments and about 50 underground organisations and groups operated in Belarus. During December 1941, German guard forces in the Army Group "Center" rear comprised 4 security divisions, 1 SS Infantry Brigade, 2 SS Infantry Brigades, 260 companies of different branches of service.
The Battle of Moscow gave partisan morale a boost. However, the real turning point in the development of the partisan movement in Belarus, and on the German-occupied territories in general, came in the course of the Soviet Winter 1942 offensive.
Vitsyebsk gate and West Belarus
The turning point in the development of the Soviet partisan movement came with the opening of the Vitsyebsk gate, a corridor connecting Soviet and German-occupied territories, in February 1942. The partisan units were included in overall Soviet strategical developments shortly after that, and centralized organizational and logistical support were organized, with the Gate's existence being a very important factor in assisting detachments on occupied territory. As early as the spring of 1942 the Soviet partisans were able to effectively undermine German troops and significantly hamper their operations in the region.
Overwhelmingly, Jews and even small-scale Soviet activists felt more secure in the partisan ranks than in civilian life on occupied territory. A direct boost to the partisan numbers were Red Army POWs of the local origin, who were released in the autumn of 1941, but ordered by Germans to return to the concentration camps in March 1942.
In spring 1942, the concentration of smaller partisan units into brigades began, prompted by the experience of the first year of war. The coordination, numerical buildup, structural reworking and established supply lines all translated into greatly increased partisan capability, which showed in the increased instances of sabotage on the railroads, with hundreds of engines and thousands of cars destroyed by the end of the year.
In 1942, terror campaigns against the territorial administration, staffed by local "collaborators and traitors" was additionally emphasized. This resulted, however, in definite divisions within the local civilian population, resulting in the beginning of the organisation of anti-partisan units with native personnel in 1942. By November 1942, Soviet partisan units in Belarus numbered about 47,000 personnel.
In January 1943, out of 56,000 partisan personnel, 11,000 were operating in western Belarus, 3.5 fewer per 10,000 local people than in the east, and even more so (up to 5-6 factor) if one accounts for much more efficient Soviet evacuation measures in the East during 1941. Smallholders in the west showed "surprising" sympathies to the partisans. There is strong evidence that this was a decision of the central Soviet authorities, who refrained from a larger accumulation of partisan forces in western Belarus, and let Polish underground military structures grow in these lands during 1941-1942, in order to strengthen relations with the Polish government in exile of Sikorsky. A certain level of military cooperation, imposed by the command headquarters, was noted between Soviet partisans and Armia Krajowa (AK). People of Polish nationality were, to an extent, avoided during the terror campaigns in 1942. After the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Polish government in exile in April 1943, the situation changed radically. From this moment on, the AK was treated as a hostile military force.
1943-1944
The buildup of the Soviet partisan force in western Belarus was ordered and implemented during 1943, with nine brigades, 10 detachments and 15 operational groups transferred from east to west, effectively tripling the partisan force there (reaching 36,000 troops in December 1943). It is estimated that around 10-12,000 personnel were transferred, and about same number came from local volunteers. The buildup of the military force was complemented by the intensification of the underground Communist Party structures and propaganda activity.
The Soviet victory at Stalingrad, a certain lessening of the terror campaign (de facto from December 1942, formally permitted in February 1943) and an amnesty promised to collaborators who wished to return to the Soviet camp were significant factors in the 1943 growth of Soviet partisan forces. Desertions from the ranks of the German-controlled police and military formations strengthened units, with sometimes whole detachments coming over to the Soviet camp, including the Volga Tatar battalion (900 personnel, February 1943), and Gil-Rodionov's 1st Russian People's Brigade of the SS (2,500 personnel, August 1943). In all about 7,000 people of different anti-Soviet formations joined the Soviet partisan force, while about 1,900 specialists and commanders were dropped into occupied Belarus in 1943. However, local people mainly accounted for most increases in the Soviet partisan force.
In autumn 1943, the partisan force in the Belarusian SSR totaled about 153,000, and by the end of 1943 numbers reached about 122,000, with about 30,000 put behind the front line in the course of the liberation of the eastern parts of the Belarusian SSR (end 1943). The partisan movement was so strong that by 1943-1944 there were entire regions in occupied Belarus where Soviet authority was re-established deep inside the German held territories. There were even partisan kolkhozes raising crops and livestock to produce food for the partisans.
During the battles for the liberation of Belarus, partisans comprised the fourth Belorussian front. After the liberation of the Belarusian SSR, about 180,000 partisans joined the Soviet Army in 1944.
During the 1941-1944 period, the total numbers of the Soviet partisan force in Belarus reached 374,000, about 70,000 in the urban underground, and about 400,000 in the reserves. Among Soviet partisans in Belarus were people of 45 different nationalities and 4,000 non-Soviet citizens (including 3,000 Poles, 400 Czechs and Slovaks, 300 Yugoslavians, etc.). Around 65% of Belarusian partisans were local people.
Ukraine
Alongside Belarus, Ukraine was the first and hardest hit by the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer and autumn of 1941. The consequences for the area and for the population that remained under the occupation were devastating. The Nazi regime made little effort to exploit the anti-Soviet sentiments among the Ukrainians that developed from the years of Stalinist rule. Despite the fact that some Ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans, the Nazi leadership chose to take a hard line, preserving the collective-farm system, systematically deporting the local population to Greater Germany as a slave labour force and carrying out the Holocaust on Ukrainian territory. Under these circumstances most of the population resisted the Nazi onslaught and the partisan movement spread over the occupied territory.
The first Soviet partisan detachments in Ukraine appeared in the 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 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 was officially hostile to the independent nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), local partisan commanders sometimes established neutral relations with its groups. However, during 1941-1942 and after 1943 both sides set out to destroy the other. Soviet partisans also targeted families, assistants and supporters of the Ukrainian members of the Waffen-SS Division Galizien (Galicia).
Russia
In the Bryansk region Soviet partisans controlled large areas behind the German lines. In the summer of 1942 they effectively held more than 14,000 square kilometers with a 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. The Belgorod, Oryol, Kursk, Novgorod, Leningrad, Pskov and Smolensk regions also had significant partisan activity during the occupation period. In the Oryol and Smolensk regions partisans were led by Dmitry Medvedev.
In 1943, after the 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 Nikolai Karotamm (a communist official of Estonian SSR). The groups that operated in Estonia were very small, brought by aeroplane 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 Sprogis. Another prominent commander was the historian Vilis Samsons. His 3,000 man unit is credited with the destruction of nearly 130 German trains; however, this seems to be a fabrication. There is no mention at all of this kind of action in the RVD Riga documents nor any mention by the Latvian and Estonian railway workers which were on the payroll of RVD Riga in 1941 - 1944.
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 Soviet-held territory. On the 26 November 1942 the Command of the Lithuanian Partisan Movement (Lietuvos partizaninio judejimo štabas) was created in Moscow, headed by the First Secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party Antanas Snieckus, who fled to Moscow in the wake of the German invasion in 1941. Although the Soviet partisans in Lithuania were nominally under the control of the Command of the Lithuanian Partisan Movement, the guerrilla warfare specialists and instructors sent by it reported directly to the Central Command of the Partisan Movement. Modern Lithuanian historians estimate that about half of the Soviet partisans in Lithuania were escapees from POW and concentration camps, Soviet activists and 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, the role of Soviet dissident groups in Lithuania in Second World War was minimal.
Finland and Karelia
Soviet partisans operated in Finland and in Karelia during the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944. At 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. Also segregation in education and medical care between Karelians and Russians created resentment among the 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 occupied territory, but their personnel came from all over the Soviet Union and that they mainly operated from the Soviet side of the front line.
The only major operation ended with failure when the 1st Partisan Brigade was destroyed at the beginning of August 1942 at Lake Seesjärvi. Most operations at the southern part of the front consisted only of a few individuals, but in the roadless northern part, units of 40 to 100 partisans were not uncommon. Partisans distributed propaganda newspapers, "Truth" in the Finnish language and "Lenin's Banner" in the Russian language. One of the most famous 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 on the Finnish side of the border, almost two thirds of the attacks targeted civilians, killing 200 and injuring 50, mostly women, children and elderly. 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 a six-month-old baby and a three-year-old child, before fleeing.
The partisan operations against Finns were estimated as being highly ineffectual. Already in the autumn of 1941 the report of Komissariat of Interior Affairs was highly critical, and it became only worse as the report of counter intelligence agency at April 1944 states. The main explanations which were given to the failure of the operations were the isolated headquarters at Belomorsk which did not know what operative units were doing, personnel which had no local knowledge and were partly made up of criminals (10-20% of all personnel were conscripted from prisons) without knowledge of how to operate in harsh terrain and climate, Finnish efficient counter-partisan patrolling (more than two-thirds of the sent small partisan groups were completely destroyed) and Finnish internment of the ethnic Russian civilian population in concentration camps from the regions with active partisan operations. Internees were released to secure areas, preventing partisans from receiving local supplies. In addition many Soviet Karelians reported to the Finns the movements of the
partisans and did not support the Soviet Partisans.
Outside the Soviet Union
Interestingly, there were formations calling themselves Soviet partisans who operated a long way outside Soviet territory. Usually they were organized by former Soviet citizens who escaped from Nazi camps. One such formation was Rodina (Motherland), acting in France.
In 1944, the Soviet partisans provided "proletarian internationalist" help to the people of German-occupied Central Europe, with 7 united formations and 26 larger detachments operating in Poland, and 20 united formations and detachments operating in Czechoslovakia.
Poland
In the former eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic, attached to the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet Republics after the Soviet invasion of Poland, the organization and operation of Soviet partisans were similar to that in Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. However, there were notable differences in the interaction of partisans with Polish national forces and the local population.
After an initial period of wary collaboration with the Polish resistance, the conflicts between these groups intensified, especially as Poles were principally the victims of Soviet terror between 1939 and 1941, and Soviet diplomatic relations with the Polish exile government in London continued to worsen and were broken off completely by Soviet government in the aftermath of the discovery of the Katyn Massacre in 1943. In addition to sabotage aimed at the German war machine, Soviet partisans started extensive operations against both the Polish underground and the civilian population of the areas seized by the Soviets in 1939. The campaign of terror resulted in reports to London of horrifying looting, rape and murder. This made many local AK commanders consider the Soviets as just another enemy and eventually on June 22 1943 Soviets partisans were ordered by Moscow to take on the Polish units as well. The study by German-Polish historian Bogdan Musial suggests that Soviet partisans, instead of engaging German military and police targets, targeted the poorly armed and trained Belarusian and Polish self-defense forces. The partisans killed about 128 Poles in Naliboki, on May 8, 1943.
In the wake of growing hostilities between Soviet and Armia Krajowa (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 Krzyzanowski, cooperated for a time with the German military units in the fight against Soviet partisans. 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 to be discontinued and the guilty parties disciplined.
Major operations
 - Vasily Korzh raid, Autumn 1941 - March 23 1942. 1000 km raid of a partisan formation in the Minsk and Pinsk Oblasts of Belarus.
- Battle of Bryansk forests, May 1942. Partisan battle 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 in Bryansk forests and Eastern Ukraine.
- Battle of Bryansk forests, May-June, 1943. Partisan battle in the Bryansk forests with 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. It involved concentrated actions by more than 100,000 partisan fighters from Belarus, the Leningrad Oblast, the Kalinin Oblast, the Smolensk Oblast, the Oryol Oblast and Ukraine within an area 1000 km along the front and 750 km wide. 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 in the Soviet victory in Kursk battle.
- Operation "Concerto", September 19 - November 1 1943. "Concerto" 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 from Belarus, Karelia, the Kalinin Oblast, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Crimea participated in the operations. The area of the operation was 900 km along the front (excluding Karelia and Crimea) and 400 km wide. Despite bad weather that only permitted the airlift of less than a half of the planned supplies, the operation lead to a 35-40% decrease in the railroad capacity in the area of operations. This was critical for the success of Soviet military operations in the autumn of 1943. In Belarus alone the partisans claimed the 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 Belarusian partisans and German punitive expeditions.
- Battle of Borisovsk-Begoml, April 22 - May 15 1944. Major battle between Belarusian partisans and 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). Upwards of 300,000 partisans took part in the operation.
Controversies
Nature of partisan resistance activities
Although the Eastern Front was notorious for the cruelty towards prisoners of war and the enemy in general, partisan activities are thought to have intensified this. Partisan resistance activities included assassinations, bombings and sabotage of supply lines and other infrastructure. The Germans responded without mercy to any suspected partisans they could find. Initially Hitler encouraged mass reprisals as a means to reduce the occupied population and provide greater "Lebensraum" for Germany.
Soviet communist party master plan included plans for provoking the German occupiers. Provoking the Germans was not very difficult and the Germans responded with 100 to 1 kill ratios. Though this caused lots of Soviet civilian deaths but it created a permanent barrier between the German occupiers and the occupied Soviet civilians. After about a year and a half of war there were very few neutral and even fewer pro Nazi Soviet villages. The villagers understood it had become a war of extermination and they decided that no matter what happened they were going to take a Germans with them. Soviet partisans were known to sometimes torture or mutilate their victims after they had been captured or had surrendered.. Any partisans captured by the Germans faced certain death. The Germans would publicly hang those who were considered partisans. The pictures of the hangings, especially when it included young boys and girls, were used by the Soviet media to inflame the red army and the long suffering Soviet public. In this sense Stalin’s speech in 1941 “If they want a war of extermination we will give them a war of extermination” was fulfilled.
Initially the nazis felt that mass reprisal killings and collective punishments would intimidate the occupied population and the peasants would become submissive. The Soviet communist party wanted the occupation to be exposed in all its murderous evil. For the first year and a half the nazis killed hundreds of thousands of innocent peasants. But after that year and a half there were very few neutral peasants and even fewer pro nazi peasants. The Russian peasantry now clearly understood the Germans wanted to enslave and exterminate them while "liberating" their resources.^
This year and a half period could be termed as the incubation period. During this period the soviet communist party used careful military/political activity to create a fully aware population in the occupied areas. The military arm of the occupied people was the partisans. After the liquidation of the German 6th army at Stalingrad the partisan movement took off. All the year and half of military-political activities started to pay off as the occupied population saw a glimmer of hope. Partisan activities were a significant factor in delaying the nazi build-up in Kursk and during the actual German attack on Kursk when replacement supplies were repeatedly held up.
Many Germans felt hatred for Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian citizens in general and for Soviet activists in particular. There was a brutality in general treatment not seen in occupied Western Europe. While some form of sympathy often existed between ordinary German or Soviet soldiers and their captives, this was not the case with captured partisans.
The nazis also tried to establish pro nazi “freedom fighters” from amongst their Soviet prisoners. But the general nazi attitude towards the Eastern Europeans was to treat them as racially inferior animals, such attitudes significantly reducing the appeal of serving them. A notable nazi collaborator was General Vlasov.
Relations with civilians
To survive, resistance fighters largely relied on the civilian population. This included access to food, clothing and other supplies. However, in the areas they controlled, there was limited opportunity to operate their own agriculture. As is typical in guerrilla warfare, Soviet partisans requisitioned food, livestock and clothes from local peasants; in some cases the supply was voluntary, in others coerced. The results of such requisitioning were made more severe by the fact that Axis occupation forces had been already carrying out their own requisitions. This led to conflicts with partisans in areas hostile 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 voluntary collaboration units, but also civilians accused of being collaborators or sometimes even those who were considered not to support the partisans strongly enough. In the areas that were initially sympathetic towards the Germans, such as the Ukraine, partisans were often considered a threat to local people themselves.
German reprisals
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 brutal countermeasures from the Nazi occupiers. Trying to limit partisan activities, German command employed of mass killings of hostages among the residents of areas supporting partisan forces. In case of partisan attack or sabotage, a number of locals would be executed. Such hostage operations happened in the form of preliminary arrests, post-attack retaliation actions, and/or compulsory "watch-groups" deployed on vulnerable sites and killed if they did not avert the attack. In Belorussia alone, .
According to Soviet sources, the partisans tried ways to limit hostage executions or other murders in retaliation for their actions, 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.
Activity and its effect on local civilians was a permanent issue of controversy among partisans.
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 (sometimes only if they brought their own weapons); 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.
Fight against independence movements
In addition to fighting the Nazis, Soviet partisans fought against organizations which sought to establish independent non-communist states of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine. Most of the resistance groups in the Baltic States and Poland sought to re-establish independent states free of Soviet domination.
Soviet partisans are therefore a controversial issue in those countries. In Latvia some former Soviet partisans, such as Vasiliy Kononov have been prosecuted for alleged war crimes against locals during Soviet partisan activity.
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, at different times, engaged in the armed conflicts with the Soviet partisans, Nazi occupants and the Polish resistance. Although UPA initially attempted to find a common anti-Soviet ground with Nazi occupiers against the USSR, it soon was driven underground as it became apparent that the Germans' intentions for Ukraine were to establish a German colony with a subjugated local population, not an independent country as the UPA hoped for. As such, the UPA was driven underground and fought both the Nazi occupiers and the Soviet forces (including partisans) at the same time.
Later, UPA and Soviet partisan leaders tried to negotiate a temporary alliance, but Moscow NKVD Headquarters began harshly suppressing such moves by its local commanders. With two sides becoming established enemies, the Ukrainian civil population was primarily concerned with the survival.
Ukrainian nationalist resistance to Soviet rule continued into the mid-late 1950s.
Relations with the locals in Baltic States region
Soviet partisans had very little support from the Baltic countries' populations. Their involvement in controversial actions that affected the civilian population (for example, the killing of the Polish civilians in Kaniukai, in an event that has come to be called the Koniuchy massacre, and the destruction of the village of Bakaloriškes). The anti-Soviet resistance movements in the Baltic states, known as the Forest Brothers, (established just before the Soviet re-occupation in 1944), and local self-defence units often came into conflict with Soviet partisan groups, much as the situation between Ukrainian partisans and the UPA in western Ukraine developed. 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 return it to the Soviet Union after the war. Only in April 1944 did Polish and Soviet partisans started coordinating their actions against the Germans.
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. Soviet partisans inflicted thousands of casualties on Axis forces. In Belarus alone the partisans claimed to have killed, injured and taken prisoner some 500,000 German soldiers . Based on German sources, historians consider these claims to be far exaggerated. According to German historian Christian Gerlach, about 6,000 to 7,000 German troops were killed by partisans in Belarus, not including local auxiliaries.
List of famous Soviet partisans
Gallery
See also
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).
- Jack Kagan, Dov Cohen: Surviving the Holocaust With the Russian Jewish Partisans, 1998, ISBN 0853033366
- Smilovitskii, Leonid: Antisemitism in the Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944: The Case of Belorussia in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 20, 2006
External links
Pro-partisans
Analysis
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