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Soviet partisans

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Template:ImageStackRight The Soviet partisans were members of the resistance movement which fought against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Despite the significant degree of self-determination and relatively wide public support, the movement has been mostly organized and controlled by the Soviet government, namely its secret police agency NKVD.

Beginning of anti-German guerilla resistance

At the end of June 1941, immediately after German forces crossed the Soviet border, the Communist Party ordered Party members to organize an underground resistance in the occupied territories (pre-war plans and candidates for such operation existed). Although formal creation was ordered in 1941, it was only in 1942-43 that underground cells sprang up throughout Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russian regions such as Bryansk occupied by the invaders. Partisans waged guerrilla warfare against the occupiers, and enjoyed increasing support from the local population which was antagonized by German brutality.

Partisans consisted of people left behind the German lines, including escapees from German prisoner of war camps, and refugees from the German terror. No formal recruitment procedures existed, although some partisan commanders (especially those in charge of large units) experimented with mandatory enlisting of young peasants, i.e. conscript service. However, this practice has not become widespread because low motivation of such "conscripts" fed desertings and defections among them.

While in some areas of Ukraine and Belarus the local population was initially supportive to the German occupation that drove out the oppressive Stalinist regime, they soon found out that the Nazi rule was even more brutal as future of locals was seen as getting killed, expelled or used for slave labor. Naturally, under these circumstances, some locals rallied to join the anti-occupation resistance, while the majority became passive supporters and casual assistants to partisans.

Soon, the centralized Partisan Movement Headquarters and support infrastructure was created by the NKVD in the areas stil controlled by Soviets. To answer ethnic issues, there were autonomous Headquarters for each Soviet republic (e.g., Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters (Template:Lang-uk)), although under strict control of NKVD leadership. The Headquarters began supporting partisan groups behind enemy lines with various supplies through airlifts and established radio connection with most of them.

Later NKVD 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 (guarding GULAG camps), and also from 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 in Soviet propaganda, literature and history.

Areas of operations

Partisans in Belarus

Belarusian guerrillas liquidated, injured and took prisoner some 500 000 German soldiers.
File:Soviet guerilla.jpg
Soviet partisans in the forests of Belarus

Belarus had the largest number of Soviet partisans, numbering over 300,000 fighters under the leadership of Panteleymon Ponomarenko, Petr Masherov, Kiril Mazurov and others. As early as the spring of 1942 they were able to effectively harass German troops and significantly hamper their operations in the region. 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 who were growing and producing food and livestock for the partisans.

Partisans in Ukraine

The first Ukrainian Soviet partisan detachments appeared in Chernihiv and Sumy regions. They developed out of Mykola Popudrenko's and Sydir Kovpak's underground groups, but only became a formidable force in 1943. At this stage they were fully controlled and significantly supported by the Moscow Headquaters, operating throughout occupied Ukraine (mostly in northeastern part) and numbered over 150,000 fighters. In 1944 Ukrainian partisans led by Kovpak and were even able to raid the enemy forces in Romania, Slovakia and Poland.

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 leaders have been occasionally trying to create a temporarily alliance with Soviet partisans and sometimes met an understading, but Moscow NKVD Headquarters began harshly persecuting such attemts of its local partisan commanders. With two sides becoming established enemies, the Soviet partisans found no significant support from the population of Western Ukraine (which was predominantly supporting UPA).

Partisans in western Russia

In Bryansk region 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 regain control over 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. Some historians believe that was done mostly to secure the anti-Soviet elements on these territories, which could otherwise provoke self-determination attempts after Axis withdrawal.

Partisans in the Baltic States

Soviet Partisans also operated in the Baltic States. In Estonia, they were under the leadership of Nikolay Karotamm. 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, head of a unit of 3,000 men. He is responsible for destroying about 130 German military trains. In Lithuania, the partisans had a separate command from November 1942, under Antanas Sniečkus. In the Vilnius Ghetto, a resistance organisation called FPO-Fareinikte Partisaner Organizatzie was established by Communist and Zionist partisans - their first leaders were Yitzhak Witenberg, a member of the Communist Party, and the writer Abba Kovner.

In all three Baltic States the largest number of the Soviet partisans were Russians, Jews and Belarusians. The resistance movement of the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians was separate, and generally hostile to the Soviet political sytem, therefore, only a small number of people of these nationalities joined the cause of the Soviet partisans. Like in Ukraine, the two resistance sides became enemies.

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.

Soviet partisans inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties on Axis forces and contributed significantly to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. In Belarus alone the guerillas liquidated, injured and took prisoner some 500 000 German soldiers

War crimes and political conflicts in the partisan movement

Among the targets of Soviet partisans were not only Axis military but also civilians accused to be Nazi collaborators or sometimes even those who did not supported partisans strong enough. As with other guerilla wars, some of these attacks might be classified as war crimes, the most infamous one been the Koniuchy massacre. Also, partisans' targeting of local nationalist guerillas in Ukraine, Baltic states and Poland have been far beyond the goal of fighting the occupation.

Another widespread war crime committed by the Soviet partisans was compulsory commissioning of food, livestock and clothes from local peasants. The results of this typical guerilla activity were made more severe by the fact that Axis occupational forces have been already seizing food from people in enormous amounts to support their war economies. Thus, partisans extorting even more supplies were often making their compatriots starve rather than protecting them.

Today, in Latvia some former Soviet partisans are prosecuted for the alleged war crimes against locals during the occupation.

The most massive war atrocity of Soviet partisans has been committed in an indirect way - by ignoring and provoking the brutal countermeasures of Nazi occupants. Trying to limit partisan activities, German command applied the tactic of taking 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 "watchgroups" deployed on vulnerable sites and killed if they haven't averted the attack. Usually, Soviet partisans (especially those directly controlled from Moscow) were not taking such imminent victims of their raids into account.

According to Soviet propaganda, 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, many historians believe such attemts were of little effect. Moreover, some scholars state that partisan leadership was provoking German atrocities deliberately: to convince the locals that collaboration with occupants is impossible.

These crimes against own population has been feeding a permanent political controversy among partisans, answered by the NKVD in a rapid and violent way. The best known episode of such controversy is the case of Semyon Rudniev, former Army officer and popular Commissar of the large partisan formation in Ukraine led by Sydir Kovpak. Unlike Kovpak (a career Communist chief) and Moscow-trained commanders, Rudniev has been a "spontaneous" partisan leader not committed to the NKVD-dictated strategy and approaches. Historians believe that the conflict between Kovpak (actually, the Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters in Moscow) and Rudniev caused a suspicious death of the latter during the "Carpathian Raid" of their unit.

According to Soviet propaganda, Rudniev, recovering from a wound, killed himself in a sudden German attack, in order to not be taken alive. The incident was eyewitnessed only by small group of his guards (mostly killed in that action). But some studies suggest that Rudniev might have been assassinated by his personal radio operator (a girl trained in Moscow) by a direct order from NKVD, and the whole fight was a set-up.

After the war ended, some Soviet partisans were repressed (mostly sent to labor camps) on various grounds, although most of the allegations were cleared in 1955 when a Soviet pardon was announced to all POWs and collaborators.

List of famous Soviet partisans

See also

References

Encyclopedic and scholarly

Government-influenced sources


External links

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