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Revision as of 15:16, 3 June 2006 by Halibutt (talk | contribs) (if you insist...)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)- This article is about the activity of Soviet partisans in the territories of the Second Polish Republic that in most part were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945
Soviet partisans also operated in the territories of the Second Polish Republic. Poland was annexed and partitioned by Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Polish September Campaign of 1939. On the pre-war Polish territory annexed by Soviets (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Lithuania and Białystok area, known to Poles as Kresy) the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941, soon after the German’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Initially the Soviet partisan groups were formed primarily in the areas of Nowogródek (modern Navahrudak), Lida and Wilno (modern Vilnius) out of Red Army solders who evaded capture by the advancing German forces. Lacking support of the local population, the Soviet partisan groups retreated to various large forest complexes in the area, where they hid from the German rear and anti-partisan units.
Initially, until early 1943, the Soviet partisans focused primarily on survival deep behind enemy lines, with their activity limited mostly to sabotage and diversion rather than armed struggle against German forces and Lithuanian collaborationist police. During that period various Soviet partisan groups also collaborated with the local Polish resistance of ZWZ-AK. The Polish underground was established in the area in fall 1939. It was both anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet. The latter attitude stemmed from the memories of Soviet terror between 1939 and 1941, and was reinforced by the conduct of the Soviet partisans.
As the eastern front was nearing the area, and diplomatic relations between Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union were broken off in the aftermath of the discovery of the Katyn Massacre, most of the collaboration between Polish and Soviet partisans came to an end, and as ordered by Moscow on June 22 1943 the Soviet partisans started an open fight both against the German forces and the local Polish partisans . Frequent requisitions of food in local villages and brutal reprisal actions against villages considered disloyal to the Soviet Union sparked creation of numerous self-defence units, often joining the ranks of the Armia Krajowa. Similar assaults on the Polish resistance organizations took place also in the Ukraine. Communist propaganda routinely referred to the pro-Western Polish underground army as “bands of the White Poles”. According to another propaganda directive, the Polish underground was to be referred to as “the protégés of the Gestapo”. On 23 June 1943, the Soviet partisan leadership authorized denouncing the Polish underground to the Nazis. Later, orders went out to “shoot the leaders” and “discredit, disarm, and dissolve” their units. Feigning friendship, the Soviets lured at least two sizable Polish guerrilla detachments to their destruction.
The Soviets partisants preferred to assault the poorly armed and trained Belarusan and Polish self-defense forces much more often then German military and police targets like military transports and or other hard targets. By the end of 1943, the Soviet could claim a significant victory in their war aganst the Poles: most large landed estates, owned by the Poles, had been destroyed by the Soviet partisans.
The struggle continued until the arrival of the Red Army in 1944. From then, over the period of the next few years, Soviets and their proxies, the Polish communists, would work to succesfully eradicate the remains of the pro-Western Polish underground.
See also
References
- ^ Template:Pl icon Zygmunt Boradyn (1999). Niemen rzeka niezgody. Polsko-sowiecka wojna partyzancka na Nowogródczyźnie 1943-1944. Warsaw: Rytm. p. 336. ISBN 8387893080.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|chapterurl=and|coauthors=(help) - ^ Review of Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland, by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, in Sarmatian Review, Arpil 2006
- ^ Template:Pl icon Michał Patyna (2004). "Raport z badań przeprowadzonych podczas obozu naukowego KWSM na Białorusi i Litwie w lipcu 2003 r.". In Marian Wolański (ed.). Zeszyty Naukowe Koła Wschodnioeuropejskiego Stosunków Międzynarodowych (pdf). Zdzisław J. Winnicki. Wrocław: Wrocław University. pp. 7–17. ISSN 1730-654X.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Template:Pl icon Ryszard Zieliński. "W sierpniu 1943 r. partyzantka dokonała dywersji na torach kolejowych między Ostrogiem a Sławutą". Na Wołyniu i Podolu, Polacy Donbasu. Towarzystwo Kultury Polskiej na Donbasie. Retrieved 2006-05-01.