Anti-Soviet guerrilla fighters
Latvian national partisans
(
Latvian
:
Nacion?lie partiz?ni
) were
Latvian
pro-independence
partisans
who
waged guerrilla warfare
against
Soviet
rule during and after the
Second World War
.
Aftermath of World War I
[
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]
The decisions of the 1917 congresses and the declaration of independence on November 18, 1918, with
Latgale
as part of the
Latvian
state, moved both the
military of Latvia
as well as local
partisans
to struggle for the liberation of Latgale. This was a difficult task, given the territorial interests of the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
,
Second Polish Republic
, and
Belarusian People's Republic
. On June 10, 1919 the
Lithuanian army
reached the territory controlled by the partisan (
Green Guard
).
[1]
Aftermath of World War II
[
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]
Latvian
national
partisans
waged
guerrilla warfare
against
Soviet
rule during the
Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940
during World War II, and the
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
after the war. Similar
anti-Soviet
resistance
groups fought against Soviet rule in
Estonia
,
Lithuania
,
Belarus
,
Poland
,
Romania
,
Hungary
and
Galicia (Eastern Europe)
.
The
Red Army
occupied
the formerly independent
Latvia
in 1940?1941 and, after the period of
occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany
, again in 1944?1945. As
Stalinist
repression
intensified over the following years, thousands of residents of this country used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and basis for armed
anti-Soviet resistance
.
Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defence, to large and well-organised groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle.
Background
[
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]
Caught between two powers
[
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]
Latvia
had gained her
independence
in 1918 after the collapse of the
Russian Empire
. The ideals of
self-determination
had taken hold with many people as a result of having established an independent country for the first time in history. Allied declarations such as the
Atlantic Charter
had offered promise of a
post-war world
in which Latvia could re-establish itself. Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime followed by the Nazi regime, many people were unwilling to accept another occupation.
[2]
In the first weeks of
Operation Barbarossa
Latvia was overrun by German
Army Group North
. The German advance had been so swift that thousands of Red Army troops had been by-passed without taking them as prisoners. Thousands of Latvians joined partisan units which were organized by Latvian officers in the rear of the Soviet front line. The Latvians now collected the Reds and sometimes fought fierce battles with those who resisted. The national partisans ahead of the German front line took
Sigulda
on July 2 (two days before the Germans). They secured
Al?ksne
on July 5, but that evening strong Red Army forces, retreating from the Germans, reached the town, and the partisans withdrew without a fight. The next morning the Reds departed, and the partisans re-occupied the town. The Germans occupied Al?ksne on July 7. At the village of M?lupe the partisans attacked the headquarters of the 183rd Rifle Division, killing its commander and several staff officers and capturing their supplies and transportation. By July 8 the Red Army had retreated beyond the Latvian border.
[3]
Preparations for partisan operations in Courland were begun during the German occupation, but the leaders of these nationalist units were arrested by Nazi authorities.
[4]
Longer-lived resistance units began to form during the last months of the war; their ranks were composed of a good number of
Latvian Legion
soldiers as well as civilians.
[5]
On 8 September 1944 in
Riga
, the leadership of the
Latvian Central Council
adopted a
Declaration on the restoration of the State of Latvia
.
[6]
The adoption of the Declaration was an attempt to restore de facto independence to the Republic of Latvia, in hopes of international support and by taking advantage of the interval between changes of occupying powers. The Declaration prescribed that the
Satversme
is the fundamental law of the restored Republic of Latvia, and provided for establishment of a Cabinet of Ministers that would organise the restoration of the State of Latvia.
Some of the most prominent LCC accomplishments are related to its military branch ? General
J?nis Kurelis
group (the so-called "kurelie?i") with Lieutenant Roberts Rubenis battalion which carried out the armed resistance against Waffen SS forces.
The partisan operations in Latvia had some basis in
Hitler
's
authorisation
of a full withdrawal from Estonia in mid-September 1944?and in the fate of
Army Group Courland
, among the last of Hitler's forces to surrender after it became trapped in
the
Courland Pocket
on the Latvian peninsula in 1945. After the capitulation of Germany on May 8, 1945 approximately 4000 legionaries went to the forests.
[7]
Others, such as
Waffen SS
commanders
Alfons Rebane
and
Alfr?ds Rieksti??
escaped to the
United Kingdom
and
Sweden
and participated in
Allied
intelligence
operations in aid of the partisans.
The ranks of the resistance swelled with the Red Army's attempts at
conscription
in Latvia after the war, with fewer than half the registered conscripts reporting in some districts. The widespread harassment of disappearing conscripts' families pushed more people to evade authorities in the forests. Many enlisted men deserted, taking their weapons with them.
[2]
The partisan war
[
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]
There was not any significant support to the national partisans from the West. Most of the agents sent by the Western-
British
(
MI6
),
American
, and
Swedish
secret intelligence services
in a period from 1945 to 1954 (about 25 agents) were arrested by
KGB
and could not get into contact with partisans. And also this poor support diminished significantly after MI6's
Operation Jungle
was severely compromised by the activities of British spies (
Kim Philby
and
others
) who forwarded information to the Soviets, enabling the
KGB
to identify, infiltrate and eliminate many Latvian partisan units and cut others off from any further contact with Western
intelligence
operatives.
The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Latvian national partisans lasted over a decade and cost at least thousands of lives. Estimates for the number of fighters in each country vary. Misiunas and
Taagepera
[8]
estimate that figures reached between 10,000 and 15,000 in Latvia.
The number of active combatants peaked at between 10,000 and 15,000, while the total number of resistance fighters was as high as 40,000.
[4]
One author gives a figure of up to 12,000 grouped in 700 bands during the 1945?55 decade, but definitive figures are unavailable.
[9]
Over time, the partisans replaced their German weapons with Russian ones. The partisan organizations which attempted to unite and coordinate their activities were the Latvian National Partisan Association in
Vidzeme
and
Latgale
, the Northern Courland Partisan Organization, Latvian National Partisan Organization in
Courland
, Latvian Defenders of the Homeland (partisan) Association in Latgale and the "Fatherland Hawks" in Southern Courland.
[7]
In some 3,000 raids, the partisans inflicted damage on uniformed military personnel, party cadres (particularly in rural areas), buildings, and ammunition depots. Communist authorities reported 1,562 Soviet personnel killed and 560 wounded during the entire resistance period.
[9]
The Latvian national partisans were most active in the border regions. The forests hid the partisan dugouts, their workshops for weapons, their printing presses for leaflets and underground newspapers. Areas where they were most active included
Abrene district
,
Il?kste
,
Dundaga
,
Taurkalne
,
Lub?na
,
Aloja
,
Smiltene
,
Rauna
and
L?v?ni
. In the Northern regions, they had ties with Estonian Forest Brothers. As in Estonia, the partisans were killed off and infiltrated by the
MVD
and
NKVD
over time, and as in Estonia, Western assistance and intelligence was severely compromised by Soviet
counter-intelligence
and Latvian double agents such as
Augusts Bergmanis
and
Vidvuds ?veics
.
[10]
Furthermore, the Soviets gradually consolidated their rule in the cities, help from rural civilians was not as forthcoming, and special military and security units were sent to control the partisans.
[9]
The last groups emerged from the forest and surrendered to the authorities in 1957.
[10]
Decline of the resistance movements
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]
To destroy the partisan base of support
major deportation
took place in March 1949. Most part of supporters were deported and others were forced to join
kolkhozs
. By the early 1950s, the Soviet forces had eradicated most of the Latvian national resistance. Intelligence 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 national partisans laid down their weapons when offered an
amnesty
by the Soviet authorities after
Stalin
'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 Latvia was pressing for independence through peaceful means. (See
The Baltic Way
,
Singing Revolution
) Latvia regained their independence in 1991.
Aftermath, memorials and remembrances
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]
Many Latvian national partisans persisted in the hope that
Cold War
hostilities between the West,
which never formally recognized the Soviet occupation
, and the Soviet Union might escalate to an armed conflict in which Latvia would be liberated. This never materialised, and according to Laar
[2]
[
page needed
]
many of the surviving former
Forest Brothers
remained bitter that the West did not take on the Soviets militarily. (See also
Yalta Conference
,
Western betrayal
)
As the conflict was relatively undocumented by the Soviet Union (the Latvian fighters were never formally acknowledged as anything but "bandits and illegals"), some consider it and the Soviet-Latvian conflict as a whole to be an unknown or
forgotten war
.
[11]
[12]
[13]
Trivia
[
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]
The last known Forest Brother is
J?nis P?nups
who become a legal citizen again only on 9 May 1995. He went to the forest in 1944 as a member of a resistance organization called "Don't Serve the Occupant Army". J?nis P?nups never had a Soviet passport and his legal status was nonexistent during the era of Soviet occupation. His hideaway was located in the forest of the
Prei?i district
,
Pel??i parish
. In 1995 a new passport of the Republic of Latvia was issued to J?nis P?nups and he has said that he's waiting for a moment when he can see
Riga
? capital of once more independent Latvia.
[14]
See also
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]
Notes and references
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]
- ^
Les?ius, p. 133
- ^
a
b
c
Laar, Mart
. War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival, 1944?1956, translated by Tiina Ets, Compass Press, November 1992.
ISBN
0-929590-08-2
- ^
Mangulis, V. Latvia in the Wars of the 20th Century. CHAPTER IX JULY 1941 TO MAY 8, 1945
Archived
March 14, 2012, at the
Wayback Machine
. Historia.lv.
- ^
a
b
Laar, p. 24
- ^
Plakans, Andrejs.
The Latvians: A Short History
, 155. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 1995.
- ^
Edgars Andersons, Leon?ds Sili?? "Latvijas Centr?l? padome ? LCP" ? LCP, Upsala 1994
ISBN
9163017466
- ^
a
b
Bleiere, Daina; Ilgvars Butulis; Antonijs Zunda; Aivars Stranga; Inesis Feldmanis (2006).
History of Latvia : the 20th century
.
Riga
:
Jumava
. p. 364.
ISBN
9984-38-038-6
.
OCLC
70240317
.
- ^
Misiunas, Romuald and
Taagepera, Rein
.
The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940?1990
, University of California Press, expanded & updated edition, October 1, 1993.
ISBN
0-520-08228-1
- ^
a
b
c
Plakans, p. 155
- ^
a
b
Laar, p. 27
- ^
Kaszeta, Daniel J. Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940?1952, Lituanus, Volume 34, No. 3, Fall 1988. ISSN 0024-5089
- ^
Kuodyt?, Dalia and Tracevskis, Rokas. The Unknown War: Armed Anti-Soviet Resistance in Lithuania in 1944?1953, 2004.
ISBN
9986-757-59-2
- ^
Tarm, Michael.
The Forgotten War
Archived
2006-05-08 at the
Wayback Machine
, City Paper's The Baltic States Worldwide, 1996.
- ^
Gr?nberga M?ra, P?d?j? pasaules kara p?d?jais me?abr?lis // Diena ? 1995, May 18
Further reading
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External links
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]