The struggle of the Belarusian people against the Nazi invaders began in the early days\r\nof the war. It took many different forms – from non-compliance with the Occupation\r\nauthorities’ arrangements to actual armed resistance. Both individual, independent acts of\r\nresistance to the new regime occurred, as well as group activity. In addition, military\r\nand political resistance took a direction from Moscow. <\/p>\r\n\r\n
The partisan<\/strong> and underground<\/strong> activities provided the\r\nmost notable obstacles to the invaders. These partisan detachments were created in the\r\nenemy rear by a number of different bodies. They included the Red Army commanders who\r\nhappened to find themselves in the rear of the Nazi army, patriotic citizens of the\r\nRepublic but mostly members of the ruling political party and "Komsomol" in\r\naddition to all the Soviet organisations of Belarus, and other special military-organisational\r\ngroups.<\/p>\r\n\r\n By mid-1941, about 60 independent partisan detachments and groups<\/strong> were\r\noperating in the occupied territory of Belarus. They comprised 25-40 men each and were\r\nsub-divided into 2-3 combat units. The partisans were equipped mostly with small arms\r\ncollected from the battlefields or captured from the enemy. <\/p>\r\n\r\n These partisan detachments were also formed in the Soviet unoccupied territory. So,\r\nbetween July-September 1941, 430 detachments comprising over 8,000 men were formed in the\r\nshort-term partisans preparation centers <\/strong>and partisans training<\/strong>\r\ncourses<\/strong> in the eastern unoccupied part of Belarus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n In April 1942, by the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist\r\nParty (of Bolsheviks) of Belarus, <\/strong>the special courses were formed in the Vladimir\r\nregion (Russia), which came to be known as the Special Belarusian Assembly<\/strong>\r\nas the cadets were mostly Belarusians. About 3,000 men passed through these courses, 15\r\npartisan detachments and 100 organisational groups were formed and forwarded into the\r\nenemy rear. On May 30, 1942, the<\/strong> Central<\/strong> Headquarters\r\nof the Partisan Movement<\/strong> headed by P.K. Ponomarenko, First Secretary of the\r\nCentral Committee of the Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) of Belarus, was created under the\r\nStaff of the General Headquarters of the Soviet Armed Forces. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n In September 1942, the territorial department of the Headquarters was created – the\r\nBelarusian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement<\/strong>, headed by P.Z. Kalinin, Second\r\nSecretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus. The Belarusian\r\nHeadquarters of the Partisan Movement dealt with the formation of new partisan\r\ndetachments, personnel training, provision of partisans with arms and ammunition, planning\r\ncombat operations, and co-ordinating with Red Army units. The partisan movement came to\r\nhave great strategic importance due to its highly centralised leadership. In November\r\n1942, the<\/strong> Belarusian School of the Partisan Personnel Training<\/strong>\r\nwas formed from the Special Belarusian Training. From 170 to 200 men trained at the school\r\nsimultaneously. In September 1943, the school was reorganised into the Reserve\r\nTraining Center at the Belarusian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement<\/strong>. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Many different partisan units<\/strong> operated in the occupied territory of\r\nBelarus. They were formed mainly on army principles. The partisan units had to combat not only the police and defence forces, but also regular\r\nGerman troops<\/strong>, as well as their Allies’ units. When conducting punitive actions\r\nagainst partisans and local populace (in all, the Nazis carried out 140 punitive\r\nexpeditions), the Nazis were able to call upon 10 different-purpose divisions, air power,\r\ntank units and three field armies. However, even these combined forces were not able to\r\nliquidate the partisan movement but only temporarily drove them back. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Partisan activities resulted in the liberation of sizeable territories and the creation\r\nof partisan-controlled zones.<\/strong> By the end 1943, the partisans controlled\r\nover 108,000 sq. km of Belarus’ territory, which comprised nearly 59 % of the Republic’s\r\narea. 37,8 thousand sq. km were completely cleared from the enemy. In over 20 partisan\r\nzones, the economy was being restored & regional, district, inter-district party and\r\nKomsomol committees were functioning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n According to the official data, 373,492 men took part in the partisan movement\r\nin Belarus <\/strong>during the Great Patriotic War. The representatives of almost 70\r\nnationalities of the USSR and of many European countries were among the partisans in\r\nBelarus: hundreds of Poles, Czechs and Slovaks, dozens of the French, Hungarians,\r\nBelgians, Austrians, and Dutch.<\/p>\r\n\r\n The residents of the occupied cities, towns and villages of Belarus put up stiff\r\nresistance to the invaders. The underground struggle<\/strong> was carried out in\r\nclose cooperation with the partisan movement and with strong & active support from\r\nlocal residents. Underground members distributed Soviet newspapers and leaflets, revealed\r\nfascist propaganda, gave information on the front-line situation, organised sabotage\r\ngroups, assassinated the invaders and their supporters, carried out acts of sabotage in\r\ndifferent enemy establishments, collected intelligence for partisans and for the Red Army,\r\nliberated prisoners of war and sent them to the partisans. <\/p>\r\n\r\n The anti-fascist struggle was conducted by the individual patriots and independent\r\ngroups, as well as by the underground (extended network of organisations)<\/strong>\r\nwhich was created in a short time by the party, Komsomol and Soviet bodies. The district\r\nunderground party committees were organised in 89 districts of the Minsk, Vitebsk,\r\nMogilev, Gomel, Polesie and Pinsk regions even before the full occupation of the Republic.\r\nThe regional party committees went on working in 4 regions – the Gomel, Minsk, Mogilev and\r\nPinsk regions. In all, over 8,000 communists and 5,000 Komsomol members remained in the\r\noccupied territory of Belarus with special missions for underground work. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Underground organisations were operating in practically all of the most\r\ndensely-populated areas of occupied Belarus. The biggest was the underground anti-fascist\r\nactivity in Minsk. There, the struggle against the invaders was headed by the Communist\r\nParty of Belarus underground city committee, created in November 1941 at the conference of\r\nthe underground groups and organisations. 9,000 men belonged to the Minsk underground. In\r\n1942, two betrayals occurred, when hundreds of underground members, including several\r\nleaders, were arrested by the Nazis. Nevertheless, the struggle continued. A newspaper\r\n"Zvyazda" and propaganda leaflets were published. Close connections were\r\nestablished with the underground members in other areas. In total, over 1,500 acts of\r\nsabotage were organised, about 2,200 prisoners of war and several thousand civilians\r\njoined the partisans. <\/p>\r\n\r\n In Mogilev, in the spring of 1942, about 40 groups were combined into the underground\r\norganisation "Committee on Assistance to the Red Army". In Vitebsk, 56\r\nunderground groups were operating in 1941-1942. <\/p>\r\n\r\n Stubborn resistance to the occupying forces was shown by underground members in Gomel,\r\nOsipovichi, Borisov, Bobruisk, Orsha, Zhlobin, Petrikov, Polotsk, Bragin, Dobrush,\r\nKalinkovichi, Mozyr, and other places. Underground fighters were operating at all\r\nsignificant railway stations. In all, about 70,000 Belarusian people belonged to & took part in underground\r\norganisations. Ten underground Party regional committees and ten Komsomol regional\r\ncommittees, as well as 193 inter-district, district and town committees of the Communist\r\nParty of Belarus and 214 committees of the Leninist Young Communist League of Belarus\r\n(Komsomol of Belarus) worked in the occupied territory. <\/p>\r\n\r\n The Nazi invaders suffered heavy losses as a result of Belarusian active\r\nresistance<\/strong>. The Belarusian patriots too experienced heavy losses – many thousands\r\nof them sacrificed their lives, fighting in an unequal struggle against the invaders. The\r\nbravery of more than a hundred partisans and underground fighters was honoured with the\r\nhighest government award – the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The struggle of the Belarusian people against the Nazi invaders began in the early days of the war. It took many different forms – from non-compliance with the Occupation authorities’…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":104476,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-907715","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/907715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/907715\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/104476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\r\nThe main combat unit was a partisan detachment<\/strong> numbering from several\r\ndozen to several hundreds of men. In all, there were 1,255 detachments. The detachments\r\nwere sub-divided into platoons and companies.
\r\n
\r\nFrom April 1942, many detachments were united into partisan brigades<\/strong> to\r\ncarry out combat missions independently. That was the most appropriate structure for the\r\npartisan force organisation. As a rule, a brigade comprised 3-7, and sometimes up to 10\r\ndetachments. The number of soldiers in the brigade varied from 600-800 to several thousand\r\nsoldiers. Each brigade had artillery and mortar sub-units, arms workshops, field services,\r\nand a hospital. The general operational control over the detachments was exercised by the\r\nbrigade command and headquarters, which worked out plans of the combat operations and\r\ncontrolled their deployment. Usually, the brigade was located in the territory of 1-2\r\ndistricts.The brigade would be responsible for setting up the main and reserve bases,\r\nfortifications and observation posts, intelligence network of messengers, and would\r\norganise the detachments of the local self-defense forces. In all, 199 partisan brigades\r\nwere deployed.
\r\n
\r\nIn places with many active servicemen among the partisans, the partisan regiments<\/strong>\r\nwere formed. They did not differ greatly from the brigades in their arms and numeric\r\nstrength. These units conducted combat operations mostly in the territory of the Mogilev,\r\nMinsk and Vitebsk regions. In all, there were 14 partisan regiments.
\r\n
\r\nThe first partisan formations<\/strong> comprising several partisan brigades\r\nappeared in the second half of 1942. By 1943, when the creation of partisan formations\r\nfinished, there were about 40 partisan formations in operation.
\r\n
\r\nLocal residents rendered invaluable help to the partisans as well. During the war, about\r\n400,000 Belarusian people passed through the partisan reserves.
\r\n<\/strong>
\r\nOf incalculable importance in the struggle against invaders were the numerous partisan\r\nattacks on Nazi garrisons and communications<\/strong>, which were often delivered parallel\r\nto the large-scale operations of the Red Army. In particular, the so-called "rail\r\nwar" was a part of the "Bagration" military operation in Belarus’s\r\nliberation. When conducting the operation, 220 enemy garrisons and strong posts were\r\nraided and destroyed, 211,000 km railways were damaged, 2,171 trains, 6 armoured trains,\r\n32 water pumping stations, and 295 railway bridges were detonated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\r\n
\r\nIn the western regions of Belarus, different political forces fought against the Nazi\r\nOccupation, as a result of the recent co-existence there of two different state systems.\r\nIn this region, anti-fascist organisations<\/strong> were created, largely through\r\nthe initiative of former members of the Communist Party of Western Belarus and members of\r\nthe Communist Party of Belarus. In May 1942, the "Okrug Belarusian Anti-fascist\r\nCommittee for the Baranovichi Region" was formed from the anti-fascist groups from\r\nfive districts. The Polish nationalist underground movement (especially, Army Krajova)\r\nalso operated in Western Belarus. It was headed by the Polish government-in-exile in\r\nLondon. (There are no separate collections of the Polish nationalist underground\r\norganisations in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus).<\/p>\r\n\r\n