Russia at war 1941-1945

The official Soviet thesis is that, especially since the autumn of 1942, there was the strictest co-ordination between Moscow and the Army Command on the one hand, and

the partisans on the other. The latter wrecked trains, blew up railways, killed German garrisons, etc., as part of a general plan, the main lines of which were laid down by Moscow.

Up to a point, this is true. The military effectiveness of the partisans grew enormously once they began to receive supplies, officers, etc., from the "mainland". But this version of the partisan story, making the partisans out to be a sort of Second Red Army fighting in the enemy rear, grossly over-simplifies the human aspects of the Partisan Drama. For it was drama. The partisans were not like an army that was methodically supplied with

food, medical care and arms, and which had an enemy in front of it, and nowhere else.

There are two recent books, one on the Kaluga and Briansk partisans, Narodnyie mstiteli

—"The People's Avengers"—by V. Glukhov (Kaluga, 1960), and another, much bigger book published by the Belorussian Academy of Sciences at Minsk in 1961, called Iz Istorii partizanskogo dvizheniya v Belorussii, 1941-4 ("From the History of the Partisan Movement in Belorussia"), the latter consisting of forty-five "memoirs" written by leading participants of the partisan war in Belorussia.

[There are, of course, countless other books on the partisans, starting with Vershigora's famous People with a Clear Conscience on the Ukrainian partisans, published in 1948, and Ivan Kozlov's book on the partisans and the communist underground in the Crimea

(V Krymskom Podpoliye, 1950), but many of them; are more romanticised than these two recent books.]

Both books are very badly written and put together; they are hideously repetitive, and some of the exploits described are almost worthy of the Baron von Münchhausen; and

yet, the very repetitive-ness of the themes, and a variety of small details explain more fully than the much smoother official histories the constant nervous strain, the helpless suffering and the frequent horrors of partisan warfare. One of the main obsessions of the partisans was something scarcely known to the regular Red Army: the constant look-out for traitors and the physical and psychological need to kill them—such as starostas, burgomasters and policemen appointed by the Germans. There are several accounts in

Glukhov's book of the hanging of traitors and of raids on the police stations of the German-recruited Polizei.

Another constant worry was the attitude of the peasantry who kept them, more or less willingly, supplied with food and who, in doing so, were exposing themselves and their families to the most savage reprisals by the Germans—regular troops, SS, SD, etc.—or their underlings—Vlasovites, Cossacks, German-hired police, and so on. For if, as

already said, there was one Oradour in France and one Lidice in Czechoslovakia, there were hundreds in the Soviet Union.

Living conditions among the partisans were nearly always terrible, at least until the beginning of 1943, when they began to receive considerable supplies from the

"mainland". More terrifying even than the shortage of arms and food was the lack of medical supplies. There is a reference to this in the reminiscences of F. G. Markov, commander of the Vileya Partisan Unit, who was one of the first partisan leaders in

Belorussia. He began to fight as a partisan in August, 1941.

I should like to make a brief but affectionate mention of those humble and modest doctors who, in incredibly difficult conditions, without any instruments or medical

supplies or even bandages, still managed to save the lives of hundreds of partisans. I particularly want to mention Dr Podsedlovsky, Dr Moisei Gordon and his wife,

Noema Borisovna Gordon, Dr G. D. Mogilevchik, Dr I. V. Vollokh and others.

[ Iz istorii partiz. dvizh. v. Belorussii, p. 282.]

This quotation is also interesting in another respect: most of the partisan doctors

mentioned appear to be Jews, which is in striking contrast with the virtual lack of any reference to Jews taking part in the partisan war—despite the very large Jewish

population in Belo-russian towns like Minsk, Gomel, Pinsk, Vitebsk, etc.