Lithuanian anti-Soviet armed resistance in the context of XXth-century partisan wars

ENThe postwar partisan resistance was a small-scale, medium-intensity guerrilla movement that persisted until 1952. More than 20,000 partisans were killed, a similar number was captured, and about 15,000 couriers and supporters were arrested. Wide-spread support, which lasted until the collectivization of agriculture, enabled the partisans to persevere despite unfavourable geographical and geopolitical conditions. Government repression was the driving determinant in motivating men to join the resistance, as it was in both Western and Eastern Europe during World War II. Resistance flared more briskly, spread more widely, and burned more fiercely when the Nazi and Soviet regimes increased the intensity of their egregious violence. Soviet partisans operated in Lithuania during the war, but their strategy, tactics, and cadres differed profoundly from the postwar national resistance, which was homegrown, spontaneous, almost immediate. The Soviet partisans were to a great degree ‘imported’ from Soviet-controlled territory, centrally directed and organized, ineffectual until the spring of 1944, and fought as an adjunct of the Red Army. Although not as extensive and well-organized as their counterparts in Ukraine, Lithuanian partisans were more numerous, active, and resilient than those of Estonia and Latvia. Soviet security forces were brutal, but refrained from the excesses of World War II, such as the mass execution of hostages or razing of villages. [Publisher annotation]