Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies

The Central and Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies fought on after the official end of the Second World War against the Soviet Union and the communist states formed under Soviet occupation and support.

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Central and Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies
Part of the Cold War
Date1945–1960s
Location
Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, Yugoslavia
Result Anti-Communist partisans defeated
Belligerents
 Soviet Union
 Albania
 Bulgaria
 Czechoslovakia
 East Germany
 Hungary
 Poland
 Romania
 Yugoslavia		 Romanian Partisans
Baltic Partisans
Polish Partisans
Ukrainian Partisans
White Partisans
Bulgarian Partisans
Albanian Partisans
Serbian Partisans
Croatian Partisans
Slovenian Partisans
Belarusian Partisans

Prominent movements include:

The activities of some the groups have been controversial as some of them, like the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and groups associated with the "cursed soldiers", were responsible for ethnic cleansing and mass murder.[1][2]

In Poland
Main article: Cursed soldiers
Józef Kuraś, leader of the anti-communist resistance

The 'cursed soldiers' (Polish: Żołnierze wyklęci) is a name applied to a variety of Polish resistance movements that were formed in the later stages of World War II and afterward. Created by former members of the Polish underground resistance organizations of World War II, these organizations continued the struggle against the pro-Soviet government of Poland well into the 1950s. Their history and actions have been controversial, as they have been accused of anti-Semitism and mass murder.[3][4]

Most of these anti-communist groups ceased operations in the late 1940s or 1950s. However, the last known 'cursed soldier', Józef Franczak, was killed in an ambush as late as 1963, almost 20 years after the Soviet take-over of Poland.[5]

In the Baltic States
Ants Kaljurand, Estonian resistance fighter for the Forest Brothers

The Forest Brothers (also: Brothers of the Forest, Forest Brethren; Forest Brotherhood; Estonian: metsavennad, Latvian: meža brāļi, Lithuanian: miško broliai) were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II.[6] The Soviet Army occupied the independent Baltic states in 1940–1941 and, after a period of German occupation, again in 1944–1945. As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, 50,000 residents of these countries used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and base for armed anti-Soviet resistance.

Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defense, to large and well-organized groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle.

Ion Gavrila Ogoranu, leader of Fagaras resistance movement

In Romania

An armed resistance movement against the communist regime in Romania was active from the late 40s to the mid-50s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. The groups were concentrated in the Carpathian Mountains, although a resistance movement had also developed in Northern Dobruja. Armed resistance was the most structured form of resistance against the communist regime. After the overthrow of Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1989, the details about what was called “anti-communist armed resistance” were made public, thanks to the discretization of the Securitate archives.[7]

See also

References
  1. Katchanovski, Ivan. "Terrorists or National Heroes? Politics of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine" (PDF). Cpsa-acsp.ca.
  2. Siemaszko, Ewa. The July 1943 genocidal operations of OUN-UPA in Volhynia (PDF). pp. 2–3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-01.
  3. Barbara Engelking-Boni. Zagłada żydów:pamięć narodowa a pisanie historii w Polsce i we Francji. p. 195.
  4. Krzysztof Pilawski (6 March 2011). "Kto zapłaci za zbrodnie podziemia". Tygodnik Przegląd (in Polish).
  5. „Lalek” ostatni partyzant Rzeczypospolitej Archived October 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  6. Buttar, Prit (2013). Between Giants, the Battle for the Baltics in World War II. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781780961637.
  7. Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu, Brazii se frâng dar nu se îndoiesc, vol II, Editura Marineasa, Timișoara, 2001
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