One of the important conditions that ensured victory in the Great Patriotic War was the resistance to invaders in the occupied territories. It was caused, firstly, by the deep patriotism and sense of national self-consciousness of the Soviet people. Secondly, the country's leadership carried out purposeful actions to support and organize this movement. Thirdly, a natural protest was caused by the fascist idea of ​​the inferiority of the Slavic and other peoples of the USSR, economic robbery and pumping out human resources. The "Eastern policy" of Germany, calculated on the dissatisfaction of the population with the Bolshevik regime and national contradictions, completely failed. The brutal attitude of the German command towards Soviet prisoners of war, extreme anti-Semitism, the mass extermination of Jews and other peoples, the executions of ordinary communists and party and state employees of any rank - all this exacerbated the hatred of the Soviet people for the invaders. Only a small part of the population (especially in the territories forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union before the war) agreed to cooperate with the invaders.

Resistance unfolded in various forms: special groups of the NKVD operating behind enemy lines, partisan detachments, underground organizations in captured cities, etc. Many of them were led by underground regional committees and district committees of the CPSU (b). They were faced with the task of maintaining faith in the inviolability of Soviet power, strengthening the morale of the people and intensifying the struggle in the occupied territories.

In late June - early July 1941, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted resolutions on organizing the struggle in the rear of the German troops. By the end of 1941, more than 2,000 partisan detachments, numbering more than 100,000 people, were operating in the territory captured by the Nazi troops, in extremely difficult conditions, without experience in underground struggle.

To coordinate the actions of partisan detachments, deliver weapons, ammunition, food and medicine to them, organize the removal of the sick and wounded to the mainland in May 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, headed by P. K. Ponomarenko. The commanders of the active army provided significant assistance to the partisan detachments. As a result, vast territories were liberated behind enemy lines and partisan territories were created (in Belarus and the Russian Federation). The Nazi command was forced to send 22 divisions to suppress the partisans.

The partisan movement reached its peak in 1943. Its peculiarity was the enlargement of partisan formations (into regiments, brigades) and coordination of actions with the general plans of the Soviet command. In August - September 1943, the operations "Rail War" and "Concert" for a long time, the partisans put out of action more than 2 thousand km of communication lines, bridges and various kinds of railway equipment behind enemy lines. This provided significant assistance to the Soviet troops during the battles near Kursk, Orel and Kharkov. At the same time, the Carpathian raid under the command of S. A. Kovpak was carried out along the rear of the enemy, which was of great importance in the general patriotic upsurge of the population in the western parts of Ukraine.

In 1944, the partisan movement played an important role in the liberation of Belarus and the Right-Bank Ukraine. As the territory of the Soviet Union was liberated, partisan detachments joined the active army. Part of the partisan formations moved to Poland and Slovakia.

The selfless struggle of the Soviet people behind enemy lines was one of the important factors that ensured the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.

1941. Deployment of partisan-sabotage struggle in the occupied territory

The actions of Soviet patriots in the rear of the Nazi troops, which began from the first days of the enemy's invasion of the territory of the USSR, became an integral part of the struggle of the Soviet people against the aggressor. Its general tasks were formulated in the directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 29, 1941. This document also determined the most appropriate forms of organization of partisan forces, means and methods of action against the invaders. In the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of July 18, 1941, the specific tasks of this struggle and ways to solve them were determined.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks obliged the central committees of the Communist Parties of Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the territorial, regional and district party committees of these republics and the RSFSR to lead the people's struggle behind enemy lines, give it a wide scope and combat activity. Thousands of party, Soviet and Komsomol activists were left to work underground and in partisan detachments. In areas where this could not be done in advance, they were transferred across the front line.

The initiative and creativity of the masses brought to life various forms of popular struggle aimed at undermining the occupation regime and exposing propaganda, rendering assistance to the Armed Forces. The main of them were the fighting of partisan formations, the activities of the underground, sabotage by the population of the political, economic and military activities of the enemy. All these forms were closely intertwined with each other, mutually complemented each other and constituted a single phenomenon - the nationwide struggle against the fascist invaders.

Republican and regional party committees, departments and departments of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, military councils and headquarters of the fronts and armies vigorously implemented the decisions of the party and government to develop popular resistance to the invaders. In some republics and regions, operational groups were created to directly supervise the underground and partisan struggle behind enemy lines. By decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in August - September 1941, departments were created in the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and political departments of the fronts, and at the political departments of the armies - departments that led party political work among the population, partisans and units of the Soviet army operating on the territory occupied by the enemy. At the headquarters of some fronts, special departments were created to direct the operational activities of partisan formations. These bodies worked closely with the republican and regional party committees.

The main link in the system of party leadership in the struggle of the Soviet people in the territory occupied by the enemy was the regional, city and district underground party committees.

In the first months of the war, great difficulties had to be overcome in this important work. In many regions of Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic republics, due to the rapid advance of enemy troops, it was not possible to create a party underground and partisan detachments in advance, and where they succeeded, they could not gain a foothold and expand their activities due to severe repressions.

Despite these serious difficulties, in 1941, 18 underground regional committees, more than 260 district committees, city committees, district committees and other party bodies, a large number of primary party organizations and groups began to work on Soviet territory temporarily occupied by the enemy. A Komsomol underground was created everywhere.

Underground party and Komsomol committees and organizations began their activities with mass political work among the population and partisans. They exposed fascist ideology and propaganda, disseminated information about events on the Soviet-German front. This helped to strengthen the party's ties with the Soviet people behind enemy lines, gave them confidence in the inevitability of the defeat of the aggressor, in the victory of the Soviet Union.

Along with propaganda work, large-scale sabotage was organized. So, on September 19-25, 1941, the underground workers of Kyiv destroyed the building of the Kyiv-Tovarnaya station, the main workshops of the Kyiv locomotive plant, the main railway workshops, the Andreev depot, they blew up and burned the Rosa Luxembourg and Gorky factories. The patriots thwarted the restoration of the Bolshevik and Lenin's Forge factories by the Nazis.

Organizing the struggle of the Soviet people in the enemy's rear, the party organs paid special attention to the deployment of partisan formations. Most of the partisan detachments and groups were Soviet people who ended up in the territory occupied by the enemy. They voluntarily united patriots who were burning with the desire to help the Soviet army in the speedy defeat and expulsion of the Nazi invaders from their native land.

When partisan detachments and groups were formed in advance, destruction battalions often served as their backbone. Detachments were created on a territorial basis - in each district.

Those partisan detachments and groups, which consisted mainly of communists, Komsomol members and Soviet activists, were considered by the party committees and army headquarters as a base for the wide deployment of a nationwide struggle behind enemy lines.

The fighters and commanders of the units that were surrounded were poured into the partisan detachments. For example, at the end of 1941, 1315 soldiers (about 35 percent of the total number of partisans on the peninsula) joined the detachments of the Crimea, and about 10 thousand - about 10 thousand in the detachments of the Oryol region. This significantly increased the combat effectiveness of the detachments. The servicemen brought the spirit of discipline and organization into the ranks of the partisans, helped them to master weapons, tactics and methods of fighting behind enemy lines.

The Central Committee of the Party drew attention to the need to involve in the work behind enemy lines people with experience in partisan struggle, accumulated during the years of the Civil War, old Bolsheviks, Chekists, and party workers. In Belarus, S. A. Vaupshasov, V. Z. Korzh, K. P. Orlovsky, M. F. Shmyrev, who already had experience in this struggle, became major leaders of the partisan movement, in Ukraine - M. I. Karnaukhov, S. A. Kovpak , I. G. Chaplin, in the Russian Federation - D. V. Emlyutin, N. Z. Kolyada, D. N. Medvedev, A. V. Mokrousov, S. A. Orlov and others.

The partisan movement acquired a wide scope in the southern regions of the Leningrad region, in the Kalinin, Smolensk, Orel regions, in the western regions of Moscow, in the Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Sumy, Chernigov, Kharkov and Stalin (Donetsk) regions.

Partisan formations were the most diverse in their structure, numbers and weapons. Some of them were divided into groups and squads, others - into companies and platoons. There were united detachments, battalions, regiments, brigades.

The partisan detachments, created in the front-line regions in the pre-occupation period, approached military units in their organization, were divided into companies, platoons, squads and had communication, reconnaissance and support groups. Their average number did not exceed 50-75 people. The leadership of the detachment consisted of the commander, commissar and chief of staff.

By the end of 1941, more than 2,000 detachments with a total strength of over 90,000 people were operating in the territory occupied by the enemy.

The partisans committed sabotage, set up ambushes, attacked enemy garrisons, destroyed railways, blew up railway bridges, destroyed traitors and traitors to the Motherland, conducted reconnaissance, and interacted with parts of the Soviet army.

About 20,000 Leningrad and Baltic partisans operated in the rear of the fascist German Army Group North, which was rushing towards Leningrad. On July 19, 1941, the commander of the 16th German Army was forced to issue a special order to fight them. With undisguised concern, he noted the increased activity of the Soviet partisans and pointed out that their actions "must be reckoned with." The warnings of the command of the Army Group North, given on November 11 to the troops, that “the only connecting route from Pskov to Gdov should be considered only the road Pskov - Maslogostitsy - Yamm - Gdov are very indicative. Communication through Novoselye - Struga-Krasny is interrupted and leads through dangerous territory where the partisans are located.

During the summer and autumn of 1941, up to 900 partisan detachments and groups with a total strength of more than 40 thousand people took part in attacks on the rear of Army Group Center during the summer and autumn of 1941. The guerrillas destroyed railway lines and communication lines in the battle areas, and blocked the roads, disrupting the operation of enemy communications. In one of the orders of the commander of the 4th German army, Kluge, it was said: “On November 5, rails were blown up in many places on the Maloyaroslavets-Bashkino section, and on November 6, arrows were blown up on the Kirov-Vyazma stretch.” According to the testimony of the commander of the 2nd German Panzer Army, in mid-November 1941, due to a lack of steam locomotives and due to destruction on the railways committed by partisans, instead of 70 echelons, which constituted the daily need for materiel, Army Group Center received only 23. According to the Nazi command, from the beginning of the war to September 16, 447 railway bridges were destroyed in the rear of the Nazi troops, including 117 in the rear of Army Group Center, and 141 of Army Group South.

On the southern sector of the Soviet-German front in the rear of Army Group South in the summer and autumn of 1941, 883 partisan detachments and 1,700 small groups with a total strength of about 35 thousand people operated. Of these, 165 detachments interacted with the troops of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts.

In battles near Kyiv, the 1st Kyiv Partisan Regiment fought courageously against the enemy. In the Kirovograd region, the partisan detachment named after K. E. Voroshilov (commander A. S. Kutsenko) fought 50 battles with the invaders from September 3 to October 15. In the second half of September 1941 alone, the partisans of the Chernihiv region destroyed 11 bridges, 19 tanks, 6 armored vehicles, several cannons, 2 ammunition depots, killed and wounded over 450 German soldiers and officers.

The determination with which the Soviet people waged an uncompromising struggle against the invaders caused constant alarm among the Nazi leadership. Already on July 25, 1941, the high command of the German army prepared the first report on the actions of the partisans. It drew attention to the serious danger of the partisan movement for the German rear, its communications. The order of Keitel, Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, dated September 16, 1941, noted:

“From the beginning of the war against Soviet Russia, a communist insurrectionary movement broke out everywhere in the territories occupied by Germany. The forms of action range from propaganda activities and attacks on individual Wehrmacht soldiers to open uprisings and a general war ... "

The enemy took vigorous measures to guard the lines of communication in the occupied territory. The instructions of the OKH dated October 25, 1941 on the fight against partisans indicated that, on average, for every 100 km of railways it was necessary to have about a battalion of guards.

According to the German General Staff, on November 30, 1941, that is, during the period of especially intense fighting near Moscow, when the Nazis experienced an acute shortage of people, the Nazi command was forced to allocate almost 300 thousand people to protect communications and fight partisans. from the regular troops, security units and other formations.

A movement to disrupt the political, economic and military measures of the occupiers gained wide scope behind enemy lines. The Nazis hoped to use the industrial, raw material and human resources of the occupied regions to their advantage. They planned to receive coal from the Donbass, iron ore from Krivoy Rog, and export grain and other products from the agricultural regions of the Soviet Union.

In order to thwart the predatory plans of the enemy, Soviet people, under various pretexts, refused to go to work, evaded registration at labor exchanges, and hid their professions. They rendered useless or safely hid the remaining equipment of industrial enterprises and raw materials.

In the Dzerzhinsky district of the Smolensk region, for example, in November 1941, the invaders tried to restore the Kondrovskaya, Troitskaya and Polotnyano-Zavodskaya paper mills. Specialists arrived from Germany, but the workers, on the instructions of an underground organization, hid valuable equipment. Despite the strictest orders from the German commandant's office, not a single detail was returned. The factories were never rebuilt.

In September 1941, at the Krichevsky cement plant in Belarus, workers, on the instructions of an underground organization, disabled electric motors and transmissions of grinding kilns brought from Germany. As a result, the Nazis had to abandon their attempt to put the plant into operation. In Kharkov, during the first three months of occupation, they failed to restore a single enterprise.

Collective farmers hid stocks of grain and fodder, stole and sheltered livestock in the forests, disabled agricultural machinery. For example, in the fall of 1941, the Nazis expected to procure more than 600 tons of bread, about 3 thousand tons of potatoes and other products in the Kletnyansky district of the Oryol region. However, the peasants did not take out a single kilogram of grain and potatoes to the procurement points. The entire harvest of 1941 was distributed among the collective farmers and safely hidden.

The German occupation authorities encountered acts of sabotage almost everywhere. In October 1941, the head of the Wehrmacht sabotage service on the southern sector of the Soviet-German front, T. Oberländer, reported to Berlin: “A much greater danger than the active resistance of the partisans, here is passive resistance - labor sabotage, in overcoming which we have even less chance of success".

These and many other similar facts clearly refute the fictions of bourgeois authors about the loyal attitude of the Soviet people towards the invaders in the occupied territory. And although the people's struggle behind enemy lines was just unfolding, Soviet patriots were already inflicting tangible blows on the enemy, providing the Soviet army with considerable assistance in frustrating the plans of the Nazi command.

The goals of the occupation policy of the Nazis on Soviet territory were outlined in advance and were clearly manifested already in the first months of the war. Its essence was determined by the main goals of the war against the USSR and boiled down to eliminating the Soviet social and state system, the socialist economic system, eradicating the Marxist-Leninist ideology, exterminating most of the country's population, and turning the remaining people into slaves, robbing as much national wealth as possible - food, raw materials, finished products. The Nazis hoped to use brute force and false propaganda to break the will of the Soviet people to resist. The territories of the USSR captured during the first year of the war were divided into two parts. The first included Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, part of Belarus and the Leningrad region; in the second - the main territory of Ukraine and part of Belarus. Lviv, Drohobych, Stanislav and Ternopil regions were transferred to the Governor-General created on Polish territory

To achieve their goals, the Nazis were not shy in choosing means. Terror, robbery, arbitrariness, bribery, provocations, anti-Soviet propaganda they elevated to the rank of state policy. The fascist invaders banned all public organizations in the occupied territory. Communists and Komsomol members, workers of Soviet institutions and organizations were subjected to severe repressions. Political literature and school textbooks were destroyed; streets, squares, settlements were renamed, buildings were destroyed.

The cruelest occupation regime, the total plunder and destruction of the country could not but cause dissatisfaction with the occupiers and resistance. It arose in the very first days of the war. The first partisans were Komsomol members and communists, Soviet and party workers, police officers, business leaders, representatives of the intelligentsia. Numerous disparate groups of Red Army soldiers also turned to partisan actions, finding themselves behind enemy lines due to the unsuccessful start of the war for the Soviet troops and the rapid advance of enemy formations deep into the country.

During the war, the partisan movement went through three stages of development, which chronologically basically coincide with the three periods of the Great Patriotic War. This interrelation and conditionality was caused by the fact that the activity of partisan formations from the very beginning was subordinated to the interests of the Red Army as the main factor in defeating the aggressor, and therefore changes on the Soviet-German front most directly influenced the organization, scope and focus of partisan strikes.

In the first period of the war (June 1941 - November 19, 1942), the partisan movement experienced all the difficulties and hardships due to the unpreparedness of the Soviet people to conduct such a method of resistance to the enemy. The lack of trained personnel, a developed leadership system, and secret bases with weapons and food doomed the first partisan formations to a long and painful search for everything that was necessary for effective combat operations. The fight against an experienced and well-armed enemy had to start almost from scratch

During the second period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 1943), the partisan movement reached its greatest extent. It is characterized by the rapid growth of partisan forces, the number of which doubled by the end of 1943 and reached 250 thousand people. Thanks to the increased combat skill, the establishment of close ties with the Soviet rear, from where assistance with weapons and ammunition came, the guerrilla warfare acquired unprecedented activity and efficiency.

The final stage of the people's struggle behind enemy lines is indicative of the even closer interaction of partisan forces with the troops of the Red Army. This was facilitated by the approach of the front line to the main groups of partisans, the accumulated experience of joint actions, as well as the provision of greater independence to the republican and regional headquarters of the partisan movement. Despite the disbandment of the partisan detachments that fought in the territories of Smolensk, Kursk, Orel, part of the Kalinin regions, as well as the eastern regions of the North Caucasus, Belarus and Ukraine, liberated by the Red Army, the number of partisans behind enemy lines by the beginning of 1944 did not decrease, continued to grow and amounted to more than 250 thousand people's avengers. In the first half of the year alone, about 95 thousand people joined the detachments in the occupied territory of Ukraine and Belarus, and the number of partisans in Latvia tripled during the year, in Estonia - five times.

In accordance with the plan of the battle, partisan strikes were often delivered on the eve of an offensive in order to weaken the enemy by destroying planned objects behind enemy lines, pin down his reserves and make it difficult to regroup troops. It was this task that the partisans performed during the implementation of the Belarusian offensive operation.

Thus, the Soviet territory occupied by the Nazis did not become their rear. The hopes of the Nazis to "pacify" the occupied lands, and to force the Soviet people living on it to meekly work for the Reich, did not come true. The historical merit of the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War is that it organizationally united the resistance of the masses directly behind enemy lines, turning it into a virtual second front. The occupiers did not know peace, day or night.

The main idea of ​​the book is the natural nature of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan in the Great Patriotic War. The book tells about the exploits of soldiers on the fronts, partisans and underground fighters in the rear of the Nazi troops, workers of the Soviet rear. The role of the Communist Party as the organizer and inspirer of the nationwide rebuff to the invaders is comprehensively revealed. In comparison with the first edition (1970), the book has been supplemented with new chapters, assessments and factual material in accordance with the latest achievements of Soviet science. It criticizes the speeches of the bourgeois falsifiers of history.

2. Fight against the enemy in the territory occupied by him

The manifestation of the nationwide character of the Great Patriotic War was the steadfastness of the population of the occupied Soviet territories in the fight against the enemy, their unbending fortitude, which resisted the intrigues of the occupiers.

The people's struggle behind enemy lines was an important component of the Great Patriotic War. It had a national and class character. The patriots went to fight against the invaders in the name of the independence of their Motherland, to defend the victorious socialist system.

In order to hide the real reasons for the broad partisan movement against the Nazi invaders in the Soviet territory they occupied and other Slavic countries, West German historiography put forward the proposition about the "wrong policy in the East." “The occupation policy with its theory of living space and races,” writes the West German historian G. Jacobsen, “caused such a development of events in the East that ultimately had a decisive effect on the defeat of Germany.” Supporters of this position ignore the social origins of the movement of the masses, the Soviet social and state system, the deep patriotism of the Soviet people, brought up by the Communist Party in the spirit of the Marxist-Leninist worldview. They are trying to prove that the nationwide struggle in the rear of the German fascist troops might not have developed if the German command had pursued a more "soft" and "flexible" policy in the occupied territory. Some historians of the FRG extend this position to those countries in which a broad resistance movement has unfolded.

Bourgeois historiography strives in every way to hush up the deep connection between the communist and workers' parties and other progressive organizations with the working masses in the resistance movement, in the national liberation movement during the Second World War.

Many foreign researchers of Soviet resistance to the invaders explain it only as a protest against the atrocities of the latter. They argue that if the German occupation authorities had not pursued a policy of terror, the partisan movement would not have arisen. Of course, these atrocities did not arouse humility, but only fanned the flame of sacred hatred for enemies, the hearts of the Soviet people were filled with anger. But the popular struggle against the occupiers flared up primarily because the enemy encroached on the holy of holies of the Soviet people - on their socialist homeland. The English historian Ratinger understood this. “If,” he wrote, “the German occupation were even a model of liberal behavior, guerrilla warfare would still exist.”

In other words, even if the velvet glove of flirting with the population were put on the iron hand of the German occupation policy, the situation would not change significantly. That is why the leader of the Fascist propaganda, Goebbels, was wrong when he said: “We would be able to significantly reduce the danger from the partisans if we were able to win some confidence ... Perhaps it would be useful to organize puppet governments in various areas in order to shift to them responsible for unpleasant and unpopular events.

Goebbels' advice was partially used, although at first the Nazis did not intend to create any puppet bodies. They created a "committee of trust" in Belarus, a "committee of self-government" in Estonia, various committees were also created in Ukraine. But all these auxiliary organs of the occupiers, consisting of traitors and traitors, not only did not win the trust of the population, but, on the contrary, were alienated from it and aroused merciless contempt and hatred.

The German fascists committed wild, horrifying violence against the population. These bloody executioners and tormentors shot, hanged, poisoned and buried many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, soldiers and officers of the Red Army. A terrible disaster for the Soviet people was the forcible deportation to fascist hard labor in Germany. The lot of Soviet citizens deported to Germany was life in concentration camps or in landowners' estates along with cattle, monstrous, overwork, bullying, hunger, and for a significant part - death from exhaustion, malnutrition, or as a result of terrorist reprisals by guards.

However, no crimes of the invaders could break the proud spirit and courageous will of the Soviet people. In every city, every district, in the villages and villages captured by the Nazis, mighty popular forces rose up to fight the invaders.

The patriotic struggle of the Soviet people in the territory occupied by the enemy unfolded in all forms - political, economic, ideological and armed.

The political struggle included a purely hostile attitude of the entire population of the occupied territory towards the activities of the German fascist governors and the system of robbery, violence and mockery established by them against the masses of the people. The population ignored and despised all the political norms implanted by the occupiers, did not believe their messages, did not accept their slander against the Soviet government and its organs.

All attempts by the invaders to undermine the confidence of the people in the Communist Party were in vain. This trust grew stronger and stronger. On this solid basis, the underground party organs successfully operated, enjoying the unlimited confidence and support of the population. In the autumn of 1943, 24 underground regional committees and over 370 city, district, district and other underground party bodies of the Communist Party successfully operated in the occupied territory. In the villages, even under the conditions of fascist occupation, the collective farm system was preserved, and the Nazis made unsuccessful attempts to adapt it to their needs and interests.

Unsuccessful were the attempts of the fascists and their lackeys to arouse the mutual distrust of the workers and peasants, of the various nations of the Soviet Union. Even in the occupied territory, the unity of the working class and the collective-farm peasantry, who fought together against the invaders, continued to grow stronger, and the unity of the working people of various nationalities also grew stronger. In particular, quite a few Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian families risked their lives, hiding people of Jewish nationality, who were everywhere destroyed by brutal Nazis.

The Soviet socialist system, even in the territory occupied by the enemy, showed its vitality and strength. This frightened the Nazis and aggravated their anger against members of the Communist Party, workers of Soviet organs, activists, shock workers of socialist labor and Stakhanovites. The fascists treated the figures of Soviet science and culture with the same wild, exorbitant malice. They deliberately sought to destroy the entire color of the Soviet people.

The German imperialists, like many other enemies of the Soviet Union, volunteered to "liberate" the Soviet people from communism. But from their very first step on the land, which the German armies so abundantly stained with the blood of the innocent victims of violence and terror, it became clear that communism is a part of the soul and body of the people, its brain and flesh, that communism and the people are inseparable. Neither torture nor death could break the unity of the people with communism, with the party.

The economic struggle of Soviet patriots in the occupied territory was aimed at preventing the Nazis from using the production capacities and resources of this territory for the predatory purposes of the invaders. Workers and engineering and technical staff, forcibly involved in the fulfillment of tasks of the occupation authorities, used various forms of sabotage and sabotage both on their own initiative and on the instructions of underground party organizations. As a result, the entire economic policy of the German conquerors turned out to be untenable; by their own admission, they received much less production in the occupied territories than they expected.

An example is the feat of workers, technicians and engineers of Donbass. They acted so skillfully that the Germans could not organize coal mining and metal smelting. They had to carry coal from Western Europe to Ukraine and even to the Donbass.

Soviet railroad workers launched a great deal of work against the invaders. Throughout the occupied territory, water pumps, turntables broke down, trains went off the rails, and steam locomotives turned out to be out of order. We can recall here the heroic deeds of a small group of railway workers under the leadership of K. S. Zaslonov in the large junction of Orsha. This group organized the production of special mines, which they systematically planted in steam locomotives and wagons for a relatively long time. This group succeeded in disorganizing the railway communication in the rear of the Nazi Army Group Center.

The Nazis also met active resistance in the countryside. Collective farmers in every possible way avoided handing over food to the occupation authorities, sabotaged their orders and systematically supplied partisans and underground workers with food items. In turn, the partisans did not forget about their true friends and delivered them from the most zealous and cruel administrators. One German newspaper frankly admitted: "More than one agricultural leader had to pay with his life for his activities."

War is impossible without a well-established and organized rear. Such a rear of Nazi Germany, although not very well organized, was its own territory. But the occupied Soviet lands, although in the operational sense they were the rear of the German army, did not become its economic rear.

The ideological struggle of Soviet patriots behind enemy lines was also of great importance. This ideological struggle was reflected in the fact that the Soviet people completely rejected the misanthropic and anti-communist ideology of fascism. This ideology exerted its pernicious influence only on a miserable bunch of traitors and traitors, isolated from the people and sharply hated by them, who went over to the service of the occupiers. The Soviet people in their mass remained true to the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the ideas of communism.

The destruction of soldiers and officers of the fascist army, the arson of various material warehouses of the enemy, the damage to communication lines and the disorganization of control, the spread of panic rumors among the invaders and their henchmen - all this was a mass phenomenon. The Soviet people waged a selfless struggle to save socialist public property, buried machine tools and tractors in the ground, and hid equipment and materials. These actions of theirs eloquently testified not only to their deep faith in victory over the enemy, but also to their devotion to socialist social production.

A lot of work was done to save boys and girls from being sent to hard labor in Germany. On the instructions of underground party organizations, many Soviet patriots became house managers, employees of labor exchanges and fascist administrations, went to work in passport offices, transit camps and even the police, doctors - in polyclinics and selected medical commissions of labor exchanges. The number of fictitious documents provided to partisans for their activities, to underground party organizations to disguise their work, as well as certificates of incapacity for work issued to those who were to be sent to Germany, is incalculable.

Millions of people took part in active sabotage against the enemy. This sabotage, the incessant sabotage, the armed actions of the partisans, the entire heroic struggle of the people created an unbearable situation for the fascists and undermined their morale. Many Soviet people risked their lives by their deeds proving to German soldiers and officers that the campaign to conquer the Soviet Union was doomed.

The invaders, with all their desire, could not take root on Soviet soil. They remained a foreign, hostile body that could not help but be thrown away. But for this it was necessary to win a military victory over the German fascist imperialist army.

Even in the monstrous dungeons of the Nazi executioners, in the fascist concentration camps, the Soviet people remained fearless revolutionary fighters. Neither torture nor execution could break them. The glorious name of General D. M. Karbyshev, turned by the Nazis into a block of ice, the name of the poet Musa Jalil, who was executed by the Nazis, and many, many others, sounds like a symbol of the unbending will and firmness of the spirit of a Soviet person.

Languishing in the gloomy dungeons of fascist prisons, in the most terrible, inhuman conditions, Jalil wrote lyrical poems and songs full of ardent love for the Motherland and life, burning hatred and proud contempt for the fascist executioners.

During the Second World War, the total number of foreign workers and prisoners of war taken to hard labor in Germany reached 14 million people. The unbending will to freedom, the will to fight distinguished among them the Soviet people. Weakened by prolonged hunger and overwork, under the strictest fascist guard and outlawed, they actively fought against Hitlerism with the greatest courage and steadfastness. They created underground committees in the camps that led the Soviet people who were imprisoned. These committees, relying on the bulk of the prisoners, prepared armed uprisings, supported the weak in body and spirit in every way they could. The committees established strong ties with prisoners and foreign workers from other countries, with anti-fascist Germans.

In southern Germany, an underground organization of Soviet patriots, the Brotherhood of Soviet Prisoners of War, arose, establishing strong relations with the organization of German anti-fascists created by the communists, the Anti-Nazi German Popular Front. This cooperation was joined by both Czechoslovak and Polish patriots who were in hard labor. Thus, one of the most powerful anti-fascist organizations in Germany arose. Several thousand militarily organized and partially armed people of various nationalities were actively preparing for an uprising against the Nazi dictatorship. They failed to carry out their plans, but the memory of their brave intentions is alive and will live in the hearts of the peoples of many countries.

The ruling circles of fascist Germany, having unleashed an aggressive war against the Soviet Union, waged it with barbaric cruelty. In accordance with previously developed plans, the Nazis sought not only to enslave the peoples of the USSR, but also to a large extent to exterminate them physically. At the same time, they considered the Soviet people as representatives of the "lower race", in relation to which the German fascists, as purebred representatives of the "race of masters", were allowed everything - murders, violence, violation of international laws and rules of human ethics.

The fascist invaders, carrying out the well-thought-out policy of the Hitlerite government and the directives of the supreme command, exterminated and plundered the population in the occupied Soviet regions.

After the enemy occupied part of the city of Stalingrad, the Nazi military commandant's office, located in the Dzerzhinsky district in the building of the 3rd House of Soviets, on March 8 Square, began to carry out the mass extermination of the civilian population. All residents suspected of resisting the invaders or simply sympathizing with the Red Army were dragged to the commandant's office, where they were tortured and then shot or hanged. “The military commandant's office sowed death everywhere. On the streets, she posted announcements threatening to be shot for every step. For example, on Aral Street there was such an announcement: “Whoever passes here, death to him”; at the corner of Nevskaya and Medveditskaya streets: “Russians are forbidden to enter, for violation - execution” ”( Documents accuse: Sat. documents. M., 1945. Issue. 2. S. 71.).

The Nazis destroyed the inhabitants of Stalingrad at every turn, as evidenced by hundreds of burials found along the streets of the Dzerzhinsky district of Stalingrad ( There.). During the occupation of part of the Stalingrad region, the Nazi invaders carried out massacres against the civilian population: they hanged 108 residents, shot 1744, committed violence and torture over 1593, took 64,224 people into fascist slavery ( Party archive of the Volgograd regional committee of the CPSU. F. IZ. Op. 14. D. 11a. L. 3. It has already been mentioned above that 42,754 residents of Stalingrad died from the bombing and artillery shelling (see: p. 320).).

As the Nazi troops advanced deep into the Soviet land, the enemy formed a distant rear in the occupied territory, where the Nazi police and the SS fought against the peaceful civilian population. However, the growth of the resistance of the Soviet people behind enemy lines forced the fascist leadership to withdraw from the front an increasing number of troops for operations in the "subjugated" territory.

In Soviet cities and villages occupied by the Nazis, orders were posted providing for the death penalty for a variety of reasons: for going out after 5 pm, for outsiders staying overnight, for not handing over property, for refusing forced labor, etc. After being captured by the Nazis Feodosia, the German commandant of the city, Captain Ebergard, issued an order in which paragraph 7 read: “During the alarm, every citizen who appears on the street must be shot. Appearing groups of citizens should be surrounded and mercilessly shot. Leaders and instigators must be publicly hanged" ( Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. M., 1944. T. 1. S. 222.).

No matter how numerous were the reasons for the execution of civilians, provided for by the orders and instructions of the invaders, most of the killings were carried out without any reason, only one goal was pursued - to intimidate and destroy as many Soviet people as possible. So, having captured Soviet Belarus, the Nazis burned, destroyed and plundered 209 cities and regional centers (out of a total of 270) during the period of its occupation ( Crimes of the Nazi invaders in Belarus. Minsk, 1965. S. 6.). At the same time, the Nazis tried to organize a police corps in Belarus and win over the clergy. “The game of “self-government”, on which the Nazis hoped to shift responsibility for their atrocities in the occupied areas, the use of bourgeois nationalists, the desire to deceive the people with the help of the church and religious sects - all these methods were needed only to mask the true goals, to cover up the essence of the occupation policy and a regime of terror and violence" ( History of the Second World War, 1939-1945. T. 5. S. 280.).

Trampling international laws and customs, the enemy exterminated Soviet prisoners of war. The note of the Soviet government dated November 25, 1941 “On the outrageous atrocities of the German authorities against Soviet prisoners of war” reported on the systematic reprisals perpetrated by the German authorities on captured soldiers and officers of the Red Army ( Nuremberg Trials: In 2 vols. T. 1, S. 516.).

In the future, the Nazis continued to exterminate and torture Soviet prisoners of war. For example, in 1942, during the three and a half months of the existence of a prisoner of war camp on the Vertyach farmstead of the Gorodishchensky district of the Stalingrad region, at least 150 prisoners of war were destroyed in it ( Documents blame. S. 91.). The occupiers organized a dense network of concentration camps, which were "death factories".

The enemy destroyed and ravaged Soviet cities, villages and villages in all the regions of the USSR occupied by him. On the territory of Ukraine and Belarus, in Moscow, Leningrad, Tula and other regions of the country, the Nazis destroyed houses, schools, hospitals, museums, theaters, clubs, various public buildings and other buildings. All this was done by direct order of the supreme command. Orders for the destruction of settlements were also given directly by the conductors of this policy ( There. S. 206.).

The dominance of the enemy in the areas he occupied was based on the military force of the Wehrmacht and numerous punitive organs - the Gestapo, gendarmerie, police, etc. commanders of the SS and police forces and the commanders of the branches of the armed forces is the key to success "( History of the Second World War, 1939 - 1945. T. 6. S. 167.).

At the disposal of the fascist occupation administration were burgomasters, foremen and elders, recruited from nationalists, criminals and other declassed elements.

Carrying out a policy of the most severe terror in relation to the local population, the enemy tried to intimidate him and make him incapable of resistance, instilling the idea of ​​the irreversibility of Germany's conquests and her invincibility. Along with the methods of physical suppression, the enemy also sought to spiritually disarm the Soviet people, conducting Nazi agitation and propaganda, destroying cultural values, insulting the national feelings and human dignity of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and representatives of other nationalities.

For the purpose of economic robbery of the occupied territories, it was planned to export to Germany all raw materials, all discovered commodity funds and the seizure of personal property of the civilian population.

The secret "directives" of the fascist government provided for the organization of coal mining in the Donbass, the establishment of production at enterprises in the occupied areas, and the operation of railways.

The Nazis relied on the creation of capitalist industrial enterprises, turning them into the property of German monopolies, and in the Baltic states, in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, part of the enterprises was returned to their old owners. The fascist invaders exported the most valuable equipment and raw materials to Germany. At the same time, they tried to use the remaining industrial enterprises for the current needs of the Wehrmacht.

The fascist plan for the general robbery of the Soviet country was carried out by the Nazis persistently and cruelly. However, contrary to the will of his inspirers and executors, the enemy's calculations failed in many respects. Satisfying the needs of the German army and rear in food, raw materials and industrial goods at the expense of Soviet resources turned out to be by no means an easy task, since the population of the occupied regions sabotaged the orders of the Nazi authorities and resisted their implementation in various forms.

More "easy" for the invaders was the robbery of personal property of the civilian population. The fascist German military command paid considerable attention to this source as well.

The elevation of robbery and violence to the rank of state policy was the main motive for all orders in the fascist army in relation to the local population.

In the occupied territory, the Nazis widely used forced labor and carried out the forcible deportation to Germany of millions of civilians, who were included in the category of "prisoners of war."

The occupiers used cruel repressions against those who evaded forced labor or had insufficient, from the point of view of the Nazi authorities, labor productivity.

Despite the terror of the invaders, the Soviet people in the territory occupied by the enemy in every possible way sabotaged the use of industrial enterprises by the Nazis, and the vast majority of these enterprises were inactive. In the fascist secret instruction “On Actual Tasks in the Eastern Regions”, captured by Soviet troops in early March 1942, it was proposed to speed up the forcible deportation of Soviet workers to Germany: “Only sending several million selected Russian workers to Germany due to inexhaustible reserves of able-bodied, healthy and strong people in the occupied eastern regions ... will be able to solve the urgent problem of leveling the unprecedented need for labor and thereby cover the catastrophic shortage of workers in Germany ”( Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War. T. 1. S. 211.).

The Nazis drove over 100,000 civilians from Kyiv to hard labor in Germany, up to 110,000 from Kharkov, about 30,000 from Rostov-on-Don, over 20,000 from Krivoy Rog, about 5,000 from Vyazma, etc. In total, in 1942, about 2 million Soviet people were sent to Germany from the regions of the USSR occupied by the enemy ( Nuremberg Trials: In 7 vols. M., 1957. T. 3. S. 799.).

In order to fulfill the “appropriation” for the supply of Soviet people to Germany, the Nazi military authorities equipped punitive expeditions, which, in order to intimidate the disobedient, burned settlements and carried out mass executions.

People driven into slave labor, including women and children, were kept in collection and transit camps and transported to Germany in such conditions that many of them died before they arrived in the German rear. Delivered to Germany, they were used in the military industry and in transport, and some were sent to work in agriculture or as domestic workers. Along with Soviet citizens who were deported to Germany, hundreds of thousands of civilians from the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis, who were forced into Nazi slavery, were subjected to a similar fate.

In rural areas, the Nazis actually liquidated collective farms and created "communal farms" with a serf-owning way of life. The entire harvest was to be handed over to the occupying authorities. State farms and MTS turned into "state farms", transferred to the disposal of the "Agricultural Department of the German Administration." The “Reminder for Housekeeping in the Conquered Eastern Regions” published by the German High Command stated: “The conquered eastern regions are German economic territory. The land, all living and dead inventory ... are the property of the German state.

In the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, land immediately began to be transferred to German colonists and returning former landowners and kulaks. From the spring of 1942, landowner farms began to be planted in other areas occupied by the enemy. In Lithuania, for example, they received almost 5,000 best farms with an area of ​​more than 200,000 hectares of land.

The introduction of landlord and kulak estates and the establishment of forced labor for Soviet peasants was an expression of the official program of the fascist occupiers. Numerous orders and instructions from the military and civil authorities of the enemy, printed leaflets and appeals distributed by them, as well as the “Land Law” issued at the end of February 1942 by the Nazi ruler of the occupied Soviet regions, Alfred Rosenberg, were sent to achieve this goal.

Carrying out ferocious reprisals against the civilian population and imposing a feudal regime in the occupied regions, the Nazi military authorities in all these criminal cases cooperated with the civil and police organs of the fascist state. Hitler's "economic teams", "military agronomists", "agricultural officers", "managers", "commandants", "headmen" and "burgomasters" enjoyed unlimited rights in applying the most cruel measures of physical coercion of the population to serf labor.

The fascist "new" order condemned millions of people to physical extermination, enslavement and inhuman exploitation, it destroyed the state independence of peoples and destroyed their national wealth.

The Soviet people, who were in the territory occupied by the enemy, did not want to put up with fascist slavery. And many of them not only expected the arrival of the Red Army with hope, but also found the strength in themselves to fight against the invaders under the most severe conditions of Hitler's domination.

In the rear of the Nazi troops, popular resistance to the aggressors grew. Its forms were different. The partisan movement, the activities of underground organizations and groups developed. The participation of the population in the disruption of the political and economic measures of the fascist invaders acquired a massive character. So, speaking out against forced labor, Soviet people evaded registration at labor exchanges. The departure of workers and employees from enterprises, as well as absenteeism, has become widespread. The threats and repressions of the fascist authorities could not stop this process. The population did not want to work for the invaders.

At the enterprises where the Nazis managed to resume production, the patriots disorganized it in various ways: they disabled machine tools and equipment, caused accidents, destroyed raw materials and finished products. Diversions were also carried out at railway junctions, large stations, and in locomotive depots. Sabotage and sabotage as a form of popular struggle against the occupiers found wide application wherever the fascists established their rule.

In rural areas in the occupied territory, the peasants hid from the Nazis the grain of the crops of previous years or destroyed it, sabotaged the fulfillment of deliveries in kind, disrupted sowing and harvesting campaigns.

Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945 gave rise to a partisan movement of grandiose scope, organization and formidable character. By the autumn of 1942, 1,770 partisan detachments and formations were operating in the Soviet territory occupied by the enemy, in which there were over 125 thousand people. “Most of the partisan detachments and brigades by this time were well-coordinated formations that had accumulated experience in combat operations. Each of them had strong party and Komsomol organizations. Courageous underground fighters waged an active struggle against the enemy in cities and towns" ( History of the Second World War. 1939-1945. T. 6. S. 170.).

In the book of Lieutenant Colonel of the Bonn Bundeswehr E. Middeldorf "Tactics in the Russian Campaign" ( Middeldorf E. Tactics in the Russian campaign. M „ 1958. The author was engaged in summarizing the experience of military operations in the Nazi army, and after the war he headed this work in the Bonn War Ministry. His book was intended to equip the resurgent West German army with the lessons of the "Russian campaign". In the preface to the German edition of this book, the former Hitlerite General Heusinger wrote: “We cannot pass by this book, since the experience of the past should become for us a pointer to the path to the future” (p. 16).), published in West Germany, the partisan movement in the occupied regions of the USSR is interpreted as "a consequence of the mistakes of the highest German political leadership, as well as gross violations by the German civil authorities" ( Middeldorf E. Decree. op. S. 343.). To explain the partisan movement by individual "mistakes" and "violations" of the aggressors, without revealing their mean and barbaric essence, means trying to justify the aggression of fascist Germany against the USSR and other peace-loving peoples.

While distorting the history of the partisan movement in the USSR, the reactionary bourgeois authors are unable, however, to conceal the indisputable fact that in the occupied Soviet territory the enemy met with an ever-increasing rebuff from the population he had enslaved.

The enemy troops and the Nazi administration did not feel safe on Soviet soil day or night. “No one can know,” writes E. Middeldorf, “where the partisans came from and where they disappeared. They appear suddenly, like a ghost, and therefore constantly keep the enemy in suspense. In the area of ​​operations of the partisans, the military and civilian representatives of the occupying country are constantly under the threat of attack, in an atmosphere of ever-increasing nervousness "( There. S. 347.). The German command was forced to allocate ever larger forces to fight the partisans. However, punitive expeditions and other methods of repression, including the most sophisticated and cruel, could not liquidate the partisan movement.

The popular movement behind enemy lines grew and expanded. Its leader was the Communist Party. At the direction of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and with its help, partisan detachments and groups, organizers of the underground struggle, were sent behind the front line. Of great importance was the activity of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, established on May 30, 1942, as well as the republican and regional headquarters.

In 1942, despite a number of failures, the struggle of the underground fighters developed widely in the enemy-occupied regions of Ukraine, Belarus and the RSFSR. Underground workers carried out mass political work among the population. Underground Komsomol organizations led by communists selflessly fought against the invaders.

In the occupied areas of the Stalingrad region, partisan struggle was also carried out. On July 28, 1942, the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks created an operational group to lead partisan detachments and ordered it "to provide practical assistance to the district committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in creating partisan detachments" ( Party archive of the Volgograd regional committee of the CPSU. F. 171. Op. 1. D. 53. L. 2.). Partisan detachments and groups were created from the party-Soviet activists, workers, employees and collective farmers. A certain amount of weapons was found and food bases were organized for the partisans ( There. D. 72. L. 41.). The Bureau of the Stalingrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in its resolution on August 19 noted that “the decision of the regional committee of July 28 on the creation of combat-ready partisan detachments is being implemented by most of the regions of the Zadonsk part and the northern group, the created and trained detachments of Kalachevsky, Tormosinsky and the group of Kotelnikovsky districts are already operating in the rear of the German occupiers" ( There. D. 53. L. 3). In the fight against the Nazi invaders on the territory of the region, 11 partisan detachments and groups, covering 186 people ( There. D. 61. L. 60.). In addition, guerrilla groups and lone scouts were thrown into the territory captured by the enemy, by the front headquarters. The partisans carried out sabotage work, mined roads, disrupted telegraph and telephone communications, and destroyed small groups of the enemy and his materiel.

However, the partisan struggle on the territory of the Stalingrad region did not develop due to the extremely difficult and difficult conditions. Enormous enemy forces were concentrated in the occupied areas of the region. All settlements and ravines were saturated with enemy troops. The terrain itself - steppe, open, devoid of natural shelters - created additional difficulties for partisan operations. The partisans waged a successful struggle against the occupiers throughout the vast expanse from the Karelian forests and the Baltic states in the north to Moldova and the Crimea in the south. Moreover, the partisan movement in the summer of 1942 is becoming more and more massive.

The combat interaction of partisans with regular units and formations of the Red Army increased. One of its important types was the conduct by partisans, on the instructions of the military command, of reconnaissance of the deployment of enemy troops, their headquarters, the establishment of the types of troops and the nature of weapons, the extraction of information about the location of airfields, ammunition depots, fuel, the movement of echelons with cargo and troops, etc. In the zones of the most massive development of the partisan movement, it had a direct impact on the course of the armed struggle at the front.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, summarizing the combat experience accumulated by the partisans and correctly assessing the enormous strength of popular resistance behind enemy lines, adopted a resolution on the further development of the partisan movement in the Soviet territory temporarily occupied by the Nazi invaders. At the end of August 1942, the commanders of formations and detachments of the Oryol, Bryansk, Ukrainian and Belarusian partisans arrived in Moscow. Among them were Heroes of the Soviet Union S. A. Kovpak, A. N. Saburov, A. D. Bondarenko, M. I. Duka, M. P. Romashin, G. F. Pokrovsky, commanders of large partisan detachments and formations V. I. Koshelev, I. S. Gudzenko, M. F. Shmyrev and others. At a meeting in the Kremlin on August 31 and September 2, with the participation of members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the experience of more than a year of the partisan movement was summarized, and before the participants in the partisan war new responsible tasks have been set. At the meeting, issues of both the combat activities of the partisans and their political work among the population were discussed. The activity of the partisans was aimed primarily at striking at the enemy's extended communications, at destroying his manpower and equipment. On September 5, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin "On the tasks of the partisan movement" was issued. It set the main task - to turn the partisan movement into a nationwide one.

At the end of September 1942, the State Defense Committee established a political department at the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, which, in contact with the republican and regional party committees, led the leadership of underground party organizations and agitation and propaganda work among the population of the areas occupied by the enemy. During the last months of 1942, the sending of organizational groups behind enemy lines intensified, which helped to strengthen the leading partisan cadres, establish communications between partisan detachments, unite them into larger formations and create new partisan detachments.

The measures of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the State Defense Committee, aimed at strengthening the leadership of partisan detachments and formations and increasing assistance in their combat activities, combined with the growth of ties between partisans and the local population, lead to a further rise in partisan struggle. The partisan movement embraces ever wider masses of the people and begins to solve qualitatively new combat missions. Convincing evidence of this was partisan raids deep behind enemy lines.

The actions of the raiding partisan formations were closely linked with the operations of the Red Army. The partisans delivered their blows to the enemy's communications, through which the fascist command supplied its troops located on the Volga and in the Caucasus. And, what was especially important, these communications were disrupted during the most critical period of the struggle for the enemy. The partisans of the formations of S. A. Kovpak and A. I. Saburov made a parallel raid from the Bryansk forests to the Right-Bank Ukraine, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy.

The intense struggle that took place near Stalingrad and in other sectors of the Soviet-German front attracted the attention of the Nazi command and prevented the transfer of German troops from the front to organize large punitive expeditions against the partisans. In many areas in the occupied Soviet territory, the partisans actually controlled the situation. In Belarus, partisan zones covered 63% of the territory of the republic.

The nationwide struggle behind enemy lines grew rapidly. The partisans diverted more and more enemy troops, disrupted his communications, destroyed the manpower and equipment of the Nazis, and caused fear among enemy soldiers and officers. The struggle of partisans and underground fighters became an important factor of strategic and political significance, playing an ever-increasing role in the development of events in the Great Patriotic War.