the soviet partisan movement 1941-1944 by edgar m. howell

CHAPTER 9
THE PARTISAN MOVEMENT REACHES MATURITY
With the failure of the Sixth Army before Stalingrad in November
1943 the entire course of the war in the east changed abruptly. The period of
sustained German drives came to an end and the Red Army, going over to
the offensive along most of the front, gained the initiative from the Gulf of
Finland to the Black Sea.
For the partisan movement the change was highly significant.
During the 18 months of its existence, the period of its infancy and growth, it
had been pitted against the strength of a winning army. Now, as it
approached maturity, it could strike at the rear of a retreating, weakening
enemy. It was a promising opportunity.
The reorganization within the movement which had started the
previous spring had been only a beginning. During the fall of 1942 and on
through the winter and into the spring of 1943 the rebuilding continued.
Where the earlier stress had been on the individual partisan units, the
emphasis was now placed on a reorganization of the movement as a whole
along lines which would make it an efficient auxiliary of the entire Soviet
war effort.
Completion of the Reorganization
The new Central Staff of the Partisan Movement that emerged was
in effect a fourth armed service, standing on a level with the Red Army,
the Red Air Force, and the Red Navy. Despite the fact that it was
designed as a ground combat command whose primary mission was to
support and aid and abet the operations of the Red Army, its ultimate
control was political, not military, descending directly from the Central
Committee of the Communist Party through the State Defense Committee,
to Ponomarenko, himself a member of the latter agency.
Its structure [see chart 2] was similar to that of the Red Army and
was organized along conventional general staff lines, with sections for
personnel, intelligence, operations, and supply. In addition, there was
a political security section headed by a high-ranking NKVD officer,
and several special staff sections for such matters as cryptography, transportation,
and the like. 1
Directly below the Central Staff were the territorial commands. These were
executive partisan staffs for the Karelo-Finnish Soviet So-
1
“Nachrichten ueber Bandenkrieg, Nr. 3," OKH/Gen.St.d.H/ABt. Frde. H. Ost
(I/Bd),Nr. 5632/43 g. Kdos., 28.VII.43. H 3/748.
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