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

138 THE SOVIET PARTISAN MOVEMENT
cialist Republic (SSR), the Leningrad area, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the
Kalinin Front, the White Russian SSR, the Russian Socialist Federated
Soviet Republic (including the Kursk, Orel, and Smolensk areas),
the Ukrainian SSR, the Crimean SSR, and the Caucasus. With but
one exception, the chiefs of these staffs were Communist Party or NKVD
officers, often officials of the former government of the areas. The
exact function of these territorial commands is unknown. They did
not constitute an echelon in the chain of command.
The lower echelon command organs were grouped laterally according
to the Red Army front sectors. Below the Central Staff there were
partisan staffs with each front command, exercising control through
operating groups set up at the headquarters of each army of the front.
Beyond the main line of resistance and under the control of each of these
latter were "Operations Groups in the Enemy's Rear" which exercised
immediate command of the partisan brigades [see chart 3], battalions,
and lesser units. These operational groups issued orders to the
brigades and separate battalions on the basis of directives from the higher
staffs and headquarters; oversaw recruiting training; required regular
reports on results of missions, unit strengths, and positions; and strove
in every way to maintain and improve discipline. 2
Although they were to cooperate closely with their respective front
and army commands, the staffs and operating groups were not under
military direction. The chain of command was clear: the partisans
were to work with and in support of the Red Army, but they were to
take their orders from the Central Staff. They were not to allow
themselves to he absorbed by the Red Army in the event of a successful
offensive. On the contrary, they were under orders to move westward
before such an advance so as to remain in the rear of the enemy
and under political control. To ensure a continuation of this control
under all circumstances, when the political commissar in the Red Army
was divested of the greater part of his power he remained secure in his
old position in the partisan units coequal with the tactical commander.
Furthermore, the Central Staff retained the authority to alter the partisan
organization or insert special task groups into the enemy rear
without reference to any military agency. 3
It was sometime during the latter period of this reorganization that
the distinction between the Red Army-led partisan brigades and the
purely partisan groups, that had formerly been so marked, disappeared,
with the latter being raised to or assuming the level of the former. 4
2
Ibid.
3
Captured partisan directive, incl. to: OKW/WFSt/WOr, (I/IV). Nr. 4630/43g.
24.VII.43. in H. Gr. Nord. Ic/AO, Propaganda, 24.VIII.-24.X.43. 75131/108.
4
See: Bandenlisten, Februar bis September 43, H. Gr. Mitte, Ic/AO (Abw.).
65003/4.