Soviet partisans

Soviet partisans
Part of World War II on the Eastern Front
Soviet partisans take on a burning village trying to drive away German punitive expedition
Theatre of operations
Period	1941 – 1945
Territory	Soviet Union, Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union

The Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against the Axis forces in the Soviet Union and the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45. The activity emerged after the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa during World War II, and according to Great Soviet Encyclopedia it was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modelled on that of the Red Army. The primary objective of the guerrilla warfare waged by the Soviet partisan units was the disruption of the Eastern Front's German rear, especially road and rail communications. There were also regular military formations called partisans, that were used to conduct long-range reconnaissance patrol missions behind Axis lines from the Soviet-held territory.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic (referred to as the Kresy) and annexed the lands totalling 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi) with a population of 13,299,000 inhabitants including ethnic Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Czechs and others.