Latvian Partisans - The Partisan War

The Partisan War

There was not any significant support to the national partisans from the West. Most of the agents sent by the Western- British (MI6), American, and Swedish secret intelligence services in a period from 1945 to 1954 (about 25 agents) were arrested by KGB and could not get into contact with partisans. And also this poor support diminished significantly after MI6's Operation Jungle was severely compromised by the activities of British spies (Kim Philby and others) who forwarded information to the Soviets, enabling the KGB to identify, infiltrate and eliminate many Latvian partisan units and cut others off from any further contact with Western intelligence operatives.

The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Latvian national partisans lasted over a decade and cost at least thousands of lives. Estimates for the number of fighters in each country vary. Misiunas and Taagepera estimate that figures reached between 10,000 and 15,000 in Latvia.

The number of active combatants peaked at between 10,000 and 15,000, while the total number of resistance fighters was as high as 40,000. One author gives a figure of up to 12,000 grouped in 700 bands during the 1945–55 decade, but definitive figures are unavailable. Over time, the partisans replaced their German weapons with Russian ones. The partisan organizations which attempted to unite and coordinate their activities were the Latvian National Partisan Association in Vidzeme and Latgale, the Northern Courland Partisan Organization, Latvian National Partisan Organization in Courland, Latvian Defenders of the Homeland (partisan) Association in Latgale and the "Fatherland Hawks" in Southern Courland. The Central Command of Latvian resistance organizations maintained an office on Matīsa Street in Riga until 1947. In some 3,000 raids, the partisans inflicted damage on uniformed military personnel, party cadres (particularly in rural areas), buildings, and ammunition depots. Communist authorities reported 1,562 Soviet personnel killed and 560 wounded during the entire resistance period.

The Latvian national partisans were most active in the border regions. The forests hid the partisan dugouts, their workshops for weapons, their printing presses for leaflets and underground newspapers. Areas where they were most active included Abrene district, Ilūkste, Dundaga, Taurkalne, Lubāna, Aloja, Smiltene, Rauna and Līvāni. In the Northern regions, they had ties with Estonian Forest Brothers. As in Estonia, the partisans were killed off and infiltrated by the MVD and NKVD over time, and as in Estonia, Western assistance and intelligence was severely compromised by Soviet counter-intelligence and Latvian double agents such as Augusts Bergmanis and Vidvuds Sveics. Furthermore, the Soviets gradually consolidated their rule in the cities, help from rural civilians was not as forthcoming, and special military and security units were sent to control the partisans. The last groups emerged from the forest and surrendered to the authorities in 1957.