Guerrilla war in Lithuania
Part of theguerrilla war in the Baltic states and theCold War
Lithuanian partisans of the Vytautas military district Tigras (Tiger) team, 1947.
Date 1 July 1944 – May 1953 Location Lithuania Result Soviet victory Insurgency suppressed
Belligerents
Soviet Union Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic	LithuanianForest Brothers
Commanders and leaders
Joseph Stalin Lavrentiy Beria Pavel Sudoplatov Viktor Abakumov	Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas  Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas  Antanas Kraujelis-Siaubūnas  † Juozas Lukša-Daumantas  † Juozas Vitkus-Kazimieraitis  † Jonas Misiūnas-Žalias Velnias  Justinas Lelešius-Grafas † Lionginas Baliukevičius-Dzūkas  †
Units involved
NKVD NKGB MGB Destruction battalions	LLKS
Strength
200,000 NKVD personnel 2000–5000 "stribai" 1,500 NKGB personnel	50,000 partisans more than 100,000 support staff[1]
Casualties and losses
12,921 killed[2]	20,323 killed 20,000 captured[2]
183,000 arrested residents[3] 142,000 were sent to the Gulags[3] 80,000 convicts received sentences for political crimes[3] 90,000 civilians killed, circa 200,000 deported (including partisan supporters)

Eastern Bloc
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Related organizations Warsaw Pact Comecon Cominform World Federation of Trade Unions World Federation of Democratic Youth
Opposition Anti-Soviet partisans Albania Bulgaria Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Ukraine Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Soviet occupation Estonia Latvia Lithuania Operation Jungle Protests and uprisings Poland 1944–1989 Poznań 1956 1980–89 Plzeň 1953 East Germany 1953 Georgia 1956 Hungary 1956 Novocherkassk 1962 Prague 1968 Invasion Moscow Czechoslovakia 1976–1990 Romania 1977 Kazakhstan 1986 Brașov 1987 Tbilisi 1989 Ukraine 1989–1991 Baku 1990 Lithuania 1991 Riga 1991 Dissent Soviet Poland East Germany to Hong Kong North Korea
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Lithuanian partisans (Lithuanian:Lietuvos partizanai) werepartisans who wagedguerrilla warfare in Lithuania against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953. Similaranti-Soviet resistance groups, also known asForest Brothers andcursed soldiers, fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Poland. An estimated total of 30,000 Lithuanian partisans and their supporters were killed.^[4] The Lithuanian partisan war lasted almost for a decade, thus becoming one of the longest partisan wars in Europe.

At the end ofWorld War II, theRed Army pushed theEastern Front towards Lithuania. TheSoviets invaded and occupied Lithuania by the end of 1944. As forcedconscription into Red Army andStalinist repressions escalated, thousands of Lithuanians took to the forests in the countryside as a refuge. These spontaneous groups became more organized and centralized culminating in the establishment of theUnion of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters in February 1948. In their documents, the partisans emphasized that their ultimate goal was the recreation of independent Lithuania. As the partisan war continued, it became clear that the West would not interfere in Eastern Europe (seeWestern betrayal) and the partisans had no chance of success against a far stronger opponent. Eventually, the partisans made an explicit and conscious decision not to accept any new members. The leadership of the partisans was destroyed in 1953 thus effectively ending the partisan war, though individual fighters held out until the 1960s.

Lithuaniaregained its independence in 1918 after the collapse of theRussian Empire. As pre-war tensions rose in Europe, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact and divided Eastern Europe intospheres of influence. Subsequently, Lithuania wasoccupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940. The Soviets institutedSovietization policies and repressions. In June 1941, the Sovietsdeported over 17,000 Lithuanians toSiberia, with most of the deportees dying in the harsh winters. When a few daysGermany launched an invasion of Russia, Lithuanians organized apopular anti-Soviet uprising. Initially, the Lithuanians greeted the Germans as liberators from the repressive Soviet rule and made plans toreestablish independent Lithuania. However, the attitudes soon changed as theoccupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany continued.

Unlike Estonia and Latvia where the Germans conscripted the local population into military formations in theWaffen-SS, Lithuania boycotted German recruitment calls and never had their ownWaffen-SS division. In 1944, the Nazi authorities authorized theLithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF) under GeneralPovilas Plechavičius to combatSoviet partisans led byAntanas Sniečkus and the Polish partisans of theHome Army. The LTDF soon reached a strength of 19,500 men. The Germans, however came to see the LTDF as a nationalist threat to their occupation regime and its senior staff were arrested on May 15, 1944. General Plechavičius was deported to theSalaspils concentration camp in Latvia. However, a large proportion of the LTDF succeeded in escaping deportation to Germany and formed guerrilla units, dissolved into the countryside in preparation for partisan operations against the Soviet Army as theEastern Front approached.^[5][6]

On July 1, 1944, theLithuanian Liberty Army (Lithuanian:Lietuvos laisvės armija, LLA) declared a state of war against the Soviet Union and ordered all able-bodied members to mobilize into platoons stationed in the forests and not to leave Lithuania. The departments were replaced by two sectors – operational, calledVanagai (Hawks or Falcons; abbreviated VS), and organizational (abbreviated OS).Vanagai, commanded by Albinas Karalius (codename Varenis), were the armed fighters while the organizational sector was tasked withpassive resistance, including supply of food, information, and transport toVanagai. In the middle of 1944, the LLA had 10 000 members.^[7] The Soviets had killed 659 and arrested 753 members of the LLA by January 26, 1945. FounderKazys Veverskis was killed in December 1944, and its headquarters were liquidated in December 1945. This represented the failure of highly centralized resistance; the organization was depended too much on Veverskis and other top commanders. In 1946 the remaining leaders and fighters of the LLA started to merge with Lithuanian partisans. In 1949 all members of the presidium of theUnion of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters – captain Jonas Žemaitis-Tylius, Petras Bartkus-Žadgaila, and Bronius Liesys-Naktis ir Juozas Šibaila-Merainis – came from the LLA.^[8]

TheSupreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (Lithuanian:Vyriausiasis Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas, VLIK) was created on November 25, 1943. VLIK published underground newspapers and agitated for resistance against the Nazis. The Gestapo arrested most influential members in 1944. After the reoccupation of Lithuania by the Soviets, VLIK moved to the West and set as its goal to maintain the non-recognition of Lithuania's occupation and dissemination of information from behind theIron Curtain – including the information provided by the Lithuanian partisans.

Former members of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, the Lithuanian Liberty Army,Lithuanian Armed Forces andLithuanian Riflemen's Union formed the basis of Lithuanian partisans. Farmers, Lithuanian officials, students, teachers, and even pupils joined the partisans. The movement was actively supported by Lithuanian society and the Catholic church. By the end of 1945, an estimated 30 000 armed people lived in the Lithuanian forests.

The resistance in Lithuania was well organized, anduniformed guerrilla units with achain of command were effectively able to control whole regions of the countryside until 1949. Their armaments includedCzech Škoda guns,Russian Maxim heavy machine guns, assortedmortars and a wide variety of mainly German and Sovietlight machine guns andsubmachine guns.^[5] When not directly fighting the Soviet Army or specialNKVD units, they significantly delayed the consolidation of Soviet rule through ambush, sabotage, assassination of localCommunist activists and officials, freeing imprisoned guerrillas, and printing underground newspapers.^[9] Captured LithuanianForest Brothers often facedtorture andsummary execution, while their relatives faceddeportation to Siberia (cf.quotation). Reprisals against pro-Soviet farms and villages were harsh. TheNKVD units (known by the Lithuanians aspl.stribai, from theRussian:istrebiteli –destroyers) used cruel repression to discourage further resistance, e.g. displaying executed partisans' corpses in village courtyards.^[5][10]

The partisans were well-armed. During 1945–1951 Soviet repressive structures seized from partisans 31 mortars, 2,921 machine guns, 6,304 assault rifles, 22,962 rifles, 8,155 pistols, 15,264 grenades, 2,596 mines, and 3,779,133 cartridges. The partisans usually replenished their arsenal by killingistrebiteli, members of Soviet secret-police forces or by purchasing ammunition from Red Army soldiers.^[11] Every partisan had binoculars and few grenades. One grenade was usually saved to blow themselves and their faces to avoid being taken as prisoner, since the physical tortures of Soviet MGB/NKVD were very brutal and cruel, and being recognised, to prevent their relatives from suffering.

In the first year of partisan warfare, about 10,000 Lithuanians were killed – about half of the total deaths. Men avoided conscription to the Red Army and hid in the forests, spontaneously joining the Lithuanian partisans. Not all groups were armed or intended to actively fight the Soviets. Partisan groups were relatively large, 100 men and more. There were several larger open engagements between the partisans andNKVD, like in Kalniškė, Paliepiai,Seda, Virtukai, Kiauneliškis, Ažagai-Eimuliškis and the village of Panara. Since the Soviets had not established control, the partisans controlled entire villages and towns.

In July 1945, after the end of World War II, the Soviets announced an "amnesty" and "legalization" campaign for those hiding in the forests to avoid conscription. According to a Soviet report from 1957, in total 38,838 people came forward under the campaign (8,350 of them were classified as "armed nationalist bandits" and 30,488 as deserters avoiding conscription).^{[citation needed]}

In the second stage of partisan warfare, the partisan groups became smaller but better organized. They organized themselves into units and military districts and sought better centralization. The territory of Lithuania was divided into three regions and nine military districts (Lithuanian:apygarda):

• Southern Lithuanian orNemunas:Tauras andDainava districts,
• North – Eastern Lithuanian orKalnų (Mountains):Algimantas,Didžioji Kova,Vytis andVytautas districts,
• Western Lithuanian orJūros (Sea):Kęstutis,Prisikėlimas andŽemaičiai districts.

Open engagements with NKVD/MGB were replaced by more clandestine activities. It was important to keep up people's spirits. Therefore, the partisans hid in bunkers and engaged in political and propaganda activities. In particular they protested and disrupted elections to theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in February 1946 and to theSupreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR in February 1947. They published bulletins, leaflets and newspapers. Almost 80 different periodicals were published by the partisans. MGB also changed its tactics and began to recruit agents and organizedestruction battalions. The partisans responded by organizing reprisal actions against collaborators with the Soviets.

To combat the guerrillas, in May 1948 the Soviets carried out the largest deportation yet from Lithuania,Operation Spring, and some forty to fifty thousand people associated with the "forest brothers" were deported to Siberia.

In February 1949, partisan leaders met in the village ofMinaičiai and established a centralized command, theUnion of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters.Brigadier GeneralJonas Žemaitis was elected chairman. On February 16, 1949, the 31st anniversary of theAct of Independence of Lithuania, the Joint Staff of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters signed a declaration on the future of Lithuania stating that the reinstated Lithuania should be a democratic state that would grant equal rights for every citizen based on freedom and democratic values. It did declare that theCommunist party was a criminal organization. The document of the declaration survived and was preserved by theKGB. In 1999, the LithuanianSeimas (parliament) formally recognized this declaration as a Declaration of Independence.

Juozas Lukša was among those who managed to escape to Western countries; he wrote his memoirs –Forest Brothers: The Account of an Anti-Soviet Lithuanian Freedom Fighter, 1944–1948 – in Paris, and was killed after returning to occupied Lithuania in 1951. By the early 1950s, the Soviet forces had eradicated most of the Lithuanian nationalist resistance. Intelligence gathered by the Soviet spies in the West and KGB infiltrators within the resistance movement, in combination with large-scale Soviet operations in 1952, managed to end the campaigns against them.^[13]

Adolfas Ramanauskas (code nameVanagas), the last official commander of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters, was arrested in October 1956 and executed in November 1957. The last Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance fighters killed in action werePranas Končius (code nameAdomas) and Kostas Liuberskis (code nameŽvainys). Končius was killed on July 6, 1965 (some sources say he shot himself on July 13 in order to avoid capture) and awarded theCross of Vytis in 2000, which was later revoked in 2015 due to his involvement in the Holocaust. Liuberskis was killed on October 2, 1969; his fate was unknown until the late 2000s.^[14] Stasys Guiga (code nameTarzanas) died in hiding in 1986.^[15]

Many nationalist partisans persisted in the hope thatCold War hostilities between the West,which never formally recognized the Soviet occupation, and the Soviet Union might escalate to an armed conflict in which Lithuania would be liberated. This never materialized, and many of the surviving former partisans remained bitter that the West did not take on the Soviets militarily.^[16]

As the conflict was relatively undocumented by the Soviet Union (the Lithuanian fighters were never formally acknowledged as anything but "bandits and illegals"), some consider it and the Soviet-Lithuanian conflict as a whole is an unknown orforgotten war.^[5][17][18] Discussion of resistance was suppressed under the Soviet regime. Writings on the subject by the Lithuanian emigrants were often labelled by Soviet propaganda as examples of "ethnic sympathy" and disregarded.^[19]

In Lithuania, freedom fighter veterans receive a state pension. The third Sunday in May is commemorated asPartisan's Day. As of 2005, there were about 350 surviving partisans in Lithuania.^[20]

Žaliukas ("Green man") is the Lithuanian partisan-inspired qualification patch in theLithuanian Special Operations Forces given to the very best.Žaliukas is the word for the state of alert of the unyielding part of the nation in the face of danger.^[21]

Lithuanian courts view Soviet repressions against Lithuanian partisans ascrimes against humanity. In 2016, theSupreme Court of Lithuania ruled that the systematic extermination of the partisans by the Soviet regime constituted agenocide.^[22] In 2019, theEuropean Court of Human Rights upheld the view of the national courts that these Soviet repressions could be deemed genocide.^[23]

The 1966 filmNobody Wanted to Die (Lithuanian:Niekas nenorėjo mirti) by Soviet-Lithuanian film directorVytautas Žalakevičius shows the tragedy of the "brother against brother" conflict. Despite being propaganda shot from a Soviet perspective, the film alludes to the possibility of alternative points of view. The film brought acclaim to Žalakevičius, and to a number of young Lithuanian actors starring in the film.

The 2004 filmUtterly Alone (Lithuanian:Vienui Vieni) portrays the travails of Lithuanian partisan leaderJuozas Lukša who traveled twice toWestern Europe in attempts to gain support for the armed resistance.

The 2005 documentary filmStirna tells the story ofIzabelė Vilimaitė (codenamesStirna andSparnuota), an American-born Lithuanian who moved to Lithuania with her family in 1932. A medical student and pharmacist, she was an underground medic and source of medical supplies for the partisans, eventually becoming a district liaison. She infiltrated the localKomsomol (Communist Youth), and was twice discovered and captured, and escaped. After going underground full-time, she was suspected of having been turned by the KGB as an informant and was nearly executed by the partisans. Her bunker was eventually discovered by the KGB and she was captured a third time, interrogated and killed.^[24][25]

In 2008, an American documentary film,Red Terror on the Amber Coast was released, documenting the Lithuanian resistance to the Soviet occupation from the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.^[26]

In 2014,The Invisible Front, a documentary focusing on Juozas Lukša, was released in the US.^[27]

In 2021,Icelandic composer and producer Ólafur Arnalds released a track titledPartisans, honoring the Lithuanian partisan resistance.^[28]

• Anti-Soviet partisans
• Guerrilla war in the Baltic states
• Estonian partisans
• Latvian partisans
• Territorial Unit (Lithuania)

• Kaszeta, Daniel J. (Fall 1988)."Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940–1952".Lituanus.34 (3).ISSN 0024-5089.
• Kuodytė, Dalia; Tracevskis, Rokas (2004).The Unknown War: Armed Anti-Soviet Resistance in Lithuania in 1944–1953. Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.ISBN 9986-757-59-2.
• Vitkus, Gediminas, ed. (2014).Wars of Lithuania. Vilnius:General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania.ISBN 978-609-437-250-6.

• Baliukevičius, Lionginas (2008).The Diary of a Partisan: A Year in The Life of the Postwar Lithuanian Resistance Fighter Dzukas. Pasauliui Apie Mus. Vilnius:Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.ISBN 978-9955463207.
• Daumantas, Juozas L. (December 1975).Fighters For Freedom: Lithuanian Partisans Versus the U.S.S.R. (2nd ed.). New York: Manyland Books.ISBN 0-87141-049-4.LCCN 74-33547.
• Gehler, Michael; Schriffl, David, eds. (2020).Violent Resistance: From the Baltics to Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe 1944–1956. Schoeningh Ferdinand GmbH.ISBN 978-3506703040.
• Kemeklis-Kerštas, Bronius (2020).We could not but resist genocide / Memoirs of an ordinary partisan. Vilnius:Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.ISBN 978-609-8037-93-7.
• Razgaitis, Darius.Forest Brothers from the West, research thesis, 2002.
• Ramanauskas, Adolfas (2018).Many Sons Have Fallen in the Partisan Ranks. Vilnius:Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.ISBN 978-609-8037-76-0.
• Rieber, Alfred J. (Winter 2003)."Civil Wars in the Soviet Union"(PDF).Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History.4 (1). Slavica Publishers:129–162.doi:10.1353/kri.2003.0012.S2CID 159755578 – via Project MUSE.
• Streikus, Arūnas, ed. (2022).The Unknown War: Anti-Soviet armed resistance in Lithuania and its legacies (1st ed.).Routledge.ISBN 9781032185088.
• Vardys, V. Stanley, ed. (1966). "The Partisan Movement in Postwar Lithuania".Lithuania Under the Soviets. Portrait of a Nation, 1940-65. New York:Frederick A. Praeger. Archived fromthe original on 2012-03-02. Retrieved2009-02-15.
• Wnuk, Rafal (2018).Lesni bracia [Forest Brothers] (in Polish). Warsaw:Bellona.ISBN 978-8311152618.
• Ziemele, Ineta, ed. (2021).International law from a Baltic perspective. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill.ISBN 978-90-04-43314-4.

• Anušauskas, Arvydas (2018).Aš esu Vanagas [I'm a Hawk] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Dominicus Lituanus.ISBN 978-609-8227-07-9.
• Baliukevičius, Lionginas (2006).Partizano Dzūko dienoraštis [The Diary of the Partisan Dzūkas] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius:Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras.ISBN 9986-757-50-9.
• Girnius, Kęstutis K. (1987).Partizanų kovos Lietuvoje [Partisan fights in Lithuania] (in Lithuanian). Chicago: Į laisvę fondas.ISBN 978-609-8227-07-9.
• Kerulis, Leonardas (1988).Pokario Lietuvos laisvės kovotojai [Postwar Lithuania's freedom fighters] (in Lithuanian). Chicago: Pasaulio lietuvių archyvas.ISBN 978-609-8227-07-9.(Contains a registry of Lithuanian partisans)
• Kemeklis-Kerštas, Bronius (2015).Nesipriešinti genocidui negalėjom [We Had to Fight Against the Genocide] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius:Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.ISBN 9786098037470.
• Kuckailis, Ernestas (2020).Dešimt kautynių [Ten Battles of Lithuanian Partisans] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius:Vox Altera.ISBN 9786098088335.
• Vaitkevičius, Vykintas; Petrauskienė, Aistė (2019).Lietuvos partizanų valstybė [The State of the Lithuanian Partisans] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius:Alma litera.ISBN 9786090139479.

• Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania
• Activities of Lithuanian Partisans in the West, p. 16Archived 2019-10-20 at theWayback Machine
• Lithuanian Tauras District Partisans and Deportation Museum
• Soviet Terror In Lithuania During The Post-War Years
• War Chronicle of the PartisansArchived 2012-05-31 at theWayback Machine – Chronicle of Lithuanian partisans, June 1944 – May 1949, prepared by Algis Rupainis
• Historynet – Lithuania vs U.S.S.R.: A secret hot fight in the Cold War

• Lithuanian partisans
• Anti-Soviet resistance during World War II
• Eastern European World War II resistance movements
• Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
• Military history of the Soviet Union
• Cold War military history of the Soviet Union
• Anti-communist guerrilla organizations
• Cold War rebellions
• Insurgent groups in Europe
• Forest Brothers

• CS1 Lithuanian-language sources (lt)
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• CS1 Polish-language sources (pl)