Lithuanian partisans

Guerrilla war in Lithuania
Part of the guerrilla war in the Baltic states and the Cold War
Lithuanian partisans of the Vytautas military district Tigras (Tiger) team, 1947.
Date 1 July 1944 – May 1953 Location Lithuania Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Soviet Union  Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic	Lithuanian Forest 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]
90,000 civilians killed, circa 200,000 deported (including partisan supporters)

Eastern Bloc
Republics of the USSR Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan
Allied and satellite states Afghanistan Albania (until 1961) Angola Benin Bulgaria China (until 1961) Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Kampuchea Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland (until 1989) Romania Somalia (until 1977) South Yemen Vietnam (North Vietnam, PRG) Yugoslavia (until 1948)
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
Cold War events Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Korean War Secret Speech Sino-Soviet split Albanian–Soviet split De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Cuban intervention in Angola Afghan War 1980 Moscow Olympics 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Gulf War
Fall Singing Revolution Polish Round Table Agreement Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall January Events Barricades in Latvia Breakup of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Wars End of the Soviet Union Post-Soviet conflicts Fall of communism in Albania Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
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Lithuanian partisans (Lithuanian: Lietuvos partizanai) were partisans who waged guerrilla warfare in Lithuania against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953. Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups, also known as Forest Brothers and cursed soldiers, fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Poland. An estimated total of 30,000 Lithuanian partisans and their supporters were killed.^[3] The Lithuanian partisan war lasted almost for a decade, thus becoming one of the longest partisan wars in Europe.

At the end of World War II, the Red Army pushed the Eastern Front towards Lithuania. The Soviets invaded and occupied Lithuania by the end of 1944. As forced conscription into Red Army and Stalinist 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 the Union 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 (see Western 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.