The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands

This book investigates the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies between 1944 and 1953 in the regions the Soviet Union annexed after the Nazi-Soviet pact.

Alexander Statiev (Author)

9781107616479, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2013

386 pages, 3 b/w illus. 1 map 30 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.59 kg

'Statiev refutes the historiography's neat dichotomy between foreign usurpers persecuting the national freedom fighters of Ukraine and the Baltic states. Rather, he characterizes the conflict as a civil war fought on the village level, neighbor against neighbor. He provides numbers transformed into charts from archival and secondary sources to show that Ukrainians and Balts made up not only most of the insurgents but also the majority of counterinsurgents (in destruction battalions and village militias).' Kate Brown, Slavic Review

The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands investigates the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies that occurred between 1944 and 1953 in the regions the Soviet Union annexed after the Nazi-Soviet pact: Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Based on new archival data, Alexander Statiev presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet counterinsurgency that ties together the security tools and populist policies intended to attract the local populations. The book traces the origins of the Soviet pacification doctrine and then presents a comparative analysis of the rural societies in Eastern Poland and the Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet invasion. This analysis is followed by a description of the anti-communist resistance movements. Subsequently, the author shows how ideology affected the Soviet pacification doctrine and examines the major means to enforce the doctrine: agrarian reforms, deportations, amnesties, informant networks, covert operations, and local militias.

Introduction
1. Origins of Soviet counterinsurgency
2. The borderland societies in the interwar period: the first Soviet occupation and the emergence of nationalist resistance
3. The borderlands under German occupation (1941–4): social context of the Soviet re-conquest
4. Nationalist resistance after the Soviet re-conquest
5. Soviet agrarian policy as a pacification tool
6. Deportations, 'repatriations' and other types of forced migrations as aspects of security policy
7. Amnesties
8. Red rurales: the destruction battalions
9. Police tactics: actions of NKVD security units, intelligence gathering, covert operations and intimidation
10. The church in Soviet security policy
11. Violations of official policy and their impact on pacification
12. Conclusion: nationalist resistance and Soviet counterinsurgency in the global context
Appendix 1. Note on used terms and geographic and personal names
Appendix 2. Note on primary sources.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]