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.
Soviet partisans faced formidable challenges in regions annexed after the Nazi-Soviet Pact. In the pre-1939 territories, most partisans were locals; they operated within a familiar, often friendly social environment; their political goals were secondary to their military ones; and they targeted the Axis forces and their collaborators. In the western provinces, however, most partisans were outsiders; their political objectives dominated others; and they fought local nationalists as much as they did the Axis. Borderland residents were either indifferent or hostile to communist ideology, yet their attitude towards the partisans was complex. It depended on their economic status, regional variations of the Soviet policy in 1939-41, Axis occupation practices, the situation on the fronts, the strength of nationalist sentiments, local political culture and ethnic strains. The intricate interaction of these factors determined whether partisans succeeded or failed.
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