ABSTRACT
In the years leading up to the war the Soviet countryside had been no stranger to violence. Collectivisation, and to a lesser extent the Great Purges, had brought considerable suffering to the countryside and in particular to so-called rich peasants or kulaks and local officials.1 German anti-partisan measures were now however often less selective in that they were often targeted at whole communities rather than being aimed at specific sections of the community. Here however it is necessary to differentiate between anti-partisan measures taken on a day-to-day basis and anti-partisan operations, during the latter killing tending to be more arbitrary.
