ABSTRACT
From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin and the Soviet leadership sought to foster resistance to the Axis invasion not only at the front line but in Axis rear areas. Whilst the Soviet authorities could utilize the Russian tradition of partisan warfare on which they had drawn during the Civil War and intervention, with the shift in Soviet doctrine in the late 1930s towards a primacy of the offensive, preparations for partisan warfare on Soviet territory in the event of foreign invasion were curtailed. As Panteleimon Ponomarenko, wartime head of the partisan movement recalled:
DOCUMENT 123: Retrospective comments by Panteleimon Ponomarenko, wartime head of the partisan movement, on pre-war preparations for partisan warfare
Despite a rich tradition and experience of partisan warfare and underground activity in previous wars, we did not have a single academic work putting this experience in context. The preparations being carried out during peacetime for partisan warfare were cut short in the mid-1930s, and caches of weapons, supplies and technical equipment created for this end were liquidated. The reason for this was without a doubt the unrealistic thrust of our military doctrine, stating that if the imperialists unleash war against the Soviet Union, then it will only take place on enemy territory. Even if it wasn’t accepted unconditionally by the military leadership in planning, this doctrine was nonetheless promoted in the press and in the speeches of prominent political and military figures, and supplanted the idea that war could be transferred to our territory.
