ABSTRACT

Guerrilla warfare in the Soviet Union was officially initiated with Stalin’s appeal on 3 July 1941, calling Soviet patriots to establish infantry and cavalry partisan units everywhere in the enemy’s rear, to mine bridges, to cut his communications and supply routes; in short, “to make life intolerable for the invader.” To the Russians, the creation of partisan units was an auxiliary weapon of the regular army to carry out certain tasks behind enemy lines; to the Yugoslavs the partisans were the army. The Yugoslav partisans fought alone and their achievements earned them the admiration of friends and enemies alike. The two major East European risings outside the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia ended in disaster. The initiative for the Slovak revolt came from Lieutenant-Colonel Golian who acted both as chief of staff of the local puppet government and as the representative of the Czechoslovak government in exile.