Forests and anti-Soviet resistance

The landscape becomes an indistinguishable feature of any guerrilla warfare as it is a type of the war that is waged by resistance groups and is localised. Whether African, Latin American or South Asian and European jungles, mountains or forests, are considered, these landscapes become both a place of refugee and an imminent danger for those who choose to fight or resist a prevalent force for whatever reasons. The nature gives a shelter to those who are considered outcasts by the majority and the woods play here a historical role.^[1] This blog will try to shed a light on Latvian Sisters and Brothers - the anti-Soviet para-military group in the Latvian forests in the context of similar groups in all three Baltic States and other parts of Europe that were opposed to the Soviet power during the Cold War.^[2] It will attempt to demonstrate the pre-history that led to this Latvian movement, how the forests became a place of a hope and an imminent despair to the the resistance and conclusions that could be made regarding the historical memory of the forests for Latvia today.

One of the most horrific incidents in Latvian history was that country’s occupation by the Soviets in 1940 as the result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact signed in Moscow that divided the territories of some of the East and North European independent states between the two totalitarian regimes and led to the Second World War.^[3] The forced treaties, ultimatums, the Soviet military intrusion in Latvia, followed by a staged referendum and elections as well as property confiscations, repressions and deportations of suspected anti-communists^[4] terrified Latvians and made the formation of the resistance groups in the woods inevitable. After the war broke out between Nazi Germany and the USSR, Germans invaded Latvia and were supported by many anti-Soviet resistance groups were formed to fight a guerrilla warfare, being inspired by the invasion^[5] and operating in the Latvian forests - the groups who fought Communists during and after the Second Soviet Occupation would be known as Forest Brothers. The initial inspirations that the Nazis would restore the lost independence ‘’proved futile^[6]’’. The Nazis launched a campaign to exterminate and suppress the Jews, Romani people and mentally ill and those who were considered to resist the German rule, including communist collaborators.^[7] The Soviets re-occupied Latvia in 1944 and the memories of the first occupation were still alive at that point.^[8] Although, the former Nazi collaborators and people that would engage in criminal activities joined the Forest Brothers and Sisters, a lot of members of the resistance were those who believed they were liable for the second Soviet persecution, whose families suffered under the first Soviet rule and those who held strong anti-communist beliefs, hoping for the independence to be restored.^[9] The Stalinist repressions targeted those who were considered as bourgeois and nationalist elements,^[10] the peasants were divided into three categories were based on the amount of land possession - the higher the number of hectares possessed, the more likely an individual to be named a kulak - the root of social instability as it was believed by the Soviet authorities.^[11] Peasants, who feared the abolition of private farming that would transform the farms in the state-run kolkhozy were among the resistance.^[12] The Latvian forests were a shelter place and accommodated a massive exodus of tens of thousands of those who were trying to flee.^[13] The memories of the independence and a hope that the Western Allies would subsequently fight the Soviets and restore it were the driving factors to transform the Latvian forests into a place of hope, family, fight, disillusionment and despair.^[14]

‘‘The forest was turned into a political concept and had abruptly become a doubly sensitive zone: to the authorities it was a space of revolt subject to their control; to the locals, the forests were transformed into sites of both resistance and shelter when life was endangered^[15]’’. Perhaps, in the first place, the Latvian forests represented a family shelter of the families of the partisans, who were terrified by the incoming deportations at the end of 1940s.^[16] The female partisans or the Forest Sisters managed the family lives of their children and male partners, who were engaged in cover and open military activities.^[17] Washing clothes, food provision, cooking and, where possible, medical assistance were among many activities these women performed in the woods.^[18] The Forest was the only shelter from Stalin’s tyranny and a base to launch local attacks against Soviet gatherings and offices in the country, sometimes targeting civilians who were perceived as the Soviet collaborators or those who surrendered and chose to obey.^[19] It was a true place of the independent Latvia when almost the whole country was controlled by a totalitarian and repressive force that sought to fundamentally transform the way of life Latvians experienced during their First Independence. Nature could and indeed had served as a refuge place for the outcasts or outsiders. Whether monks in the caves or the rejected ones in Middle Ages Europe,^[20] nature provided a place to hide and escape from the majority to preserve a familiar way of life or to fight for it. In the context of Europe, nature afforded forests or mountains to any fierce opposition that would not agree with a common way of life that was preserved, when it came to that movement being opposed by a dominant force that represented a particular state or at least a majority of any population. Since any predominant force was more likely to control most of the urban areas of any territory because they represented the centres of power, the nature of forests has become an outcast itself, providing an escape for the outcasts who would not accept the ‘urban ways’ of the majority.

Yet the forests and nature in general could become dangerous places for the resistance because of extreme weather conditions and poor food provision. The price of the warfare or refuge, that nature provides is enormous. In his The Mountains Roar: THE ALPS DURING THE GREAT WAR, Tait Keller describes different experiences of Italian, Austrian and German soldiers during the WWI. The soldiers appeared to fight on two ‘fronts’. One of them was their fight against human enemies - other soldiers, and another one was directed against a common enemy - nature itself. In case of THE ALPS DURING THE GREAT WAR, nature’s cruelty and ruthlessness was represented through avalanches. The conquering of the mountains and fighting was considered a heroic act on its own.^[21] When it came to the Latvian forests, the main obstacle for the Brothers and Sisters as well as their families was an adaptation to a condition that was fundamentally different from their homes they were used to live before, and particularly the kind of comfort was related to a home life.^[22] In her Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II, Sanita Reinsone describes stories of Mihalina, Lidija and Leontine - young Forest Girls, who experienced cold winter weather with temperature ranging from -16 C to -30 C, hiding in the forests with their loved ones.^[23] Unwashed clothes that had to be used for long periods of time and food scarcity that played particularly a significant role, while being under siege or chased by the Soviet security forces or Chekists as they were called among people.^[24] On one occasion, Brunhilda, one of the Forest Sisters, describes a situation when for one week she had no choice but eat blueberries only. ‘’I remember to this day how the whites of all of our eyes turned blue. Can you imagine?^[25]’’, she says. Gradually, the Latvian forest became a place of despair when it became apparent that the West would not intervene, the majority of population was willing to accept at least passively the Soviet rule and the agrarian policy of collectivisation worked as a tool of pacification.^[26] The Nature could be an ally of the resistance as it provided refuge, yet while being an enemy, the nature was indiscriminate to both sides, and specially to its refugees because it housed them.

The general date of the end of the resistance of the anti-Soviet militias in such occupied countries as the Baltic States, Poland and Western Ukraine is dated to 1953.^[27] Despite the Soviet propaganda trying to shape a narrative about the Latvian Forest Sisters and Brothers, branding all of them as bandits, Fascists or Western spies,^[28] the historical legacy of the movement was reconsidered after the USSR collapsed and Latvia gained its independence. The woods became a death and desperation place for many insurgents, yet, arguably they serve as a reminder of the past that cannot go away. Despite the Russian state narrative regarding the WWII, glorification of the Stalin’s epoch and justifying the Nazi-Soviet Pact,^[29] the insurgents succeeded in leaving this memory and the nature allowed them to do that, even though it claimed its price. The Latvian forest carried on its role of being a place of defiance of Kremlin. Giving Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its occupation of the territories of two more former Soviet countries, the Latvian Forest now houses a kind of resistance that was only dreamed of and falsely hoped for by the insurgents of the past - a multinational NATO battalion to deter any possible aggression in the future.^[30] Camp Adazi is a forest area in Latvia, that provides a base and a training area for the troops from many European countries contribute to the Canadian-led battlegroup in Latvia.^[31] The Forest insurgent movement in Latvia did not die and suffer in vein because the Forest now is a house of an international resistance, multiplying the efforts of those whose hope for the Western assistance was an illusion in the past.

^[1] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 402-403
^[2] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013)
^[3] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), p. 35
^[4] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 41-42
^[5] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), p. 53
^[6] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 397
^[7] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 397
^[8] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 397-398
^[9] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 397
^[10] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), p. 99
^[11] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 99-101
^[12] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 97-138
^[13] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 395
^[14] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 137-138
^[15] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 395
^[16] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016)
^[17] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 400
^[18] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 402
^[19] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 97-138
^[20] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 402-403
^[21] Tait Keller, ‘The Mountains Roar: The Alps during the Great War’, Environmental History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2009), pp. 253-274
^[22] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 406-411
^[23] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 406-415
^[24] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), pp. 406-411
^[25] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 409
^[26] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), pp. 137-163
^[27] Alexander Statiev, ‘The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands’, (New York, 2013), p. 1
^[28] Sanita Reinsone, ‘Forbidden and sublime forest landscapes: narrated experiences of Latvian national partisan women after World War II’, Cold War History, 16:4 (2016), p. 399
^[29] European Parliament, ‘European Parliament resolution of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe’, (Strasbourg, 2019)
^[30] ‘Boosting NATO’s presence in the east and southeast’, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_136388.htm (19 December, 2021)
^[31] ‘Boosting NATO’s presence in the east and southeast’, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_136388.htm (19 December, 2021)