At the website
http://www.cec.jyu.fi/kesayo/geronet/tu ... isaani.htm , there is a study on the activities of Soviet Partisans in North-Eastern Laplans and the discussion on it in Finland in the late 1990s, by Ulla Sorvali.
It is unfortunately in Finnish only, but I will translate some parts of it below.
In her introduction the author refers to a TV documentary by Mr Risto Arkimies, broadcasted in the autumn of 1998, about the raids on Soviet partisans into the Finnish side of the Eastern border, with interviews of some survivors.
Ulla Sorvali’s study explores how raids of Soviet partisans during the Continuation War have been depicted in Finnish literature and newspaper discussions in the late 1990s. The study is restricted to partisan action within Finnish borders, in Lappish villages inhabited by civilians, and not for example in Eastern Karelia occupied by Finnish troops. Archive sources have not been used.
The author goes on to define partisans, as distinguished from desants and long-range patrols. “The partisans were not soldiers, but volunteer civilians, men and women, trained by the Soviet Communist Party, not by the military. The majority were members of the Communist Party or its Youth organisations. The partisan movement acted as an organisation of its own controlled by the party. Finnish-speaking Karelians, Vepsäs, and Finns were included (deserters of the 1920s and 1930s and their offspring).”
“After Germany attacked the Soviet Union on 22nd June 1941, Stalin gave an order to begin total resistance of the whole nation against the attacker. Partisan troops were initially founded in Ukraine and Byelorussia. The Germans treated cruelly the civilian population of their occupied territories, which led to merciless partisan warfare on both sides as the war went on. As distinguished from Finland, the partisans on German Eastern front had the support of the population.”
“2.2 Soviet partisans on the Finnish front
At the outbreak of the Continuation War in June 1941 there were already German troops in Northern Finland in accordance with the treaty on transit between Germany and Finland, and the Soviet Union regarded Finland as an ally of Germany. On the front against Finland the partisans consisted of less than 2000 people. The partisans raided 1941-44 a total of 23 civilian villages between Liperi and Sodankylä, and killed or captured all old people, women, and children they met. In the attacks 147 civilians died. In addition partisans killed or captured individual civilians on highways, paths, or in the forests. None of the partisan detachments attacked within our borders a village with a military unit of equal strength or even one capable of resistance in relation to the detachment.
The purpose of partisan activity was to pressurize Finland out of the war and to break the resistance of the civilian population by means of terror and weaken the morale of front line soldiers by making them worry about the security of their kin at home. One of the purposes was to tie up the scarce Finnish troops in counter-patrolling behind the front.
According to Erkkilä, small civilian villages were targeted for destructive raids because the partisans ran out of food and they were compelled to get it during their long journeys. In fear of being detected, all the inhabitants were killed. The most important reason was however that partisans had to get results in the fear of court-martial.”
Ulla Sorvali goes on to review Finnish literature on the subject.
“Seppo Sudenniemi in his book (Shadows of the Secret War) states that the casualties had no particular military significance, because the partisan raids were mostly targeted on civilians. Partisans avoided combat with strong military units. They however had an effect on the public opinion by spreading horror with their atrocities.”
“Helge Seppälä in his book (Finland as an Occupier) describes the occupation administration of Eastern Karelia 1941-44. There the active and passive resistance of the population dealt with the Soviet total defence against Germany and nations aligned with her. The orders for action came from Moscow to the Karelian front and further to the partisan movement with the same contents as to the fronts against the Germans.” – This addresses a question that Sokol and I discussed earlier, whether the Soviets knew whom they were fighting against.
Partisans remained after the armistice (4th September 1944) in North-Eastern Ilomantsi until early October, when even the provisional peace treaty of 19th September was in force. The last mine ambush took place on 11th September 1944 at Sarvivaara.
A journalist from Kittilä, Mr Veikko Erkkilä, took several trips to Russia and met 19 ex-partisans who had made journeys to Finland, including the only surviving commanders of partisan units. He received archive information from the state archives of Murmansk and Karelia, and from the partisan museum of the city of Polyarnye Zor. He got most assistance from a Russian historian, Mr Stanislav Dashinski.
Ulla Sorvali cites Mr Erkkilä in describing the incident at Seitajärvi village of the Municipality of Savukoski, nearly 100 km from the border, in summer 1944.
The Finnish sources describe the incident as an attack of about 50 partisans in the early hours of morning 7.7.1944 on the houses of the village, shooting several people, setting the houses in fire and ordering the rest of the villagers far into the deep forest. The partisans killed by shooting or with bayonets 11 women and children after having separated two villagers, who also disappeared. The eight-year old Mirja Arajärvi miraculously survived penetration twice with a bayonet, and could tell what had happened. Some villagers had managed to escape to a neighbouring village and to give alarm. A counter-partisan unit of the Finnish army went for pursuit and managed to shoot 34 partisans in three ambushes.
Mr Stanislav Dashinski acquired information for Mr Erkkilä on the Soviet partisan units that attacked Seitajärvi. The partisan units Polyarnik and Bolshevik had formed a united attack detachment with 48 men and women. According to the partisans’ knowledge there had been a strong garrison at Seitajärvi.
Mr Erkkilä interviewed Mr Valentin Smirnov, who had participated the raid in the age of 19, and also in Moscow Mr Giorgi Kalashnikov, the commander of Bolshevik, one of the two units that had attacked Seitajärvi. Mr Kalashnikov had told that Seitajärvi was chosen because it had a garrison with a regiment. Erkkilä told him about only a small Finnish guard squad against partisan attacks and that most of the casualties had been children, murdered deep inside the forest far from the village. Kalashnikov got upset about this, but did not argue when Mr Dashinski could confirm Erkkilä’s account. Mr Dashinski had earlier visited Finland and also some sites of partisan attacks, including Seitajärvi, and met survivors, including Mirja Arajärvi with her bayonet scars. Mr Kalashnikov seemed to have a genuinely false impression on the military strength of Seitajärvi and the attack on the village. He had mistaken the pursuing soldiers as being the same whom they had attacked in the village.
Reigo quoted the book V. Boiarski. Partizany i armia. Istoria uteriannyh vozmozhnostei. Minsk; Moskva, 2001. (Partisans and the army. History of lost opportunities) as follows:
“On 20th - 27th October 1941 904 men from the 101st Border-Guards Regiment (14th Army) made a raid in the Alakurtti area. The group consisted of two battalions, mortar company, MG company and some other sub-units. The leader was the commander of the 101st Rgt Colonel Zhukov. Being in enemy rear the group destroied over 200 enemy soldiers, 5 airplanes, 8 AA-guns. Also some warehouses were blown up. In November 952 men form the same unit made another raid to this area. The goal was to destroy the Alakurtti supply-station and liberate Soviet POWs there. Two Finnish battalions were crushed there, the enemy lost more than 300 killed, also 6 tanks, 13 mortars. The warehouses were destroied.”
To make it short, the story proves creative imagination. The Finnish Army, let alone the Air Force, certainly had no such resources to be left in God-forsaken Lappish villages in the middle of nowhere, while the offensive in Eastern Karelia was underway.
Cheers,
Hanski
No one wanted to die. At home they were treated as heroes, and I guess sooner or later they started to believe it themselves. 