Communist Guerilla Warfare

This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books—picklepublishing@gmail.com

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

COMMUNIST GUERILLA WARFARE

BY

BRIGADIER C. AUBREY DIXON, O.B.E.

AND

OTTO HEILBRUNN

With a Foreword by Lieutenant-General Sir Reginald F. S. Denning, K.B.E., C.B.

G.O.C. Northern Ireland District

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

FOREWORD 5

ILLUSTRATIONS 7

INTRODUCTION 8

PART ONE—THE SOVIET GUERILLAS 10

Chapter I—WRITINGS ON THE WALL 10

Chapter II—SOVIET GUERILLAS IN ACTION 21

Chapter III—ORGANIZATION AND SUPPLY OF THE SOVIET GUERILLAS 40

Chapter IV—TACTICAL TASKS OF THE SOVIET GUERILLAS 63

PART TWO—THE GERMAN ANTI-GUERILLAS 69

Chapter V—TRIAL AND ERROR 69

Chapter VI—THE GERMAN ORGANIZATION FOR ANTI-PARTISAN WARFARE 79

Chapter VII—GERMAN ANTI-GUERILLAS IN ACTION 93

Chapter VIII—THE GERMAN ANTI-GUERILLA TACTICS 104

Chapter IX—THE FAILURE OF ANTI-GUERILLA WARFARE 117

PART THREE—CONCLUSIONS 126

Chapter X—LIVE IN DEEDS 126

APPENDIX—THE GERMAN BLUEPRINT FOR ANTI-GUERILLA TACTICS 141

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 163

FOREWORD

by Lieut.-Gen. Sir Reginald F. S. Denning,

K.B.E., C.B., G.O.C. Northern Ireland District,

Colonel (The 16th Foot) The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment

1. Brigadier Dixon and Dr. Heilbrunn have made an extensive study of guerilla warfare, particularly as practised by the Russians against the German armies in the years 1941-5. The results of their study, which they have recorded in this book, are of absorbing interest and will, I am sure, be of considerable value to those who may be responsible for planning to combat this menace in any future war.

2. The Authors refer in their Introduction to other theatres of war where guerillas were also used in the Second World War, to harass the enemy on his lines of communication and thereby to force him to disperse his troops in considerable strength, to combat them.

3. There immediately comes to mind the extensive organization built up by The Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral the Earl Mountbatten, in South East Asia. Admittedly the driving force behind this organization was produced by the British-U.S.A. forces in that part of the world, but in Malaya in particular the guerilla forces were provided in the main by the inhabitants, although led by the British-U.S.A. officers and men. These forces seriously embarrassed the Japanese and made a considerable contribution to their defeat. Spencer Chapman in his fascinating book The Jungle is Neutral shows the ingenuity behind the action which was taken by the guerillas in this part of the world.

4. Then again, on perhaps a different plane, there were General Wingate’s Forces which operated behind the Japanese lines in Burma; but they were organized and disciplined military units, although the object at which they aimed and achieved, was in the nature of that carried out by the Russian guerillas against the German Forces.

5. Nor must we forget that in the United Kingdom we did not overlook the fact that it might be necessary to use extensive guerilla warfare against the Germans, if they succeeded in landing on our islands. It may not be generally known, but it is a fact that a very considerable organization was built up for the purpose and I would say that the ingenuity used in planning for such action was of a high order, perhaps higher than that described by the Authors as having been used by the Russians.

6. Lastly, and by no means least, there were the Maquis of France, who carried out unrelenting warfare against the German Forces occupying their country. Their action was as bold and as effective as the guerillas of Russia, and their number was certainly not less. It is only necessary to read the story of Odette to realize the extent of the operations of the Maquis and the magnificence of the fearless spirit which animated them.

7. Be that as it may, the Authors have drawn timely attention in their book to the necessity for the free nations, to plan to meet the threat of guerillas in any future war. They have pointed out the great drain there is on an army, the lines of communication of which are menaced by guerillas. Even the threat of guerilla action caused the Germans to tie up some fifteen divisions in order to try to ensure that vital communications were not damaged.

8. The Authors infer that there are two sides to the guerilla warfare: there is the use of guerillas for our own purposes and the action necessary to combat those used against us. They advocate that a training manual should be prepared in order to ensure that the Army—not only the British, but the armies of all the free nations—should go into a future war prepared to deal with the guerilla menace, and to use guerillas for their own purposes. The Appendix to their book is, in fact, a readable manual in itself, and it is no less good because it contains the orders issued by the German High Command to combat the Russian guerillas.

9. After reading the book the main impressions left on my mind are as follows:

(а) In the Second World War the Russian guerillas made a considerable contribution to the defeat of the German armies; they were animated by a fierce hatred of the Germans and a desire to protect their country, which was, at that time, being despoiled. On the other hand, guerilla warfare used in other theatres of war by other nations was equally effective and made as great a contribution towards the defeat of the common enemy.

(b) Guerillas used for our own purposes behind the enemy’s lines must operate under the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Field. If this is not done, it is possible that their action will not contribute towards the main object, which is the defeat of the enemy’s armed forces in the field; in fact it may impede the attainment of this object. Control and direction of guerillas by a Governmental Ministry would be going back to the days of ‘private armies’ which, however gallant and determined they may have been, did not make the contribution which they might have made, had they been under the Commander-in-Chief in the Field. It is only the Commander-in-Chief in the Field who can decide the guerilla action which will help him to attain his object.

(c) When action is taken to subdue the guerillas, it reacts immediately on the normal civil population, and the Germans used to make reprisals in order to coerce the guerillas to abandon their task. This action was to exterminate great numbers of the civil population in areas in which the guerillas were operating or to put them into concentration camps. Extermination, except in battle, would be wholly repugnant to the Western Nations. Concentration camps would necessitate a vast organization and a considerable expenditure in manpower in order to guard and to administer them. The only answer I can see is that which has been used by General Briggs in Malaya in which he clears troublesome areas of bandits and then places troops around the perimeter of such areas ready to take action, should the guerillas raise their heads again.

10. In view of the situation of the world today this book is timely. It is a subject about which we have heard much, but which, as far as I know, has not been extensively studied. The book will go a long way towards rectifying the situation and to help those who may be concerned in planning to meet the guerilla menace or to use it against the enemy.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Map of the Crimea, showing Partisan strongholds

Map of the Northern Sector of the U.S.S.R., showing the band-infested areas

Organizational Chart of the Soviet Guerilla Formations

The Encirclement

Battle Shooting; the Spider’s Web

The Partridge Drive

Cleaning-up the Cauldron

Annihilation of a Band on the March by a Jagd-Kommando

INTRODUCTION

DURING the last war our troops never met guerillas, as enemies, on a large scale. Japanese, Italian, and German guerilla forces were non-existent. As soon as we fought the Japanese on their own soil, they gave in, and if they ever had any intention of putting guerillas into the field, they never showed it. The Italians did not give us any trouble with guerillas either, and only the Germans tried to organize guerilla warfare as a last defence. There was some talk, during the winter 1944-5, of the German Werwolf movement which was supposed to hold out in redoubts in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps. It was, at that time, the intention of some top Nazis to organize this movement which, after the collapse, was to keep on fighting against the Allied occupation troops and provide a rallying point for German resistance. A few prospective Werwolves were caught by the Allies, and that was the end of that. The German people, stunned and tired out after almost six years of war, had had enough of it, and the Werwolf guerillas never fired a shot.

There was, of course, guerilla warfare during the last war, and it was conducted on a gigantic scale against the invading German armies in the U.S.S.R. There were also Chinese, Yugoslav, Greek, Polish, French, and Abyssinian guerillas, not forgetting our own Chindits in Burma. But all of them were fighting on our side at the time. We never looked upon them as anything but patriots. But if you encounter guerillas fighting for the enemy, you do not consider them any longer as patriots: they are bandits. And we never met bandits until Malaya and Korea.

It is for this reason that we in this country have hardly begun to understand the implications of guerilla warfare, and this all the more, since practically no credit and very little publicity has been given to the exploits of guerillas on our side in the East African campaign and in Burma. It is time we should understand these implications. Guerilla warfare, after all, has been developed to perfection by the Communists, and in any foreseeable war we will have to fight against guerillas in our midst.

Guerilla warfare has revolutionized the conception of war. Traditional warfare, as we used to know it, was a clear-cut affair. The troops fought at the front; behind the front line there was near-peace. According to Article 43 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare, the general in command of an army in occupied country is responsible for restoring and ensuring, as far as possible public order and safety. He is vested with executive power He exercises sovereignty, promulgates laws, keeps the administration going, installs judicial authority, and protects the civilian population. Restoring and ensuring public order and safety was a simple enough ta.sk in the time of old-fashioned warfare. After all, the commanding general was the master of the occupied territory and once the territory was occupied, he could restore and maintain law and order by simply exercising his restraining authority over his own troops. The indigenous population were peaceful civilians.{1}

It is strange to think how recent it was that we fought wars on such an antiquated conception. When the German armies invaded the U.S.S.R., in 1941, they did not figure on large-scale guerilla activity and in the beginning of their campaign they did not encounter it either. Many White Russians and Ukrainians were glad to welcome them as liberators. But soon the German armies found themselves fighting on several fronts: against the Soviet armies in the forward area, and against Soviet guerillas deep behind their lines. In the rear, ammunition dumps exploded, troop trains were blown up, soldiers were ambushed, communications interrupted, stores set on fire. Guerillas cropped up out of nowhere: they made amphibious landings, they were dropped from the sky, they came from hideouts in the mountains and swamps. If there was fighting, they sometimes left their dead and wounded behind; some were made prisoners. The rest escaped, and when they showed up again, they were more numerous and better equipped than before. The Germans learned to their cost what guerilla warfare meant. We can neglect the lessons only at our peril.

Yet partisan warfare, developed as it was, was then still in its infancy. The Germans had to fight only against Soviet partisans in Russia and not against German Communist partisans at the home front as well. There was, after all, not much of a Communist organization left in Hitler’s Germany. But there is no doubt that in any future war, in which the U.S.S.R. or Red China are involved, the Communist Party in the opposing countries will organize guerilla movements for the fight against the armies of their own countries. Together with the Soviet guerillas behind our battle line, they form the Communist Sixth Column. We must wake up to this threat of supra-national Communism in our own rear. We have been warned, as we shall see, by Stalin himself.

The strength and efficiency of the guerilla forces under the Kremlin’s control has been growing since the last war. In recent years each of the satellite countries has formed its own guerilla brigades which are sometimes reinforced by so-called international brigades. Whether or not we will have to fight against these Communist guerillas, nobody knows, but we must be prepared for this eventuality. It is no good relying on our recent experience in guerilla warfare in Malaya and Kenya because it is inconclusive. Guerillas there fought on their own and they had no national army behind them. Yet in any future war enemy guerillas will act as auxiliaries to their regular army, as they did in the Russian campaign, with specific tactics and techniques peculiar to a supporting force on the other side of the hill. A detailed study of the German-Russian guerilla campaign is therefore overdue.

This book, then, deals with guerilla warfare in the U.S.S.R. during the last war. We shall endeavour to show how Soviet practice has developed the plan of campaign formulated in 1937 by a then unknown Chinese Communist by the name of Mao Tse-tung, and why the German counter-measures proved to be ineffective. We shall try to draw the lessons and suggest ways and means to counter the guerilla menace.

PART ONE—THE SOVIET GUERILLAS

Chapter I—WRITINGS ON THE WALL

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger

But hail them as sister and brother,

For though they are little and fusky, it

May be the Bear is their mother.

Maxims of Balvo.

MODERN dictators have a curious habit of putting their future plans on paper and having them published. The classical example, of course, was Hitler. In Mein Kampf, written in 1923, he told everybody who was willing to read, what we had to expect from him. The Japanese were less explicit, but still precise enough: in 1927 they proclaimed their intention of conquering the Far East. But Germans and Japanese laid it on so thick that we could not believe it. The history of dictatorship over the past twenty or thirty years affords little justification for continued incredulity.

One could quote from the literary output of quite a few other dictators to show that they indulge in writing on the wall. The words ‘Guerilla Warfare’ were inscribed there by no less formidable an array of arch-Communists than Karl Marx, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, and Stalin. The first inscription there reads as follows:

A nation, fighting for its liberty, ought not to adhere rigidly to the accepted rules of warfare. Mass uprisings, revolutionary methods, guerilla bands everywhere; such are the only means by which a small nation can hope to maintain itself against an adversary superior in numbers and equipment. By their use a weaker force can overcome its stronger and better organized opponent.{2}

It is almost unbelievable that these words were written over a hundred years ago; they have a distinctly modern ring. It is no less surprising that they do not emanate from the pen of a soldier. They were conceived by the man who is known to posterity as the author of Das Kapital and the co-author of the Manifesto. Yet Karl Marx was a keen student of warfare. Writing in London, he had acted, from 1853 to 1856, as war correspondent for the New York Tribune for which he described in numerous military articles the events of the Crimean War,{3} and together with Engels he reported on the American Civil War for the Vienna Press in 1861-2.{4} The article from which we have quoted here, was a report on the battle of Novara in 1849. Here Marx puts in a nutshell the most revolutionary theory of warfare. Marx, it is true, did not invent partisan warfare. The first guerilla war had been fought in China as long back as 360 B.C., when Emperor Huang was engaged in a long-drawn-out war with the Miao race under their leader Tsi Yao. Emperor Huang employed guerillas and finally succeeded in defeating his enemy.{5} More recently, partisans had made an appearance during the American and French Revolutions and the Peninsular War of 1808-11, and legend credits the Russian armed peasants with considerable successes in their actions, in 1812, against Napoleon’s retreating soldiers. But Marx was the first to conceive the tremendous importance of this fighting phenomenon. It is strange to think that its enormous potentialities were tested on a really large scale only after all the great scientific discoveries of our age had become part and parcel of modern warfare. When Marx wrote about the peoples’ war, wars were still fought with infantry neatly arranged in three lines, one lying, the next kneeling, the third standing, waiting for that impressive climax of the battle, the cavalry charge complete with lances and swords. Trench warfare was unheard of as yet, and mobile warfare was as fast as a horse, with a handicap of two hundredweights in man and arms. Trucks and jeeps, tanks and self-propelled guns, submarines and aircraft, rockets and flying bombs, machine guns and incendiary bullets, chemical and bacteriological warfare, radar and atom bombs had not yet been invented. But all these paraphernalia of modern warfare had already been tested in battle or were at least ready in blueprint, before Marx’s vision was given its first large-scale try-out in Europe. The German armies in Russia suffered more damage from guerillas than from any of those weapons. After all, they could match each Soviet weapon with similar or superior weapons of their own. But they were almost powerless against guerillas. Even a man as adaptable as Goebbels—the ‘Doctor’ as he liked to be called—did not know how to deal with so insidious a menace. Goebbels alive was no match for the ghost of Marx.

It was not for lack of trying on the Doctor’s part. During the war he became fully aware of the partisan danger. His diary bears witness to that.{6} He writes:

"March 6, 1942: A SD report (of Himmler’s infamous Security Service) informed me about the situation in occupied Russia. It is, after all, more unstable than was generally assumed. The partisan danger is increasing week by week. The partisans are in command of large areas in occupied Russia and are conducting a regime of terror there.

"March 16, 1942: The activity of partisans has increased noticeably in recent weeks. They are conducting a well-organized guerilla war. It is very difficult to get at them because they are using such terrorist methods in the areas we occupy that the population is afraid of collaborating with us loyally any longer.

"April 29, 1942: The danger of the partisans in the occupied areas continues to exist in unmitigated intensity. They have caused us very great difficulties during the winter, and these by no means ceased with the beginning of spring.

Partisans have blasted the railway tracks in the central front between Brjansk and Rosslawl at five points—a further proof of their extremely discomfiting activity.

Goebbels’s source of information was the so-called SD reports, e.g. the reports of the Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service, a branch of the Reichs Security Main Office and a sister organization to the Gestapo. These reports, a vital source for the study of the effects of guerilla warfare on the German army in the U.S.S.R., were issued in short intervals to all the top Nazis. All sets are lost, with the exception of one which was found by the Allies in a disused salt mine near Salzburg in Austria. We shall draw on these reports frequently later on, and we will find that Goebbels’s characterization of partisan warfare as extremely discomfiting is a gigantic understatement. But be that as it may, the Doctor, in his desire to find an antidote to partisan warfare, did not get much further than to diagnose its origin. On the 25th April, 1942, he wrote in his diary:

"The inhabitants of the Ukraine were at first more than inclined to regard the Fuehrer as the saviour of Europe and to welcome the German Wehrmacht most cordially. This attitude has changed completely in the course of months. We have hit the Russians, and especially the Ukrainians, too hard on the head with our manner of dealing with them. A clout on the head is not always a convincing argument—and that goes, too,