Forest Guerrillas ( fi, Metsäsissit) was a Finnic

resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objective ...

formed by some of the inhabitants of the parishes of

Repola Reboly (russian: Реболы, fi, Repola, krl, Rebol´ä) is a settlement in the Republic of Karelia of the Russian Federation by the Finnish border, located southeast of Kuhmo and northeast of Lieksa. In 1926 the settlement had a population ...

and

Porajärvi Porosozero (russian: Поросо́зеро; krl, Porarvi; fi, Porajärvi) is a rural locality (a settlement) in Suoyarvsky District of the Republic of Karelia, located along the Suna River. Municipally, it is a part and the administrative c ...

, in addition to several White Guard volunteers after their territory was ceded to Bolshevist Russia in the Treaty of Tartu of 1920. The conflict is known as the East Karelian Uprising. The 2,000 ''metsäsissi'' forces managed to capture large parts of

East Karelia East Karelia ( fi, Itä-Karjala, Karelian: ''Idä-Karjala''), also rendered as Eastern Karelia or Russian Karelia, is a name for the part of Karelia that since the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617 has remained Eastern Orthodox under Russian supremacy ...

during their rebellion against their Russian rulers in 1921, aiming to unite these areas with the newly formed Republic of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. Ultimately, however, in 1922 the rebel forces withdrew into Finland.

See also