The partisan brigade was the main organisational form of the

Soviet partisan Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The ...

units during World War II. Partisan brigades were active from shortly after

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

in June 1941 through the end of the war in 1945. On the BSSR territory, the first brigade-like unit («Pavlovskiy harrison») was created in January 1942 (Aktsyabrski dist. of Palesye province). The most notable Czechoslovak partisan brigade was the

Jan Žižka partisan brigade The 1st Czechoslovak Partisan Brigade of Jan Žižka ( cs, 1. československá partizánská brigáda Jana Žižky or ''Partyzánská brigáda Jana Žižky z Trocnova''), initially known as Ušiak-Murzin Unit, was the largest partisan unit in the ...

, formed from a core of Soviet-trained paratroopers dropped into Slovakia in August 1944. After its operational area was liberated in April 1945, the Žižka partisans were employed in tracking down German soldiers and was not disbanded until 26 May, almost three weeks after the

German surrender The German Instrument of Surrender (german: Bedingungslose Kapitulation der Wehrmacht, lit=Unconditional Capitulation of the "Wehrmacht"; russian: Акт о капитуляции Германии, Akt o kapitulyatsii Germanii, lit=Act of capit ...

. The brigades comprised from several hundred to several thousand fighting persons in 3—7 detachments (rarely called battalions). The emphasis on the brigades was put in order to enhance the offensive capabilities of the partisan units, to facilitate their cooperation, mutual coordination of activities, more effective radio communications and logistical support.

References

Sources

*А.Л. Манаенкаў. Партызанская брыгада ў Вялікую Айчынную вайну // Беларуская энцыклапедыя: У 18 т. Т. 12. — Мінск: БелЭн, 2001. — 560 с. p. 114. (т.12). The source references: Беларусь у Вялікай Айчыннай вайне 1941—1945: Энцыкл. Мн., 1990. С. 398—452. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Soviet partisan brigade 1941-1944 Soviet partisans Military units and formations of the Soviet Union in World War II