Soviet partisans
Partisan activity began soon after the start of Operation Barbarossa. The first partisan detachments were formed around July 10-20, 1941.
The directive of 29 July 1941, and subsequent documents issued by the Council of Soviet People's Commissars and the Communist Party, called for the formation of partisan detachments and "diversionary" groups in the territories occupied by the Germans.
In 1941, the focus of the partisan movement was the remnants of the Red Army units destroyed in the first stage of Operation Barbarossa, sabotage battalions and Communist Party and Komsomol activists.
The movement was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modeled on that of the Red Army. The partisans made a significant contribution to the war by frustrating German plans to exploit the occupied Soviet territories economically, they gave considerable assistance to the Red Army by conducting systematic attacks against the communications network in the German rear (the so-called "railway war"), they political work among the local population by publishing newspapers and leaflets, and managed to create and maintain a feeling of insecurity among the occupying German forces.
Soviet partisans also operated in the territories occupied by the Soviet Union between the wars in 1939-1940, in Poland and the Baltic states but had significantly less support from the population and often clashed with local nationalist partisan groups, as well as with German-controlled Auxiliary Police.