Establishment of the Central Headquarters of the partisanmovement was due to objective reasons. To effectively organize the actions of a huge number of partisan detachments, it was necessary to create a single leading organization that could coordinate the actions.
Immediately after the start of the Great Patriotic War,The emerging guerrilla movement was not united in Moscow. Analyzing the situation that developed at that time, you can identify the reasons for this disorganization. First, the leadership of the country did not consider it necessary to create a central headquarters of the partisan movement because of the confidence in a quick victory over the enemy. Also, Stalin did not allow the possibility of a rapid attack from Germany already in 1941.
For almost a year the Soviet partisan movementwas subordinated to several organizations. Leadership units were carried out by party organizations, the fourth administration of the NKVD, as well as military committees of armies and fronts. Often times there were situations when opposite orders came to the same detachment from different organizations. Such work by the Soviet bodies introduced serious disorganization and lowered the effectiveness of the actions of the partisan detachments.
Already in the first quarter of 1942, the Sovietmanagement is beginning to realize the weak effectiveness of the then existing command and control system of partisan detachments. But it was impossible to change the situation instantly because of the complicated bureaucratic decision-making process at that time. By May 1942 the structure of the headquarters had already been developed. Officially, the guerrilla headquarters was created by a decree of the State Defense Committee of May 30, 1942. It indicated the goals of the headquarters:
- Establishment of communication with new partisan detachments;
- centralized command of the detachments;
- Assistance to detachments.
As was emphasized earlier, partisan detachmentsBefore the establishment of the central headquarters, several organizations were in charge. T-bills in the organization of CST activities, such a situation was taken into account, so the leadership of the headquarters included representatives of the party, the NKVD and army units.
Honor and at the same time a difficult task to leadthe staff was assigned to Ponomarenko Panteleimon Kondratyevich. He was born in 1902, was of peasant origin. At that time, people from the village were nominated for leadership positions. This person represented the party line. The chief of staff of the partisan movement Ponomarenko was appointed to the position not by chance. It was he who was able to independently organize the work of partisans in Belarus at a good level almost immediately after the outbreak of hostilities. Deputy Ponomarenko became a representative of the NKVD Sergienko V.T. and the employee of the General Staff Korneev TF.
The central headquarters of the partisan movement hadrather branched structure. A large number of employees in different areas is associated with the complexity and danger of tasks that were set up by the headquarters in front of partisan groups, as well as the complexity of organizing the work of underground workers in the conditions of enemy rear.
According to the decree on the establishment of the staff, the work of six departments was organized:
- Operational work;
- information and intelligence department;
- communication unit;
- Human Resources Department of guerrilla groups and detachments;
- Division for the operation of partisans.
In addition,structures: a radio center, a school for the training of reservists, points for the collection of partisan reserves. After a while, when the work of the headquarters was already well established, it became necessary to expand the staff of the organization. At different times, four more departments were created: political, cryptographic, financial (dealing with the budget of the partisan movement) and secret.
Establishment of the Central Headquarters of the partisanmovement had a serious impact on the course of the war. The increase in the number of sabotage in the rear had a bad effect on the process of providing German troops. We all remember well that at the end of 1942 the Battle of Stalingrad ended, after which the strategic offensive of the Red Army began.
The central headquarters of the partisan movement was able to systematically systematize and direct the activity of partisan detachments in the right direction.
