Page 209 - The Chief Culprit

170 y e Chief Culprit

One of the fathers of Soviet military terrorism, GRU colonel and professor I. G.
Starinov, between 1930 and 1933 headed the secret school that prepared partisan groups
which were subordinate to the Soviet Military Intelligence. e colonel wrote in his memoirs:
“Safely hidden underground, the weapons and explosives awaited their hour. But before this
hour could come, the covert partisan bases were emptied, unquestionably with the knowl-
2
edge of, and, probably, under direct orders from Stalin.”
During the war, P. K. Ponomarenko was Chief of the Main Staff of the Partisan
Movement. After the war, he voiced his anguish and frustration: “Stalin’s incorrectly aimed
statements that, if attacked, we would fight only on enemy territory led to the complete dis-
mantling of all efforts to harness the experience from previous partisan wars and to develop
corresponding mobilization directions. As a result, the initial phase of the war was marked by
a particularly difficult effort to organize the partisan movement. e Party had to pay dearly
for Stalin’s mistakes.”
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Colonel of the KGB S. A. Vaushpass spent the 1930s training Soviet partisans in case
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of enemy aggression and occupation. He explained the reason for the disbanding of the parti-
san formations on Soviet territory: “During those threatening pre-war years, a doctrine arose
about war on foreign soil . . . it had [a] very clearly expressed aggressive character.”
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We can agree with these statements or we can dispute them. But so far, no other reason
for the destruction of the partisan movement has been put forward.