Carpathian raid

In the memoirs, none of the partisan leaders writes what specific tasks were set for the partisans by the leadership of the USPP and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) U. Based on individual remarks from their memoirs, it can be concluded that the main task of the partisans under the leadership of S. A. Kovpak was the destruction of all oil fields located in the Borislav and Drogobych regions , however, many researchers do not share this point of view.

So, according to Michael Florinsky, described in the McGraw-Hill encyclopedia, the main task of the Carpathian raid, as well as other partisan raids of 1943-1944, was to create a feeling of "ubiquity" of the Soviet regime and its constant presence even in the territories occupied by fascists , and in addition to recall the inevitable return of the Communists to these lands and the inevitable punishment of all accomplices and assistants to the Nazis. Also, the Soviet partisans were entrusted with the task of giving battle to the fascist minions, which they carried out fully ^[1] .

Enrique Martinez Kodo, an Argentinean researcher of the Soviet partisan movement, suggests that in addition to capturing oil fields, partisans also had to go west to make contact with the communist partisans of Slovakia , and further south, with the red partisans of Marshal Tito ^[2] .

According to the Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Sandul, oil sabotage, studying the situation in occupied Western Ukraine , demonstrating Soviet power to its inhabitants - all this was a secondary task of Kovpak . The main thing is to come to the Carpathians and stay there. To create a partisan territory in the mountains, to prepare a base for the arrival of other partisan formations ^[3] .

P.P. Vershigora, in the book "People with a clear conscience," quotes Kovpak, who considered the destruction of a large railway bridge in the Vinnitsa region as one of the most significant raid successes. Since German echelons with military equipment traveled along this route in a continuous stream, the destruction of the bridge led to disruption of the supply of German troops at the most critical moment of the Battle of Kursk. By the time of the raid, the South-Western railway of Ukraine remained the only one not subject to attacks by partisans, so the main flow of German military cargo to the Eastern Front was on it.

The beginning of the Carpathian raid of the connection of partisans of Sidor Kovpak can be indicated with an accuracy of literally up to an hour - June 12, 1943, 6:00 p.m., 1,517 soldiers went to the Carpathians from the village of Milosevici on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border (north of the Zhytomyr region ). The artillery of the compound consisted of two 76- and five 45-mm cannons, several mortars of different calibers. Partisan carts were overloaded with explosives and ammunition ^[3] , the convoy was stretched along the road for 8-10 kilometers, moved only at night, along non-main, abandoned roads. Opposite each large garrison a barrier was put up (small garrisons were destroyed), sabotage groups continuously committed sabotage far from the train (outside its path), drawing the attention of the enemy ^[4] . On June 24-25, when crossing the Goryn River between the villages of Korchin and Zvezdovka, Kostopolsky District, Rivne Region, the vanguard of the compound encountered soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army who were trying to prevent the crossing. After the negotiations initiated by Semyon Rudnev, the case was settled and the UPA fighters missed the partisans without a fight ^[5] .

Having passed Exactly from the west, Kovpak sharply turned south, passing through the entire Ternopil region . On the night of July 16, partisans crossed the Dniester along the bridge north of Galich and entered the mountains. And already in the evening of the same day the Germans - Vasily Voytsekhovich writes about 60 thousand soldiers ^{[Note. 2]} , - blocked the connection at 8-10 square meters. km For two weeks (July 25 - August 3), Kovpak maneuvered through the mountains, breaking through one environment after another, and there were more than 20. During this time, the compound lost all its heavy weapons, wagon train and equestrian staff - both riding and cavalry horses, some of which went to the partisans in food allowance, due to hunger and lack of food ^[3] .

The headquarters (when discussing the ideas of Commissioner Rudnev) makes a decision to storm the city of Delyatin , the capture of which opened the way to the crossing of the Prut River , so that the valley of this river could go east. The guerrilla attack on Delyatin on the night of August 4 succeeded and led to the destruction of 4 highway and 3 railway bridges. Kovpak in his report estimated the loss of the enemy at 500 soldiers and officers, 1 tank, 1 armored car, 85 cars, 3 motorcycles. For the first time in many days, people ate bread and stocked up on food. The success of the exit of the compound from the environment depended heavily on capturing and holding the ferry across the Prut. Vanguard with Commissioner Rudnev at the head managed to capture the bridge over the river. The Germans, trying to prevent the partisans from escaping from the encirclement, began to transfer additional forces to Delyatin by convoys. Rudnev’s partisan avant-garde ran into the convoy of a German mountain rifle regiment advancing from Kolomyia to Delyatin, near the village of Belye Oslavy. Commissar Rudnev made a fatal decision to give the oncoming battle and died with most of the detachment. In 1946, on the instructions of the Ukrainian government, an expedition was sent to the Carpathians to find out the fate of Commissioner Rudnev. It included Vershigora. In his book, he will report on the search results: “On Mount Dil and in the tract Dilok, we found the graves of those killed in the Battle of Delyatinsky. 72 of our comrades remained there forever. ”There the body of Rudnev was discovered there.

Later, Kovpak decided to divide the compound into 7 groups, "of which 6 combat groups and one passive, with the wounded, which he sent deep into the large forest." From Kovpak’s report: “Putivl’s partisan detachment of three groups, Glukhovsky, Shalyginsky and Krolevets partisan detachments, and medical unit under cover of 10 companies of Putivl’s part [artisan] o [order]. ... From August 6 to October 1, the unit moved in groups, with almost no connection between the groups, despite the fact that each group was given a walkie-talkie. Obviously, technically, our radio installation is not able to fully provide communication at any distance. Each group individually traveled independently for 700-800 kilometers along an independent route dictated by the situation. ... Some groups went secretly, dodging fights, others, stronger ones, distracted the enemy. Thus, giving the rest of the groups the opportunity to slip through the places most saturated with the enemy safely. ”

Upon returning from the Carpathian raid, Kovpak temporarily banned broadcasts altogether to break away from the pursuit of punishers. They were resumed when the Germans lost track of the compound ^[6] . In total, the partisans overcame 2000 km in 100 days in the rear of the enemy, sometimes covering up to 60 km per day ^[4] .

The end date of the raid can be considered October 21, 1943. Then Kovpak signed his raid report for the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement (USPD) ^[3] , in which he indicated that the lack of topographic maps greatly interfered with the entire raid: “Such a“ trifle ”as topographic maps that the Ukrainian detachments did not bother to supply headquarters of the partisan movement, frustrating big business. They promised to [at], and went into the raid without cards. The detachment did not attack Borislav and Drohobych just because there was not a single map of this region ... "

Hit the Hitler War Machine

The potential threat from the raid to the Carpathians for the Nazi authorities was such that the 8th SS cavalry division, Florian Gayer, in full force and equipment was urgently transferred from the front to the places of the alleged appearance of Kovpak partisans ^[7] . According to various estimates, from 13 ^[8] to 17 ^[9] fascist garrisons were destroyed during the raid, 19 echelons were derailed, 10 oil towers, 13 oil storage tanks with 2,290 tons of oil, 3 oil refineries, and one oil pipeline (Bystritsa) were blown up. and killed by three ^{[Note. 3]} up to five thousand ^[9] German soldiers and officers taken prisoners - 96. Also, the partisans permanently disabled the Ternopol railway junction, making it difficult to transfer troops to Kursk , in the midst of the Battle of Kursk , four days before the Battle of Prokhorovka .

Interaction with Ukrainian Nationalists

The appearance of Kovpak in Galicia caused concern not only among the invaders but also among Ukrainian nationalists from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The arrival of almost two thousand communist partisans, the OUN (b) regional wire in the Western Ukrainian lands was regarded as a threat to its influence on the Galicians. Archival documents of the OUN (b) note: "The UPA did not act in Galicia, since there was no threat from the Soviet partisans, although the Organization had deep roots and conducted organizational work more widely" ^[10] . It was clear that the Kovpakovites would try to lay the foundation for the deployment of the partisan movement in the Carpathians. The nationalist underground underground could not allow the Soviet partisans to seize and control the Carpathian region, whose natural landscape created suitable conditions for raids and well protected from German punitive actions. On July 15, 1943, the Main Wire of the OUN (b) issued an order to form the so-called Ukrainian national self-defense (ONS) - the Galician analogue of the UPA in Volyn ^[11] .

True, with the exception of a few shootings, ONS units did not have a chance to fight the Kovpakovites. The head of the ONS, Alexander Lutsky, in the future will tell during an interrogation at the NKVD that “in fact, ONS units did not fulfill their task of eliminating Soviet partisan units of Kovpak. After several armed clashes of the Black Devils smoker with individual Kovpak detachments in the Carpathian region, which did not produce any particular positive results, the ONS command, citing weak military training of personnel, subsequently avoided meeting with Kovpak detachments ” ^[12] . Sometimes the Kovpakovites tried to find a common language with the UPA commanders and the warring parties managed to diverge without a fight ^[13] . Moreover, some departments of the ONS went into cooperation with the Kovpakovites, it is known from a number of sources that the deputy Kovpak, Commissioner Semyon Rudnev, was negotiating with the leaders of the ONS in the village of Lyubizhnya near Delyatin ^[14] . There are still disputes surrounding the death of Rudnev. According to an alternative version, he was killed by security officers for trying to agree with the Ukrainian nationalists on a joint struggle against the Germans. This version was put forward in the early nineties by a member of the partisan movement in Ukraine, ally of Rudnev and Kovpak, Hero of the Soviet Union - Petro Braiko, but could not bring any documentary evidence in her favor ^[15] .

According to the party leadership of the republic and the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement, the Carpathian raid was "the most brilliant raid of all committed by the partisans of Ukraine."

In his study of the history of guerrilla warfare, the American historian Walter Laker calls the Carpathian raid the most impressive partisan operation of 1942-1943 ^[16] . According to Orest Subtelny , a Canadian historian of Ukrainian descent, who considered the destruction of the Carpathian oil fields to be the main goal of the raid, the main task was not solved, and the political, moral and psychological effect was really impressive ^[17] .

German military historian Timm Richter calls the Carpathian raid of Kovpak’s compound the most famous of all the partisan raids of World War II ^[18] .

As the Canadian researcher Paul Magoshi notes, Kovpak’s bold raid on the deep rear of the German troops “pushed” other partisan formations into armed action ^[19] .

In the city of Yaremche, a monument to Soviet partisans who died during the raid was erected.

In the summer of 2013, activists of the Ukrainian nationalist society “ Trizub ” damaged (scratched) a Kovpak memorial plaque in Yaremche , supposedly “in response” to the actions of local communists, who, despite the ban of local authorities, held commemorative events on August 4, 2013 to mark the 70th anniversary Carpathian raid led by Kovpak) .

In Poetry

One of the guerrilla unit commanders, Platon Voronko , who became a famous Soviet poet after the war, released in 1944 his first book of poems and songs “Carpathian Raid”, dedicated to the events and people of the famous partisan raid in the Carpathians ^[20] .

In theatrical and cinema productions

The Soviet director, People's Artist of the RSFSR Andrei Lobanov, based on the documentary novel by Pyotr Vershigory “People with a Clear Conscience”, staged a dramatic performance about the partisan raid of Kovpak from Putivl to the Carpathians. How about the production of the performance Lobanov himself responded: “We play in this play funny, rude, sad, funny. But often we forget about grain - “people with a clear conscience”. There should be a number of places in the play where this thought comes close-up ” ^[21] . The role of Kovpak in the performance was played by the honored artist of the RSFSR Georgy Chernovolenko .

The final film directed by Timofei Levchuk from the trilogy “The Duma of Kovpak ” - a three-part film called “Carpathians, Carpathians ...” (1978) also shows the events of the Carpathian raid, where, thanks to Kovpak’s military skill and courage of the partisans, the Nazis’ attempts to encircle and destroy the military formations of the partisans fail . The role of Kovpak is played by the People's Artist of the USSR Konstantin Stepankov .

1. ↑ For example, “War in the Enemy Lines” (1963) by Otto Heilbrunn.
2. ↑ The figure of Wojciechowicz may seem overstated, but Peter Vershigora was convinced that the German command had previously gathered forces against Kovpak, deliberately let him into the Carpathians, considering that it would be much easier to destroy it in the mountains.
3. ↑ Vasily Voytsekhovich gives such figures from the report of USPP: 1,047 of 1,517 partisans returned from the Carpathian raid, 3,360 Nazis, four tanks, and three planes were destroyed.

• Vershigora P.P. Book Two. Carpathian raid // People with a clear conscience . - K .: Publishing house of polit. literature of Ukraine, 1982.- 742 p. - (Memoirs). - 200 thousand copies