Red Partisan: The Memoir of a Soviet Resistance Fighter On the Eastern Front (review)

Red Partisan is a memoir by a well educated, intelligent, talented artist who volunteered to join the Red Army on the first day of the war. The book is a primary source rather than an historical work. The author loved his country and believed in Stalin. The book is not the usual propaganda-laced version of history that one encounters so often from Russia, but rather reflects the true unvarnished feelings of the author.

The book is divided into two portions. The first part covers his brief period of combat and months as a prisoner of war. The second half relates his experience as a member of a partisan brigade in White Russia.

The author's attempt to join the army was rejected because his status as an artist exempted him from military service, and Stalin initially rejected the idea of forming poorly trained and ill equipped divisions to beat the highly trained German divisions. However, Stalin's political rival, the mayor of Leningrad, had great success with volunteer divisions and, as a result, Stalin was compelled to follow suit.

As Stalin expected, the volunteer divisions from Moscow suffered heavy losses. The author was a member of the 18^th Volunteer Division formed in July 1941. The division was renamed the 18^th Rifle Division and later the 11^th Guards Rifle Division. After less than two weeks training, the division began a march to the front still in civilian clothes and carrying obsolete rifles. In the course of the following weeks, trucks arrived carrying weapons and uniforms. In September the division was assigned to the 33^rd Reserve Army in front of Moscow. After only a few days of actual combat, the division began to dissolve. The author was separated from the division and captured a short time later.

When interrogated by the Germans, the author stated that he was an artist which impressed his German captors who demanded that he sketch their pictures. After the Germans informed their leaders, the author was ordered to paint a portrait of a general and was accorded privileges such as food and a place to sleep that were denied to other prisoners. After months of captivity, the author escaped with a group of other prisoners and joined the partisans.

Because of his skills, the partisans used him to make maps and propaganda leaflets, and he saw very little combat. However, he was ordered to carry out executions of Russians who were aiding the Germans as a warning not to help them. He continued to paint portraits and scenes of partisan activity, some of which are reprinted in the book. In the spring of 1944, the Germans assembled a half dozen divisions and forced the partisans to flee across the front into Russian territory.

The book is of special interest at this time because it presents the emotions, beliefs, and decisions faced by those who oppose an occupying army. Many of the actions were distasteful to the author, but he was forced to comply. These actions included shooting a female collaborator in one instance and refusing to execute another woman because she fraternized with a German soldier in order to obtain food for her two children.

The Russian translator employs British English and uses unusual terms, for example fried pig fat rather than bacon. Far too many comments are inserted with the abbreviation trans. for Russian and German words that simply should have been translated, for example hauptman (German for captain, trans.). The translator was probably seeking to preserve the context of the comment by giving the German word but too many of these comments are irritating.

This is not a book for the general reader or the World War II buff. However, it should be required reading for anyone concerned with our current problems with occupation of a country and an insurgency. The tactics, emotional conflicts...