A Short History of the Crimea Partisans

The partisan movement in Crimea developed in a complex context, given the USSR’s general lack of war-readiness and the defeats in the fall of 1941 on the Crimean section of the front.

Many of those who were enlisted in the divisions – civilians with no military experience – did not show up to join the partisans. The partisan movement needed only a comparatively small mountain region, criss-crossed by roads and paths. Yet, serious mistakes were made when establishing the initial partisan bases. The secrecy surrounding them was broken early on; in the first few weeks, the Nazis discovered the bases and destroyed them; some bases were also looted by local residents.

Even as many bases were lost, the partisan headquarters in Crimea did not take it upon itself to preserve the remaining provisions and ration them. As the deputy head of the Special Unit at partisan headquarters, Lieutenant of State Security Popov, wrote in one dispatch: “While lavish meals were being prepared at headquarters, fighters in the units were receiving a couple of bread rolls each.” Moreover, from October 13, 1941, to February 12, 1942, neither Alexei Mokrousov, the commander of the partisan units, nor Commissar Martynov visited even one of the units.

Soon the partisans began to starve. An order was given to “obtain supplies locally,” i.e., from Tatar villages. But instead of establishing good relations with the local population and asking them for food, some partisans simply stole bread, cattle and even domestic fowl from the peasants. As a result, a significant part of the local population turned against the partisans. People, left to face the enemy on their own, cut off from the rest of the country, were caught between a rock and a hard place: in many villages the population had been fleeced by the Germans in the first days of the war, and then later by the partisans. Some villages formed local volunteer defense units.

Mokrousov and Martynov, to justify themselves to the dissatisfied leadership of the partisan movement in Crimea, sent messages to Moscow saying that the Crimean Tatars were turncoats and traitors.

According to the “Information on the State of the Partisan Movement in Crimea from 15.11.41 to 15-20.11.42,” losses in the first year were as follows: “of 3,098 partisans, 450 died of hunger, another 400 deserted or went missing, and 848 died in action.”

In November 1942, a resolution was passed by the Crimean Regional Communist Party, “On errors in the assessment of the conduct of the Crimean Tatars regarding the partisans, and on measures for eliminating these errors and improving work among the Tatar population.” In point of fact, this resolution rehabilitated the Crimean Tatar population, which had been accused of betraying the Motherland. The document lists instances of assistance and sympathy towards the partisans among Crimean Tatars: “A number of villages and hamlets in the mountains and surrounding regions of Crimea have long been providing active assistance to the partisans (Koktash, Chermalyk, Ailyanma, Beshui, Aiserez, Shakh-Murza, etc.), while parachute units that arrived in January 1942 in Sudak were supplied entirely by neighboring Tatar villages in this district.” The local Communist committee resolved: “To condemn as incorrect and politically damaging the assertion that the majority of the Tatar population was hostile to the partisans, and to explain that the Crimean Tatars for the most part were as hostile to the German-Romanian occupiers as all of the workers of Crimea.”

After the resolutions were adopted, the new leadership of the partisan movement began to include Crimean Tatars. Refat Mustafayev became commissar of the Eastern Formation of Partisan Detachments of Crimea, Mustafa Selimov was named commissar of the Southern Formation of Partisan Detachments of Crimea, and Ismail Khairullayev was appointed commissar of the Fourth Brigade of the Southern Formation of Partisan Detachments of Crimea.

According to data from the Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement, as of December 14, 1943, the movement comprised six brigades with 29 detachments, plus the headquarters of the Central Operational Group. The partisans numbered 3,557 – 2,100 Russians, 406 Tatars, 331 Ukrainians, 23 Belarussians, and 697 of other nationalities. Subsequently, the numbers in the partisan ranks increased further. During the assault in the spring of 1944, the partisans attacked jointly with the Soviet forces that had liberated Crimea.

Seven Tatars were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal: Fetislyam Abilov, Abdul Teifuk, Uzeir Abduramanov, Abdureim Reshidov, Saadul Musaev, Seitnafe Seitveliev, and Ametkhan Sultan – the only Crimean to be awarded the honor twice.