The Soviet counterinsurgency in Western the borderlands studied the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies that took place between 1944 and 1953 in the regions of the Soviet Union annexed after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Based on data of new archives, Alexander Statiev presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet counterinsurgency that binds together the security tools and populist policies designed to attract the local population. The book traces the origins of the Soviet doctrine of pacification and then presents a comparative analysis of rural societies in South-East of the Poland and the Baltic countries on the eve of the Soviet invasion. This analysis is followed by a description of anti-communist resistance movements. Subsequently, the author shows how ideology affected the Soviet doctrine of pacification and examines the main ways to apply the doctrine: agrarian reform, deportations, Amnesty, networks of informants, covert operations and local militias. Also, the book shows how the atheist Soviet regime used the Church in the fight against the guerrillas and explains why this scheme could not curb the random violence of its police. The last chapter deals with the Soviet experience in the global context. To learn more...
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