Guerrilla war in the Baltic states

The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian) partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars" (metsavennad, mežabrāļi, žaliukai), these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Soviet forces, consisting primarily of the Red Army, occupied the Baltic states in 1940, completing their occupation by 1941. After a period of German occupation during World War II, the Soviets reoccupied them from 1944 to 1945. As Soviet political repression intensified over the following years, tens of thousands of partisans from the Baltics began to use the countryside as a base for an anti-Soviet insurgency. According to some estimates, at least 50,000 partisans (10,000 in Estonia, 10,000 in Latvia and 30,000 in Lithuania) in addition to their supporters were involved in the insurgency. The partisans continued to carry out an armed struggle until 1956, when the superiority of the Soviet security forces, largely in the form of secret agents which infiltrated the partisan groups, caused the Baltic population to change tactics and utilise other forms of resistance. The term Forest Brothers first came into use in the Baltic region during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Varying sources refer to forest brothers of this era either as peasants revolting or as schoolteachers seeking refuge in the forest. This term Forest Brothers was used and known only in occupied Estonia and Latvia, but in Lithuania partisans were called originally: žaliukai (Green People), miškiniai (Forest People) or just partizanai (Partisans). Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gained their independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire.