This volume emerged out of a 2017 conference on “Armed Resistance in Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1956” sponsored by the Institute of Modern and Contemporary Historical Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Arenberg Foundation. As volume co-editor David Schriffl observes in the introduction, the history of violent resistance to east European communist states has been long-shrouded in mystery and obfuscation, first by communist governments intent on suppressing information about resistance movements, and second by post-communist governments and political actors determined to provide a counter-narrative of heroic anti-communist resistance, regardless of its actual historical accuracy. These chapters, written by scholars primarily from eastern and central Europe, remove at least some of the veils covering this history. Befitting the multinational nature of the conference, each article includes a summary in English and in the language of the area in question, as well as helpful maps. A list of contributors would have been a useful addition to the volume.
Keith Dickson, a professor of military studies at The Joint Force Staff College (US), provides a conceptual framework for the volume through the idea of “asymmetric warfare,” which he defines as “a subset of social conflict involving value commitments (related to prescriptive norms and beliefs) related to a change in relative power between actors and groups based on the mobilization of a collective identity” (12). The objective of asymmetric warfare is “to create the conditions for negotiation to establish a favorable mutual outcome based on achieving a political equilibrium” (16). Some authors in the volume apply this concept of asymmetric warfare to their topics or at least refer to it, while others ignore it altogether. In any case, as all the articles indicate, none of the resistance movements described in the book were successful in their attempts to modify the behavior or objectives of the communist authorities.
The essays explore a wide-range of resistance movements and forms of resistance, each focusing on a specific national experience. Although this approach limits authors’ abilities to identify explicitly transnational phenomena among anti-communist resistance movements, nevertheless a careful reader can still see conditions and traits shared by these national oppositions. In some areas, such as the Baltic states, western Ukraine, and to a more limited extent, Poland and Bulgaria, actual guerrilla warfare ensued in the post-World War II period, continuing in some places until the mid to late 1950s. In other regions, including the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary (with the exception of the “spontaneous” armed uprising of 1956), Romania, and Albania, anti-communist resistance was much more muted, with groups failing to coalesce or do anything more than engage in low-level nuisance activities, such as sabotaging harvests or harassing individual communist and state officials. As the authors collectively point out, the anti-communist resistance movement in each country was the product of its respective history, local conditions, and contingent events. Thus, throughout the Baltic states, the legacy of prior independence from the Soviet Union fueled wide-scale opposition to the imposition (or re-imposition) of postwar Soviet rule; however because of lack of time to prepare bases, set up a command structure, and accumulate the necessary weapons, the Estonian anti-communist resistance was weak compared to its forest brethren in neighboring Latvia and Lithuania. In Poland, the potentially powerful anti-communist resistance (which had, after all, weathered Nazi occupation) was riven by political differences and disagreements about how best to oppose the Soviet-imposed communist government. By the end of 1946 a combination of government amnesties and repressive measures had all but destroyed the potential for armed resistance. In Czechoslovakia the development of anti-communist resistance was hampered by a relatively favorable popular attitude towards Communism (a notable exception, as Adam Zitek notes in his contribution, were ethnic Czech refugees expelled from Soviet-controlled Volhynia, and thus having already experienced the indignities of Soviet rule).
Despite important national differences, the essays reveal that anti-communist resistance movements also shared similar features. First, the anti-communist resistance often (although not always) included actors motivated by different political and socio-economic considerations. Although opposition from multiple groups had the potential to mobilize broad support, more frequently political and social differences prevented the formation of a united opposition. Second, state efforts across eastern Europe seeking to impose Soviet-style collectivization invariably brought about widespread agrarian resistance, usually consisting of low-level sabotage and protest demonstrations, but stopping short of the formation of Russian Civil War-era “green bands.” Third, armed resistance movements depended on the sympathy of the surrounding population to survive and operate. A fourth common factor was the belief that a third world war was imminent between the western powers and the Soviet Union. This view, egged on by US “Voice of America” broadcasts, led many resistors to organize in preparation for a US-led invasion that never came, a hope ultimately dashed by the Americans’ refusal to intervene in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Finally, communist governments responded to resistance efforts with a combination of overwhelming overt and covert forces, particularly putting pressure on “civilian” supporters, as well as offering amnesties to lure dispirited fighters from their bunkers and hideouts.
As with any collected volume, the quality of the essays varies. The best provide a detailed analysis of a particular facet of the anti-communist resistance or focus on complex questions and ambiguous situations. These articles include Alexander Statiev's examination of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as a true fascist party, Karina Hořeni's and Vojtěch Ripka's discussion of pedagogical challenges in teaching the history of the Czechoslovak armed opposition, Ioana Ursu's exploration of the role of women in the Romanian anti-communist movement, Michael Gehler's and Ibolya Murber's investigation of the evolution of the Hungarian anti-communist resistance, and Dejan Zec's analysis of Serbian urban elite attitudes towards Tito's government. Some articles do veer towards the hagiographic, sometimes omitting discussion of complicity in Nazi-sponsored atrocities, or providing only superficial, non-analytic descriptions of the resistance movement in question. Taken as a whole, however, this anthology illuminates the diverse nature of the anti-communist resistance, even if these movements came to a similar end.
