Forest Brothers
In 1949 27,650 Soviet troops still fought a war against the Forest Brothers. Only the 1949 mass deportation (see Operation Priboi) when about 21,000 people were taken away broke the basis of the insurgent movement. 6,600 Forest Brothers gave themselves up in November 1949. Later on, the failure of the Hungarian uprising broke the resistance morale of the 700 men still remaining under cover. According to the Soviet data, up to 1953, 20,351 insurgents were disarmed. Of these, 1,510 perished in the battles. During that period, 1,728 members of the Red Army, NKVD and the militia were killed by the Forest Brothers. August Sabbe, one of the last surviving Forest Brothers in Estonia, was discovered by KGB agents and drowned himself in 1978. After him there were few insurgents alive in the Estonian forests. Many of them died because of their age in the next 15 years.