Bataliony Chłopskie Bataliony Chłopskie ( BCh , Polish " Peasants ' Battalions " ) was a Polish World War II resistance movement and partisan organisation . The organisation was created in mid - 1940 by the agrarian political party People ' s Party and by 1944 was partially integrated with the Armia Krajowa ( Home Army ) . At its height , the organisation had 175 , 000 members . History . Initially after the occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and Germany , the peasant parties were reluctant to forming their own armed resistance forces . Since mid - 1940 several smaller groups were formed , mostly for self - defence of Polish peasants against German terror and economic policies . Most of members of peasant parties grouped into CKRL ( " Central Directorate of Peasant Movement " ) who received military training before the war were transferred to other armed resistance organizations , most notably to ZWZ . However , in early 1941 it was decided that an armed force be created . The core of the newly formed BCh came from the earlier organization Chłostra ( an acronym of " Chłopska Straż " - Peasants ' Guard ) , as well as from other underground organizations of the peasant movement , such as Związek Młodzieży Wiejskiej ( " Association of Peasant Youth " ) , Chłopska Organizacja Wolności " Racławice " ( " Peasant Freedom Organization " Racławice " " ) and Centralny Związek Młodej Wsi " Siew " ( " Central Union of Village Youth " Sowing " " ) . The structure of the BCh was based on pre - war administrative divisions of Poland . Areas were roughly correspondent to pre - war Voivodeships , and were further divided onto districts ( based on powiat s ) and commune - based units . By mid - 1943 10 areas were formed : Each of the areas fielded its own armed units . The units were basically of two types : The units of the latter type were later mostly joined with the Armia Krajowa . The commander of the BCh was Franciszek Kamiński , his chiefs of staff were Kazimierz Banach ( until 1942 ) and S . Koter . During the process of unification of Polish underground , large part ( approximately 50 000 men ) of the BCh soldiers was integrated by the Government Delegate ' s Office at Home with Armia Krajowa and Państwowy Korpus Bezpieczeństwa . Also , by early 1943 part of the tactical units were transformed into Special Units specialized in diversion and reprisal actions . The statistics show that in March 1944 the Bataliony Chłopskie had approximately 175 000 members grouped in 69 units . However , the full unification with the Armia Krajowa did not occur until the end of the war . After the Red Army entered Poland , elements of BCh started to cooperate with the communist - backed Armia Ludowa , while the majority remained loyal to the Polish government . However , the incoming end of the war , as well as information of the Yalta Conference made further resistance futile and on April 2 , 1945 most of the Bataliony Chłopskie units came out from the underground . Some of the soldiers were arrested by the communists , while others joined the reestablished People ' s Party of Stanisław Mikołajczyk . Formally the Bataliony Chłopskie were dissolved in September 1945 . Tasks and actions . The main tasks of Bataliony Chłopskie were : The first major actions of armed resistance began in late 1942 when the Zamość area , due to its fertile black soil , was chosen for German colonization as part of Generalplan Ost . Polish farmers were expropriated and forcibly expelled from the farms with great brutality . Their farms were handed over to German settlers . Children were separated from their parents and after racial scrutiny send over to Germany to be raised in German families . After several major battles against German units ( the most notable being the battles of Wojda , Róża and Zaboreczno ) , the Germans had to halt the expulsions and in the end very few German settlers were brought to the area ( see Zamość Uprising ) . Other major actions included liberation of prisoners from prisons in Pińczów and Krasnystaw as well as the sinking of German river patrol ship Tannenberg on the Vistula .