Soviet partisans in Poland Poland was annexed and partitioned by Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939 . In the pre - war Polish territories annexed by the Soviets ( Western Ukraine , Western Belarus , Lithuania and Białystok regions , known to Poles as " Kresy " ) the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941 , soon after Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion of the Soviet Union . Those groups fought against the Germans , but conflicts with Polish partisans were also common . Early war . Initially the Soviet partisan groups were formed primarily in the areas of Nowogródek ( modern Navahrudak ) , Lida and Wilno ( modern Vilnius ) from Red Army soldiers who evaded capture by the advancing German forces . Lacking support from the local population , the Soviet partisan groups retreated to various large forest complexes in the area , where they hid from the German rear and anti - partisan units . Until early 1943 , the Soviet partisans focused primarily on survival deep behind enemy lines , with their activity limited mostly to sabotage and diversion rather than armed struggle against German forces and collaborationist police units . During this early period various Soviet partisan groups also collaborated with the local Polish resistance of ZWZ , later renamed the AK . The Polish underground was established in the area in the fall 1939 . Polish resistance was both anti - Nazi and anti - Soviet ; their attitude represented the fact that both powers had invaded Poland , and Polish citizens suffered from Soviet terror just as they did from Nazi terror . There was no love lost between Polish and Soviet resistances , as Joseph Stalin ' s goal was to prevent a reemergence of an independent Poland after the war . Late war . As the eastern front approached the area , and diplomatic relations between the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union were broken off in the aftermath of the discovery of the Katyn Massacre in April 1943 , most of the collaboration between Polish and Soviet partisans came to an end . In addition , as ordered by Moscow on June 22 , 1943 , Soviet partisans began an open conflict against both the German forces and local Polish partisans . Soviet partisans attacked Polish partisans , villages and small towns in order to weaken the Polish structures in the areas which Soviet Union claimed for itself . Frequent requisitions of food in local villages and brutal reprisal actions against villages considered disloyal to the Soviet Union sparked the creation of numerous self - defence units , often joining the ranks of the Armia Krajowa . Similar assaults on the Polish resistance organizations also took place in the Ukraine . Communist propaganda called the Polish resistance the " bands of White Poles " , or " the protégé s of the Gestapo . " On 23 June 1943 the Soviet leaders ordered the partisans to denounce Polish partian to the Nazis . The Soviet units were authorized to “ shoot the [ Polish ] leaders ” and “ discredit , disarm , and dissolve ” their units . Under pretences of cooperation , two sizable Polish partisan units were led to their destruction ( a common strategy involved inviting the Polish commanders to negotiations , arresting or murdering them and attacking the Polish partisans by surprise ) . In late 1943 , the actions of Soviet partisans , who were ordered to liquidate the AK forces resulted in very limited and uneasy cooperation between some units of the AK and the Germans . While the AK treated the Germans as the enemy and continued to conduct operations against them , when the Germans offered the AK some arms and provisions to be used against the Soviet partisans , some Polish units in the Nowogródek and Wilno areas decided to accept them . However any such arrangements were purely tactical and did not constitute evidence of the type of ideological collaboration as was shown by the Vichy regime in France , the Quisling regime in Norway or closer to the region , the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists . The Poles ' main motivation was to gain intelligence on German morale and preparedness , and to acquire some badly needed weapons . There are no known joint Polish - German military actions , and the Germans were unsuccessful in their attempts to turn the Poles toward fighting exclusively against Soviet partisans . Such cooperation of local Polish commanders with the Germans was condemned by AK High Command and the Polish Supreme Commander in London , who on January 17 , 1944 ordered it to be discontinued and the guilty parties disciplined . The armed struggle continued until the arrival of the Red Army in 1944 and well after . Subsequently , over the period of the next few years , the Soviets and Polish communists would work to successfully eradicate the remains of the anti - Soviet Polish underground , known as the " cursed soldiers " . Relations with the civilian population . Modern Polish historians maintain that the Soviet partisans were despised by local populations , as they engaged in plunder and terrorised the inhabitants . Bogdan Musial also suggests that the Soviet partisans preferred to assault the less challenging Belarussian and Polish self - defense units rather than German military and police targets . By the end of 1943 , the Soviets could claim a significant " victory " in their war against the " burgeoisie Poles " : most large landed estates owned by the Poles had been destroyed by the Soviet partisans .