JSOU Report 05 4

Joint Special Operations University
Brigadier General Steven J. Hashem

President
Dr. Brian A. Maher
Vice President
Joint Special Operations University
and the Strategic Studies Department
The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications
to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about Joint Spe- Strategic Studies Department
cial Operations. JSOU publications advance the insights and recommen-
dations of national security professionals and Special Operations Forces’ Lieutenant Colonel Michael C. McMahon
Director
students and leaders for consideration by the SOF community and de-
fense leadership. James D. Anderson
JSOU is a subordinate organization of the US Special Operations Director of Research
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The JSOU portal is https://jsou.socom.mil.
Logistic Support
a n d I n s u r g e n cy
Guerrilla Sustainment and
Applied Lessons of Soviet
I n s u r g e n t Wa r f a r e : W hy I t
Should Still Be Studied
G ra h a m H . Tu r b iv i l l e , J r.
JSOU Report 05-4

The JSOU Press
Hurlburt Field, Florida
2005
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S.
Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM, or the Joint Special
Operations University.
This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.
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versity, 357 Tully Street, Alison Building, Hurlburt Field, Florida 32544.
Copies of this publication may be obtained by calling JSOU at 850-884-
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ucation Gateway at https://jsou.socom.mil/gateway/. Click on “High-
lighted Research” to view. The Strategic Studies Department, JSOU is
currently accepting written works relevant to special operations for po-
tential publication. For more information please contact Mr. Jim An-
derson, JSOU Director of Research, at 850-884-1569, DSN 579-1569,
[email protected]. Thank you for your interest in the
JSOU Press.
ISBN 0-9767393-5-6
Foreword
T
his is a pertinent and timely study of a critical issue facing
the United States military today: how do insurgents logistically
sustain and expand their operations? Graham H. Turbiville, Jr.
appropriately mentions Martin Van Creveld’s excellent treatise, Sup-
plying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton but argues persua-
sively that a similar study on the role of logistics in unconventional
or “small” wars is sorely needed. Dr Turbiville’s essay discusses lo-
gistics and sustainment of guerillas operating in the Soviet Union
behind German lines during World War II. The paper is a significant
step in addressing the research shortfall on insurgency logistics.
Dr Turbiville posits there is a high correlation between Soviet
Union planner’s studies of Soviet partisan operations in World War II
and how the USSR sponsored and supported insurgencies through-
out the Cold War period. He effectively argues that this mindset “con-
stituted the base upon which Soviet and Russian guerilla operations
and support approaches and techniques were developed” in the 60
years since World War II. Turbiville clearly identifies how the Soviet
perspective on the effectiveness of guerilla operations “constituted
the most frequent means of shaping the course of military actions
in low intensity conflict.” Implicit in this paradigm is the critical link
between Soviet special operations type units and partisan or guerilla
activities.
A significant portion of the report discusses how the Soviet
Union supplied guerilla forces during the war. Dr Turbiville empha-
sizes three distinct types of supply sources guerillas can use: local
or prepositioned supplies, captured supplies, and supplies provided
from external sources. Resupply by Soviet aircraft was an extremely
important transportation medium used by the USSR. Although most
insurgents fighting against the United States are unlikely to use aer-
ial resupply due to US air supremacy, these three broad supply cat-
egories are still valid and are present in our current conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan. One of the most valuable sections of Dr Turbiville’s
work is the superb recap in the essay’s conclusion of thirteen key
elements of insurgency sustainment. These elements are provided
to establish a framework for further research and consideration. Al-
though all are important, the discussions concerning the elements
of supply, basing, and mine or weapon fabrication are especially rel-
evant to today’s operational environment.
Lt Col Michael C. McMahon

Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department
Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. is a Senior Fellow with the
Strategic Studies Department, Joint Special Operations
University (JSOU), Hurlburt Field, FL. Dr. Turbiville earlier
served 30 years in intelligence community analytical and
leadership positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency
and the Department of the Army. He is the author of
many publications dealing with military and law
enforcement issues.
Turbiville: Logistic Support and Insurgency
Logistic Support and Insurgency

Guerrilla Sustainment and Applied Lessons of Soviet
Insurgent Warfare: Why It Should Still Be Studied
Graham H. Turbiville, Jr.
Abstract. Dr. Turbiville addresses the major components of insurgent logistic
support and sustainment today and discusses the enduring value to US special
operations personnel of studying the often analogous experience of Soviet World
War II partisan and postwar guerrilla support. Turbiville argues that contemporary
requirements—such as local and external resources; supply networks, bases and
caches; logistic cadre and infrastructure development; transportation; conceal-
ment and deception; fabrication of mines and explosive devices; support for
phased guerrilla movement growth, and others—were reflected throughout the
World War II partisan warfare and in the postwar period were organized, synthe-
sized, and incorporated into security and military training courses and concepts
for application in Third World insurgent support. Turbiville illustrates his argument
with contemporary and historical examples, and—noting that Russian special
operations forces study the synthesized experience in seeking approaches for
Chechen and other insurgencies—judges that the extensive and increasingly ac-
cessible material associated with this “classic” guerrilla warfare experience has
utility for US specialists as well.
Introduction
A
t the beginning of the 1970s, the isolation and defeat—or sus-
tainment and success—of insurgencies in a number of Latin
American, African and Asian countries preoccupied selected
US and Soviet planners. The Soviet organization charged principally
with the support of insurgent or terrorist groups was the First Main
Directorate of the Committee of State Security (KGB), which had a
clear mission: create “the conditions for the use … of separate cen-
ters of the anti-imperialist movement and the guerrilla struggle on
the territory of foreign countries.” The First Main Directorate was
also specifically charged with a challenge upon which success of
that mission depended: it must through “special tasks” deliver “help
by arms, instructors etc. to the leadership of fraternal communist
parties, progressive groups and organizations that wage an armed
struggle in circumstances of isolation from the outside world.” 1 This
logistic support dimension of insurgency was the beneficiary of a body
of wartime experience and subsequent study that shaped guerrilla
support in ways that still echo in the support activities of contempo-
1
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rary guerrilla and terrorist groups. Before addressing this, however,

the topic of logistics and what it means for guerrilla and terrorist
group support today deserves a few words.
Military logistic complexities and approaches have in the techni-
cal sense been the object of as focused and developed attention as
any dimension of military art and science. The US and a number
of foreign military establishments have applied these approaches in
innovative ways to create the conditions for overall military success
across the spectrum of conflict. Nevertheless, while every serious
specialist acknowledges the critical importance of effective logistic
support, it has not been treated in general military literature to the
same extent or depth as other dimensions of tactics, operational art
and strategy of which it is an integral part. With some notable excep-
tions, synthesizing and articulating the challenges and solutions of
ammunition and POL consumption, supply rates, loading and trans-
port requirements, and other support challenges have fallen mainly
to professional logisticians whose works have been read and studied
by their specialist colleagues.2
One of the more important English-language exceptions to the
dearth of broad analytical logistic works—overcoming the designa-
tions of “mind-numbing” or “boring” that general military audiences
sometimes have used to characterize logistic writings—is military
historian Martin Van Crevald’s excellent 1977 treatment, Supplying
War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton. It is deservedly used in
staff colleges and advanced warfighting seminars around the world.
His treatment of many aspects of logistic support as they evolved
over some 150 years has sparked discussion and argument. How-
ever, with an emphasis on regular military establishments, there is
scarcely a mention of the special supply and sustainment issues as-
sociated with small wars or irregular forces.3 This is the case simi-
larly for the later volume of essays Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western
Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present and for other analogous
and well-researched works as well.4 The study that systematically
addresses guerrilla sustainment in the same way that Van Crevald
and a few others have treated military logistics for regular armies
has yet to be written, but the topic has gained far more urgency with
the end of the Cold War and the new importance and even centrality
of irregular warfare.
The issues and assessments of insurgent logistics—and the sus-
tainment of large terrorist groups which shares common elements—
are worth addressing before turning to the main topic of this paper:
the ways in which Soviet World War II guerrilla warfare (partizans-
kaya voyna in Russian) warfare experience was studied and applied
2
to postwar insurgent support around the world and its continuing

value in understanding centralized and decentralized guerrilla sup-
port.5 The fact that guerrilla operations and special operations were
joined at the hip historically and later increases the value of their
study and understanding as a “classic” of military experience with
continuing relevance.
Analyzing Insurgent Logistics

Assessing the logistic organization, requirements, practices, and ca-
pabilities associated with today’s insurgencies and those in the re-
cent past presents some special challenges. This is, in part, because
assessing the support of insurgent or large terrorist groups consti-
tutes both the logistics assessment dimension and the intelligence
problem of learning in some detail what complex practices, tech-
niques, and associations the guerrillas are trying to conceal. Nev-
ertheless, there is a rich and growing body of material addressing
key dimensions of the historic, contemporary, and postulated future
trends of insurgent logistic support that is proving useful in today’s
global operational environment. This material includes (1) focused,
historic case studies of specific historic conflicts including their lo-
gistic components, (2) a few classics of insurgency writing that tend
to consider sustainment in more theoretical terms, (3) detailed looks
by Western or foreign analysts at specific logistic or support func-
tions for the most recent and on-going guerrilla or terrorist conflicts,
and (4) the occasional acquisition and public availability of logistic
instructional and planning materials prepared by active insurgent or
terrorist groups.
(1) Historic insurgencies, successful and unsuccessful, have continu-
ing importance for contemporary students and analysts. The fine
assessment by historian Charles R. Shrader dealing with logistics
in the Greek Civil War (1945-49) among his other works on logis-
tics and regional conflicts is particularly notable.6 Shrader’s work—
based on a conflict now six decades in the past—has proven itself of
substantial use and interest to intelligence community analysts and
others engaged in asymmetric warfare assessments and how guer-
rillas sustain, or don’t sustain, themselves. Shrader’s judgment that
“if one were forced to select a single explanation for the defeat of the
GDA [the Communist Greek Democratic Army] it would have to be
inadequate logistics” (emphasis in original) is backed up by a wealth
of original sources and detail. In particular, his views on the GDA’s
failure to establish adequate logistic infrastructure before transition-
ing to conventional warfare—at the very time outside support was
waning—is instructive.7
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The many insurgencies and sustained terrorist campaigns in the

second half of the 20th Century retain relevance. Notably, the logistics
chapter in the joint effort Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte and David
E. Spencer (Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas:
Last Battle of the Cold War, Blueprint for Future Conflicts) addresses
the well-organized structure and operation of the logistics establish-
ment of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) and
its associated groups including the extensive external support from
Nicaragua (of mixed manufacture, but originally from Cuban, So-
viet stocks and resources); land, sea, and air transport infiltration
routes; supply depot and cache distribution system; and medical
support provided by outside humanitarian groups including drugs,
surgical equipment, and doctors.8 Reiterating what essentially every
specialist has determined about the logistic component of insurgen-
cies, the authors conclude that, “One of the great accomplishments
of the FMLN and the forces that supported it was that of setting up
a sound logistical foundation … one of the key reasons the FMLN was
able to last over twelve years of bitter conflict.” 9
(2) Military classics of insurgency continue to inform specialists—at
least in theoretical terms—of the importance of existing or acquired
strong popular support as a prerequisite for success. Relatively brief
and general treatments of sustainment in classic works on insur-
gency—Mao Tse-Tung, Vo Nguyen Giap, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and
Brazilian Communist Carlos Marighella—are typically more theoreti-
cal in their insight than in practical application. A reading of Che’s
Bolivian diary, for example, certainly underscores the consequences
of limited material and other support infrastructure.10 Marighella’s
influential formulations in Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla, a work
distilling and organizing the experience of the Brazil’s Acao Liberta-
dora Nacional (ALN) insurgency and distributed worldwide by Cuba
from 1970 on, treated guerrilla logistics succinctly but in a way al-
most redolent of a western army field manual passage.11 He drew
a distinction between conventional military sustainment and the
“revolutionary logistics” of fragmented guerrilla forces, using the for-
mulation MMWAE for Mechanization (transport), Money, Weapons,
Ammunition, and Explosives to set out basic insurgent needs. He
lays out a requirement for phased growth to include expropriating
and capturing military resources, robbing banks for financing, cach-
ing, transporting, and distributing materiel by making use of supe-
rior knowledge of the environment. The mixed results and failures of
Mini-Manual users as diverse as the Uruguayan Tupamoros, Provi-
sional Irish Republican Army, Baader-Meinhoff Group, Italian Red
Brigades, German Red Army Faction and others, makes its practical
4
value problematic, but it constitutes an unusually focused theoreti-

cal construct for insurgent logistics.
(3) Recent assessments of specific aspects of insurgent and terrorist sus-
tainment and support have proliferated in the wake of 9/11. The Rand
Corporation has in particular examined in a scholarly way many of
the dimensions of contemporary insurgent or terrorist group sus-
tainment. Of special note, Rand Corporation analysts in Trends in
Outside Support of Insurgent Movements (1991-2000) reviewed some
74 insurgencies and the kind of external support they received. The
study addresses safe havens, financial support, political backing,
and direct military assistance, and in doing so considered support
from states, diasporas, refugees, and other non-state actors. Valu-
able looks at specific contemporary issues like the intricacies of al-
Qaeda financing,12 arms trafficking sources and routes for Colom-
bia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National
Liberation Army (ELN),13 and how terrorist/insurgent groups learn,
to include incorporating logistic lessons and developing more effec-
tive support approaches and techniques.14
The latter, for example, described institutional learning aspects
of Lebanon’s Hizballah financial and arms support from Syria and
Iran, an international logistics infrastructure for weapons trafficking
and fund-raising, and local support initiatives to promote recruiting;
Japanese Aum Shinrikyo terrorist group’s acquired sophistication
within the international trading environment while taking advantage
of its “religious” status; Southeast Asia’s al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah
Islamiyah group with a relatively rudimentary logistic base; and the
extensive and evolved Provisional Irish Republican Army logistic in-
frastructure to include particularly the sophisticated financial and
criminal revenue-generating activities.15
(4) The most insightful materials are the internal records and documents
of guerrilla or terrorist groups, some of which are quite developed.
While document exploitation of recovered or captured materials deal-
ing with contemporary guerrilla and terrorist group logistics falls
mainly to the intelligence community and results are usually not
publicly available, some seminal materials are released or becoming
available.
For example, an event in the spring of 1993 highlighted a di-
mension of developing terrorist and insurgent logistic support that
was more complex than many imagined. A series of pre-dawn explo-
sions on 23 May destroyed an automotive garage in the Santa Rosa
area of Managua, Nicaragua. Responders found a well-developed,
multi-chambered underground storage facility beneath the garage
that soon was popularly referred to as the “Taller Santa Rosa Arse-
5
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nal.” 16 The underground facility had hydraulic doors, and its various
chambers, connected by tunnels, held some 307 passports from 22
countries, various national immigration stamps, other false docu-
ments, and assorted permits to include blank voter identification
cards for the upcoming 1994 election in El Salvador. It also held
approximately 7,000 pages of documents including well-developed
target data on companies and individuals, strategy papers, clippings
on actions, and other material, hundreds of AK-47s, machine guns,
RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), and tons of ammunition and ex-
plosives including C-4 plastique; and 19 surface-to-air shoulder fired
missiles.
The documents and investigation revealed
that the proprietor of the garage and under- The documents
ground storage facility was a leader of the ETA and investiga-
Basque terrorist international logistic apparatus tion revealed that
(who later became overall ETA logistics chief). the proprietor …
His Basque partner also was an ETA logistic ap- was a leader of
paratus member. In addition to ETA, documents
the ETA Basque
revealed that interacting organizations includ-
ed the FPL (Forces of Popular Liberation) of the terrorist inter-
multi-group FMLN (which later admitted owner- national logistic
ship of the weapons), the MIR (Movement of the apparatus …
Revolutionary Left, based in Chile); Sandinista
elements (then very much a part of the military and internal security
components of the Chamorro Government), and the ERP (Peoples
Revolutionary Army in Argentina). The logistic and other links among
these disparate groups highlighted relationships and cooperation
that gave additional insight to sometimes intertwined support.
Similarly, some FARC and ELN resourcing and financing—and
particularly the criminal linkages at a time when it was debated—ap-
peared in the early 1990s. The arrest of the ELN finance minister in
north central Colombia in early 1992 reportedly was accompanied by
the discovery of a computer disc that set out a wealth of ELN mon-
ey-making operations throughout northeastern Colombia—opera-
tions that included a list of ransom payments and victims, extortion
schemes involving businesses and individuals, and an assessment
of guerrilla front expenses. It also included Colombian intercepts of
FARC secretariat mail, seized documents, and debriefed a number
of defectors and collaborators. All of this revealed an extraordinary
amount of information on FARC and ELN financing, and indicated—
already more than a decade ago now—that the two guerrilla groups
had become the “largest, best organized, and most profitable crimi-
nal activity in the country.” Further, the Colombian authorities de-
6
termined a close correlation between the deployment of the various

guerrilla fronts and the centers of economic enterprise of one form
or another, especially oil, gold, coal, bananas, coca, and, most re-
cently, poppies. Guerrilla deployment shifted to these areas where
revenues were greater. Guerrillas reportedly have even helped revive
cattle ranches when their excessive expropriation of money caused
ranches to become of marginal financial value.17
Al-Qaeda—an organization with demonstrated learning capa-
bilities, whose writings make Marighella’s Mini-manual look very
spare—has set out logistic approaches, as fragmentary information
from recovered documents indicates. Much of this, judging from me-
dia reporting, is not available publicly. But one document illustrates
the approach and level of detail. This is a manual that has among it
chapters an al-Qaeda security plan for all phases of arms acquisi-
tion. Discussed, for example, are phased measures that address:
• 1st Stage-Prior to Purchase: perform surveillance detection
exercise, wear appropriate clothes, prepare cover story, etc.
• 2nd Stage-Purchasing: minimize time with seller, view, in-
spect, test arms, be alert for unnatural behavior, etc.
• 3rd Stage-Transport: Deploy observers ahead of arms
transfer, pay attention to time and routes, pay attention to
proper vehicle registry and running condition, etc.
• 4th Stage-Storage: select arsenal site (with view to its his-
tory, location, observation), keep comprehensive coded &
secure records, have alternative arsenal sites, don’t visit
frequently or “toy” with weapons, etc. (a stricture evidently
ignored at the Managua arsenal explosion.) “ 18
Collectively, the selected treatments of insurgent and terrorist
group logistic approaches and techniques above identify and high-
light elements that historically and today are essential for the sus-
tainment of armed groups of all types. They vary in detail, emphasis
and how well they have been applied in their particular historical or
operational circumstances. Synthesized, however, they highlight the
following key elements of guerrilla sustainment that require continu-
ing study and understanding:
• Local and external support dimensions
• Supply networks, bases and caches
• Logistic cadre and infrastructure development
• Transportation
• Concealment and deception
• Fabrication of mines and explosive devices
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• Technology applications
• Rural, urban and maritime aspects
• Administering guerrilla support and operational areas
• Interaction with external groups
• Printing and disseminating directives, training, and propa-
ganda materials
• Financial and money-raising approaches and techniques
• Logistic support for phased guerrilla movement growth into
a near-regular or conventional force
This paper addresses additional “classic” experience that speaks
to all of the elements above—that is pertinent components of the
extensive and variegated experience of the Soviet guerrilla logistic
support in World War II, and how the experience was studied and
synthesized by postwar military planners who applied the lessons to
insurgent support throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. There
are many strong echoes of this that continue in groups with a heri-
tage of Soviet/Warsaw Pact/Cuban support and extensive training,
and perhaps in Russian gray market activity among old clients as
well. Articles, studies and assessments constitute a superb collection
of tactics, techniques, and procedures, theory, observations, lessons
and countermeasures applicable to insurgent logistic support—and
which have penetrated practice and language of many groups. It is
worth revisiting and reconsidering for its still-relevant lessons in the
logistic support of irregular armed groups. While studied in the West
with considerable attention in the years after World War II and in the
US-Vietnam War period, this rich body of material—and newly devel-
oped and interpreted material—has been largely neglected amid the
renewed interest in insurgency.
This paper will examine how planners collected and systematized
insurgent logistic concepts, experience and techniques to include
different types of insurgencies and environments; identified and
highlighted guerrilla actions and successful/unsuccessful counter-
measures, and considered their pertinence for the support of insur-
gencies in the last part of the 20th Century.
Guerrillas and Logistics: Soviet Partisans and Postwar Applications

The USSR emerged from war with a legacy of guerrilla operations—
and their logistic support—which like many aspect of the war on
the East Front are staggering in their statistical dimension. Plan-
ners and historians after the war carefully categorized the 1941-45
“Partisan Movement” in terms of guerrilla groups, detachments and
units formed; the number of enemy troops, vehicles and facilities de-
8
stroyed; the types and quantities of supplies provided; and countless

other details. German intelligence throughout the war did the same
thing.19 Soviet and Russian historians claim that more than one mil-
lion guerrillas, supported by hundreds of thousands of underground
workers, killed, wounded or captured some 1 million Germans and
their allies over the course of the war destroyed over 4,000 tanks and
armored vehicles, planted explosives that destroyed 1,600 railroad
bridges, and wrecked more than 20,000 trains.20 Sometimes oper-
ating in small isolated groups, or progressively larger units under
central control that approached the capacity of regular units, these
forces ambushed enemy forces, cut supply lines, raided facilities, dis-
rupted enemy efforts to establish administration of occupied areas,
executed collaborators, engaged in targeted assassination actions,
and gathered intelligence for local use and higher military or security
service commands. One of the most important reasons that this still
matters is that the materials, archives, and direct personal experi-
ence coming out of World War II constituted the base upon which
Soviet and Russian guerilla operations and support approaches and
techniques were developed over the next six decades.21
Refocusing Guerrilla Warfare Experience
There is a chain of knowledge, application, and legacy from World War
II partisans to contemporary guerrillas that bears brief review. One
of the most important figures associated with the success of guerrilla
forces in the field against the Germans—and overall in the history of
Soviet special operations forces—was Il’ya G. Starinov, a man little
known in the USSR and elsewhere until the 1980s saw the increased
appearance of World War II memoir materials and other writings.22
He died in 2000 at the age of 100, providing council and ideas on
guerrilla and counterinsurgent warfare almost until the end, and his
contributions to the most carefully protected Soviet military and se-
curity service operations in World War II and Cold War are still being
revealed. Based on his organizational and operational endeavors as
a Soviet unconventional warfare operative in the Spanish Civil War
and Finland, as a special operations commander, trainer and inno-
vator throughout World War II, and as a postwar professor/advocate
for guerrilla warfare and special operations, Starinov is recognized
as one of the most influential contributors to both intelligence/secu-
rity service (Soviet Committee for State Security – KGB – and Russian
Federal Security Service – FSB) “Alfa and “Vympel” special units, and
military intelligence (GRU) special operations forces. More specifi-
cally, the Russian-designated “grandfather of special operations” is
known a master of sabotage-diversionary operations in rear areas as
carried out by guerrillas and special operations units.23
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His name and training techniques remain closely associated

with the innovative extensive use of concealed, remotely-detonated
and timed mines and explosive devices against enemy forces and
facilities—an effort that embraced the often impressive technologi-
cal innovations of the time. He entitled his first memoir Mines Await
Their Own Hour, and his insistence that a “mine is not a defensive,
but especially offensive weapon” has defined trained approaches in
postwar special operations schools to the present day. One former
special operator described being introduced to Starinov’s work at Ry-
azan Airborne facility in the 1980s, where special forces were trained
under the cover of other airborne training:
The first time I was introduced to his name, I was being trained
in the Department of Special Forces GRU GSH [Main Intel-
ligence Directorate of the General Staff] of Ryazan Airborne
Command School in 1981-1985 (then the Special Forces De-
partment at Ryazan) which was so secret that its existence was
not even known to many military leaders. The mine-explosive
topic was thoroughly studied in the department as one of the
basic subjects. Basic teaching aids and manuals on the mine-
blasting matter were developed with the direct participation of
Starinov.24
As late as the mid-1990s, Colonel Starinov advocated, from re-

tirement, a plan for the offensive use of an elaborate mine/explosive
ambush of Chechen field commanders Shamil Basayev and Khattab
(the latter eventually killed by Russian special forces). He cited the
successful 1941 remotely-detonated, radio-controlled mine assassi-
nation of the German Kharkov Commandant, Lieutenant General
Geog von Braun, and the staff of the 68th Infantry Division, an ac-
tion that stunned the Germans with the unexpected sophistication
of the mine and planning.25 Unfortunately for the Russians, Chech-
en guerrillas—many of them trained in Russian and Soviet military
schools—use this kind of approach more effectively against Russian
field forces and commanders as well as Chechen government leaders
and forces. More recently yet in August 2005, whether one agrees
with the judgment or not, Russian specialists link GRU Spetsnaz ef-
fectiveness with the guerrilla lessons of World War II:
Afghanistan alone showed that GRU Spetsnaz brigades were
the most effective subunits in fighting mobile mujahedin de-
tachments. Certainly this was explained by the fact that the
methodology of training the Soviet Spetsnaz absorbed the best
experience of Great Patriotic War partisans. Judging from ev-
erything, it turned out that our ‘partisans’ were enormously
tougher than those being trained with CIA money.26
10
Starinov’s experiences and innovations are instructive for a wide

range of guerrilla and special operations, but it is a postwar research
and application effort he instituted that had direct impact on insur-
gent logistics. After the end of the war, in 1948, Starinov created the
Organization and the Tactics of Partisan Warfare group within the
Military Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). He ran
the group jointly with the Chief of the Rear Service Department. The
group was tasked to conduct in-depth studies of guerrilla warfare,
and according to Starinov soon recruited dozens of research and op-
erator “enthusiasts” who would continue this work for decades.27
One of the early members to join the Organization and the Tac-
tics of Partisan Warfare group was the young officer Vladimir Niko-
layevich Andrianov. In the shuffle of Soviet security forces he soon
wound up in the Academy of the KGB, creating the advanced officer
courses and curriculum which trained hundreds of KGB specialists
over two generations. These courses are credited as a foundation of
the former Soviet and current Russian Alfa and Vympel spetsnaz
units of the FSB. Officers and KGB centers also trained countless
East European allies and Third World guerrilla and terrorist group
cadre, drawing on the synthesized lessons of World War II partisans
and growing postwar experience. While much of Andrianov’s work
was clearly classified, a series of open source treatments referenced
below has given considerable insight and detail into lessons learned
and taught.
Another of the “enthusiasts” recruited by Starinov at the same
time and linking World War II guerrillas and special operations to the
post war period, was the then-young KGB officer Grigoriy Ivanovich
Boyarinov. A chief of the long-secret Balashika special operations
training center where generations of Russian and foreign specialists
(including young Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat) learned their
skills, he was killed two decades later in Kabul by friendly fire while
leading the KGB Vympel assault force that captured/killed Afghan
President Amin in the early hours of the December 1979 Soviet inva-
sion.28 Peter Nishchev, later chief of the KGB special counterterror-
ist training courses from 1981-1984, joined the group at this time.
He was still providing expert commentary on the Chechen guerrilla
takeover of the Beslan school where so many children, civilians and
Russian special operations personnel were killed.29 As noted above,
these men, training facilities and courses, and activities were asso-
ciated with the First Main Directorate of the KGB—responsible for
foreign intelligence.
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Supporting Guerrillas at the Height of Soviet Power

There is no need to recount well-documented Soviet support of Third
World guerrillas and terrorist groups. But it’s worth briefly recalling
where Soviet initiatives—informed by synthesized guerrilla lessons
and techniques adjusted by new experiences—had taken them on
the eve of the USSR’s descent into dissolution. In mid-1980s, the So-
viet potential for influencing the course of regional conflicts through
direct or indirect military assistance appeared greater than at any
point in the past. Soviet military assistance programs—to include the
capability to provide advisers, arms, other equipment, and supplies
at levels ranging from small-scale covert actions in behalf of guerrilla
and terrorist groups to the massive, surge support of clients engaged
in high intensity local wars and wars of national liberation—had been
implemented on numerous occasions since the mid-1950s.30 Later,
KGB-run or sponsored training camps in the USSR, Warsaw Pact
countries, and in Cuba among a number of other countries turned
out hundreds of guerrilla and terrorist cadres. The support of large
numbers of Cuban surrogate forces in the 1970s and destabilizing
support of insurgent and terrorist activity around the world seemed
to constitute a well-developed tool to obtain favorable resolutions in
local wars and military conflicts in the future. The substantial So-
viet capability to provide arms, equipment, supplies, and associated
Soviet or surrogate advisors constituted the most frequent means of
shaping the course of military actions in low intensity conflict.
US assessments of Soviet military support to Third World cli-
ent states in 1987 took note of what seemed
to be an increasing pace of arms aid and other
military assistance to selected countries, to-
In 1987 alone, the
gether with growing air and maritime trans- USSR provided
port means for the long-distance movement of some 21-billion
materiel and troops.31 In 1987 alone, the USSR dollars to more
provided some 21-billion dollars to more than than 30 states …
30 states, including record deliveries of arms
to Nicaragua for the purpose of “underwriting
Managua’s military supremacy in Central America.” 32 The US judged
that the Soviet Union maintained more military advisors in Latin
America and Africa than the US had globally. These included 3,600-
4,000 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 8-9,000 in the Middle East and North
Africa, 3,500 in Asia, and 7,900 in Latin America including Cuba.33
The faltering of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s under Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev and the eventual dissolution of the
USSR in 1991 changed things fundamentally for the resources and
training of guerrillas. But it left a legacy of arms, thousands of So-
12
viet/Soviet bloc/Cuban-trained foreign cadres, remnants at least of

ideology, and a wealth of tradecraft, tactics, techniques and proce-
dures that continue to shape guerrilla sustainment. This being the
case, an examination of covert or clandestine materiel-technical sup-
port in Soviet historical precedent and how the Soviets studied and
applied this historical experience point to its continuing relevance.
Historical Experience and Contemporary Experience

In 1975, with the publication of an important two-part article by the
then-Chief of the Voroshilov General Staff Academy, Army General I.
E. Shavrov, the Soviet military periodical Military-Historical Journal
began a systematic open examination of a number of local and na-
tional liberation war issues that earlier had been addressed less fre-
quently in open Soviet writings.34 It reflected a Soviet practice, typi-
cally paralleling classified research, in which especially important or
pressing military issues were discussed in “historical” or otherwise
less sensitive terms. Subsequent issues of the journal typically in-
cluded one or more articles addressing various aspects of the theory
and practice of local wars and military conflicts, with other military
(and non-military) journals and monographs beginning to address a
broad spectrum of such issues as well. As noted, this effort was pre-
ceded and paralleled by more detailed classified assessments, some
of which appeared in the formerly restricted General Staff journal
Military Thought.35
Another indication of the growing extent of Soviet research inter-
est in studying and assessing the lessons of local wars and military
conflicts became apparent in the spring of 1981. At that time, mili-
tary historian Lieutenant General N. M. Kir’ian signed off on a list
of approved topics of military-historical research for the 1981-1991
period.36 Included among the more than 200 recommended topics—
which in total reflected virtually every key area of contemporary So-
viet military interest—were numerous research themes dealing with
the conduct of local wars and the military affairs of developing coun-
tries.37
The long-standing Soviet interest in studying the development of
the guerrilla movement in World War II described earlier also gained
more public visibility in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the experience
of special operations forces of various types.38 This effort incorporat-
ed the interaction of special operations forces with guerrilla groups,
and the cooperation of both with regular formations and foreign mili-
tary forces. Of particular note in these assessments was the explicit
identification of the Soviet guerrilla experience as a model for con-
temporary efforts to determine how best to support insurgencies and
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revolutionary movements, to include what constitutes appropriate

levels of logistic support of all types.
The most prolific and insightful author, in this regard, was the
aforementioned Major General Viktor N. Andrianov, who wrote exten-
sively on various aspects of the partisan movement for at least four
decades. While he joined the Organization and the Tactics of Parti-
san Warfare group in the late 1940s, Andrianov’s first known public
assessment of guerrilla warfare issues appeared in 1961 when he
was a major, with his most recent article (as a major general) appear-
ing in 1988.39 In 1984, Andrianov discussed how the Soviet guer-
rilla movement in various parts off the USSR differed in composition,
equipment, and tactics, depending upon the geography of the region,
enemy strength, local and outside materiel-technical (i.e., logistic)
support available, population density, potential for operating with
regular armed forces, and other issues.40
He described the necessity for partisan units to begin with small
detachment-size elements, which over the course of the war grew to
battalion, brigade, and then formation size. Careful attention was
given initially to “supplying the partisans with weapons which would
make it possible to destroy enemy personnel and equipment without
directly engaging them in armed combat.” 41 By the end of the war,
partisan unit consolidation and appropriate improvements in their
technical equipping brought “partisan forces closer to the structure
of troop formations,” and even allowed partisan forces to cross state
borders and operate “successfully in neighboring countries, provid-
ing aid to the local antifascist forces fighting the occupiers.” 42
Andrianov summed up the guerrilla experience and its contem-
porary relevance to local wars and conflicts by observing that, “from
the examples of the development of national liberation wars over re-
cent decades, one can see that as the struggle developed and its
organization improved, the partisan forces grew into people’s libera-
tion regular armies, which organized themselves along army lines,
although they continued to operate in the enemy rear and employ
partisan warfare methods.” 43 Andrianov and other KGB or military
theorists and planners examined in some detail the equipping and
resupply of partisan units, the transport means used to disseminate
supplies, the use of airdrops and gliders for the clandestine delivery
of troops and materiel, the establishment of supply caches, medical
support and evacuation techniques, the use and distribution of cap-
tured equipment, and many other associated issues.
Similarly, the logistic support of special operations detach-
ments—an effort often associated with the shared experience of
guerrilla resupply efforts—was addressed in these public studies as
14
well. These special operations detachments frequently operated with

guerrillas or used partisan bases as staging areas for the accom-
plishment of their assigned missions. There are clear analogies be-
tween the use of highly trained special operations personnel to train,
assist, or augment partisan forces in World War II and the use of
Soviet or surrogate advisors dispatched to perform similar functions
with contemporary Third World military establishments or insurgent
movements. Today, in a far different environment, the use of foreign
cadre to train Islamic terrorists or insurgents suggests analogous
interaction.
Those assessments of pertinent historical experiences, planners
then and now insist, “enriched” both theoretically and practically that
now-substantial body of postwar experience in supporting local wars
or military conflicts in the Third World. There were many echoes of
this carefully studied historical experience in modern approaches to
logistic and associated support in unconventional operations, both
in terms of technique, organizational responsibility, and even equip-
ment. Some of the more important examples of this extensive Soviet
experience is briefly examined below.
Supplying Unconventional Warfare Forces in World War II

The organizational and combat employment dimensions of guerril-
la operations were covered in detail by KGB and other specialists
tasked to do this work. Increased open attention to the sustainment
of guerrilla forces, however, had evidently been a neglect not only by
Western specialists, but by Soviet analysis as well. In the case of the
logistic support of the large, diverse, and complex Soviet guerrilla
movement in World War II, this oversight had obscured what is a
remarkable achievement in organization, ingenuity, and accomplish-
ment that remains of contemporary relevance. Whatever the extent
to which planners were satisfied with classified work, one Soviet au-
thor noted in 1973 that “the experience of supplying partisans … has
yet to be sufficiently studied and reflected in historical literature.” 44
The imperative to do more open work, expressed in the actions de-
scribed above, resulted in enough materials available to both make
generalizations and provide some concrete examples.
Infrastructure and Fieldcraft for Sustainment

There were three basic sources of supply for guerrilla detachments
and formations during the course of the war, whose importance and
contribution changed as the partisan movement evolved and the op-
erational situation shaped guerrilla roles, employment approaches,
and opportunities and limitations overall.45 These included (1) the
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utilization of local resources obtained from propositioned caches or

depots, recovered from battlefields and acquired from the populace,
and manufactured in limited, and sometimes well-developed, guer-
rilla production facilities; (2) materiel and supplies captured or oth-
erwise obtained from the Germans or their allies; and (3) the broad
range of support provided to the guerrillas from outside their opera-
tional areas by military and other means.46
In July 2005, Moscow construction workers building a new facil-
ity near the Kremlin found a carefully con-
cealed cache of some 600 pounds of TNT un- Moscow construc-
der the old Moskva Hotel. The neat squares
of pressed TNT—like those supplied to Soviet
tion workers building
guerrillas throughout World War II—had been a new facility near
planted by the NKVD “Special Tasks” direc- the Kremlin found a
torate, which was responsible for operations carefully concealed
in enemy rear areas and occupied territories. cache of some 600
The newly discovered TNT was one of count- pounds of TNT …
less arms caches established in territory
subject to occupation. In October 1941 it ap-
peared Moscow itself might be overrun and occupied by the Ger-
mans, a fear that was nearly realized. In this case, according to the
still surviving son of an NKVD officer who helped plant them, the
TNT blocks had a special purpose: they were to be detonated upon
the anticipated arrival in Moscow of German propaganda minister47
Joseph Goebbels, who reportedly planned to inaugurate a headquar-
ters there with a view of the Kremlin. It was a recent reminder of the
extensive preparations made for pre-positioning materiel and sup-
plying guerrillas with requisite explosives and arms.
During the war, caches and depots established before the war
began and by retreating Red Army units and security forces after the
German attack, served in part to supply the initial guerrilla groups
with arms, explosives, and other materiel.48 However, a number of
these stockpiles were discovered and destroyed by the rapidly ad-
vancing Germans, others were mal-positioned for subsequent parti-
san use, and the location or existence of still others (like the recently
discovered Moscow cache) were simply forgotten or not passed on in
the confusion of the first months of the war.49 This early experience
with clandestine supply bases influenced what, by the end of the
war, had become virtually an art form in creating, concealing, and
using bases and depots. As the guerrilla movement grew and became
better organized, sophisticated base complexes were established in
guerrilla operating areas.
16
Andrianov and others have described in some detail the base

system that became more and more developed. These bases were
classified as main, reserve, and decoy or dummy (lozhnyi) facilities.
The main base, as implied by its designation, constituted the prin-
cipal concentration of weapons, ammunition, food, and other sup-
plies, together with shelter and other living facilities, and was located
within the guerrilla units’ usual deployment area.50 Reserve bases
were intended to support a guerrilla formation that was required to
redeploy from its usual area. They were set up in extreme secrecy,
their locations known only to a few individuals in the guerrilla for-
mation.51 Dummy bases, often set up in main guerrilla deployment
areas as well as in some proximity to reserve areas, were intended to
deceive or divert enemy counterinsurgency efforts in much the same
way that rear service maskirovka efforts (comprising a complex of
camouflage, concealment, and deception measures) were used with
the regular field forces. The guerrillas sometimes simulated radio
communication centers in connection with the dummy bases.52 Ger-
man counterintelligence put major emphasis on locating guerrilla
bases and depots, an effort that drew upon the reports of informers
and captured guerrillas, as well as the careful monitoring of move-
ment and activity by the local populace among other measures.53 As
a consequence of such actions, guerrilla bases were discovered and
destroyed on a number of occasions, though skillful concealment
measures enjoyed substantial overall effectiveness.54
In addition to main, reserve, and dummy facilities, temporary
bases were also set up, usually by raiding detachments operating
out of area, or to support a guerrilla operation in a defined zone of
action.55 For all bases and depots, engineer preparations received
close attention. As guerrilla forces grew in size and the levels of tech-
nical equipping, and as resupply from outside sources came to play a
greater role, the engineer preparation of partisan bases became more
extensive. For example, the criteria for locating a guerrilla main base
included the potential for overhead and ground concealment, secure
ingress and egress routes, availability of water and fuel, and poten-
tial for defense among other factors.
The base itself could vary substantially and might, for example,
consist of mud huts or dugouts, each with at least two exits, arranged
in a circular pattern for all-around defense and linked by communi-
cations trenches. The accommodations would be organized to main-
tain the integrity of guerrilla components and detachments should
they have to defend the location against surprise attack. Elaborate
systems of sentries and trail watchers were established, along with
various kinds of signal devices. Mines, other explosive devices, and
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non-explosive obstacles were set up on the approaches to the base

and within it. Underground storage caches and depots would be dis-
persed in the surrounding area, and airfields or drop zones at safe
distances from bases were set up as well.56
There were many variations in guerrilla base or depot structure,
size, and associated operating measures, a factor that increases the
value of this experience for contemporary applications in a variety of
environments. For example, in 1943, the Germans discovered two
large depots in a marshy area of the Khletnevski Forest west of Bry-
ansk (about 200 miles southwest of Moscow). The depots were built
on a small island in the marsh, and were linked to the bank by a
sixty-meter-long sunken bridge, made of logs, and about a half-me-
ter under water, a discovery presaging general Vo Nguyen Giap’s use
of underwater “logistic” bridges to transport ammunition, other sup-
plies and people a decade later in Indochina.57 The bases, caches,
and depots from the northernmost areas of partisan activity to the
southern USSR all had their distinctive characteristics and a variety
applicable to many kinds of geographic regions and operational cir-
cumstances.
The acquisition of food from the countryside was not initially a
problem in many guerrilla areas, because of its ready availability
from former collective and state farms.58 However, as the German
occupation intensified, and agricultural production diminished, this
source of supply was no longer available. This necessitated a regular-
ized program of acquiring food and clothing from the local populace,
an effort accompanied by intense indoctrination and propaganda ac-
tivity designed to emphasize the local residents’ duty in supporting
the Russian guerrilla groups.59 However, persuasion, coercion, and
appropriation were also used by the guerrillas in what were generally
successful, if mixed, efforts to meet food and clothing needs.
While weapons and other materiel were initially procured from
former battlefields, this resource, too, soon lost its potential as the
German occupation took hold. As a consequence, the guerrillas
themselves began to produce and repair a variety of clothing and
equipment items. The output of this effort, carried out with limit-
ed resources, could be extraordinary. In some cases, surplus items
were even provided to the local population, and the repair of small
arms and other light infantry weapons became an important factor
in maintaining guerilla detachment firepower.
Of particular importance to the guerrillas, however, was the
manufacture of explosive devices and mines in their own workshops.
Guerrillas dismantled recovered bombs and artillery shells to pro-
duce their own sabotage devices. This extensive and innovative ef-
18
fort is worth studying in detail, since the devices for the time were
extraordinary in their effects and were continually adapted to Ger-
man countermeasures. Among the inno-
vations produced in guerrilla field work- Among the innovations
shops was a cheap, portable, delayed produced in guerrilla field
action electromechanical fuse that could workshops was a cheap,
be set with a delay from 2 hours to 100 portable, delayed action
days. This single innovation was criti-
electromechanical fuse …
cally important. As one specialist noted,
“this fuse … literally opened an era in the
matter of mining roads and facilities during a withdrawal, and has a
tremendous significance in any sabotage matter.” 60
The partisan leadership had made a conscious decision to con-
centrate on the supply and fabrication of demolitions as a primary
guerrilla weapon. The reason for this was the relative guerrilla weak-
ness in mechanization and mobility, the difficulty in communicating
or blocking German communications and reaction, and the over-
all guerrilla weakness in relative firepower, especially in the early
months of the war. Explosive devices, as retrospective analyses put
it, enabled the guerrillas to strike blows of tactical, operational, and
sometimes strategic importance against a superior enemy without
the dangers of direct contact—this shaped the supply priority, re-
search for new technologies, and employment practices. As noted
earlier, Starinov’s writings alone provide a wealth of information on
theoretical and practical approach that continued to be developed
throughout the Cold War under KGB and GRU auspices.
Materiel captured or otherwise obtained from the Germans and
their allies played an important role in supplying guerrilla forma-
tions throughout much of the war. Postwar statistical retrospectives
indicate that this was the second major source of weapons and am-
munition, following external resupply.61 (The 1980s calculated de-
cision by the Salvadoran FMLN and its Soviet/Cuban/Nicaraguan
sponsors to falsely insist that local supply was the main source of
their weapons was noted earlier. The reality that outside supplies
eventually become critical for growing or sustained guerrilla move-
ments, however, remained operative four decades later.)
To illustrate local acquisition, during 1942 alone guerrillas in
the Mogilev area (in current Belorus, some 100 miles east of Minsk)
captured 8 field guns, 195 light and medium machine guns, 155
submachine guns, 2,659 rifles, 1,999 pistols, 442,000 rounds of am-
munition, and 1,256 grenades.62 Some assessments by the Germans
indicate that attacks on supply depots to obtain arms were infre-
quent, though they clearly took place more often later in the war,
19
JSOU Report 05-4
and when guerrilla formations were of sufficient strength.63 Provi-

sions were also obtained from German depots by German-speaking
and German-uniformed guerrillas, with arms also purchased from
enemy soldiers (usually non-Germans) by the local population in be-
half of the guerrillas.64 Sometime a ruse was used to obtain supplies
from German resources. A postwar account prepared from German
sources recounted the following:
…it was established that in one particular area guerrilla con-
voys led by German-speaking individuals in German uniforms
called for provisions, and by the presentation of the regular
requisition forms they managed to obtain German supplies.
This was made possible by the fact that the German forces
were using almost exclusively Russian personnel for their so-
called panje-convoys (columns of native horse carts), with only
a few Germans to supervise them. Thus it was relatively easy
for the guerrillas to organize the same type of convoys without
attracting undue attention and to disappear again as soon as
their mission was accomplished.65
As postwar specialists insisted, this kind of experience was in-
structive for national liberation struggles in the postwar years, and
informed in many ways the approaches used by Soviet and surro-
gate advisors. It was the clandestine support of partisan and special
operations forces from outside resources, however, that may have
the greatest parallels for Soviet support of unconventional warfare
forces. This is seen in the organizational and support infrastructure
established and in guerrilla resupply methods.
In the spring of 1942, the State Defense Committee established
the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement in Moscow, under the
Supreme High Command. Partisan headquarters were also set up
under the various front military councils, and at the republic and
region (oblast’) level. These headquarters and staffs controlled and/
or coordinated the operations and support of partisan formations
in the field.66 Within the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement, a
“materiel-technical directorate” was established to oversee the provi-
sion of supplies and technical support of all types.67 This included
in particular the use of logistic support from the central rear service
organizations of the regular armed forces, those logistic assets avail-
able in the major field commands (army groups), and the production
of scientific-technical organizations in Moscow. The creation of this
infrastructure—with a reach that varied depending on the isolation
and circumstances of guerrillas—facilitated the planned and often
quite successful supply of guerrilla forces with weapons and equip-
ment, some of which was designed especially for partisan use.
20
While the manner of providing materiel to the guerrillas varied,

typically the Central Partisan Staff’s materiel-technical directorate
formulated supply requirements on the basis of requisitions from
guerrilla forces in the field (frequently by radio), and requested the
requisite supplies and transport from the appropriate main and
central directorates of the People’s Commissariat of Defense or Red
Army. For example, in December 1943 the Central Partisan Staff
(speaking as a direct subordinate of the Supreme High Command)
passed the following requirement to the Main Military-Engineer Di-
rectorate (GIU), which was successfully fulfilled:
The Central Staff of the Partisan Movement is conducting a
special operation in the rear of the enemy to disrupt commu-
nications and against other important enemy targets. To carry
out the given mission, I request the following to be allocated: 50
tons of pressed TNT, 500,000 percussion caps, 30,000 meters
of bituminized hemp-covered fuses, 30,000 meters of detonat-
ing cord, 40,000 ‘MUV’ mines.68
Similarly, the Main Artillery Directorate (GNU, later and still
the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate or GRAU) from July 1942
through December 1944 provided the Central Partisan Staff with
52,985 rifles, 47,987 automatic weapons, 8,398 handguns, 4,385
submachine guns, 25 medium machine guns, 2,589 antitank guns,
1,864 50-mm mortars, and other items under this main directorate’s
auspices.69 Then, as now, the use of centrally-subordinated resourc-
es allowed unconventional warfare forces (or arms aid clients) to be
provided with large quantities of equipment without drawing down
on the operational inventories of regular forces. This effectively drew
on military resources of main directorates like GAU (GRAU), GIU,
the Main Tank Directorate (GBTU), and others, while maintaining
special command links and centralized control outside the normal
military channels. In the later stages of the war, the major field forces
(army groups called fronts) provided equipment and supplies of all
types to the partisan forces that operated along their directions of
advance.70
This model paralleled and in a number of ways was almost pre-
cisely analogous to the later Soviet support of Third World insurgen-
cies—the provision of weapons and materiel from central stocks to
intermediate locations or directly if possible. The subsequent distri-
bution and infiltration of resources to guerrilla groups by all means
of transport was similar as well. This model has its analogous dimen-
sion today, whatever the sources of the external support.
Applying new technology or the innovative use of older approach-
es was a continuing focus. There was an active effort during the war
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to develop equipment better-suited to unconventional operations. At

least some—and quite likely all—of the larger guerrilla group staffs
had engineer-technical organizations charged with this task. For
example, the engineer-technical section of the Belorussian Partisan
Movement Staff, working closely with scientific research institutions
in Moscow and the Central Partisan Staff, facilitated the creation of
several types of special partisan mines, while the Central Partisan
Staff arranged for the production of a special demolition slab weigh-
ing only 7 grams, less than 20% of the weight of earlier material.71
Bernard Fall’s famous judgment that “when a country is being
subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered”
would have been well-appreciated by the Soviet leadership who used
the variegated guerrilla movement to shape local attitudes, garner
support of all types, and prepare the countryside for the eventual
restoration of Soviet power.72 As a consequence, there is a wealth
of information on the approaches taken to exercise control over the
local populace. This included the creation of elaborate Communist
Party infrastructure embedded in guerrilla groups, the production of
anti-German and pro-Soviet literature produced by printing plants
provided to guerrilla units, other agitation-propaganda activities,
and the assassination of German administrators in occupied terri-
tory. This effort required logistic support in terms of printing presses
and supplies and cadre personnel.
The transport of men, equipment, and supplies to forces op-
erating deep in enemy rear areas—increasingly better armed and
equipped—posed a considerable challenge. In maritime areas, small
boats, larger transport vessels, or submarines were employed, as was
the case with the resupply of guerrillas in the Crimea by launches
of the Black Sea Fleet.73 Tradecraft developed in these different envi-
ronments was substantial and incorporated into postwar retrospec-
tive assessments. On occasion, gaps in the front allowed guerrillas to
he supplied by truck, animal transport, and on foot though so-called
“partisan gates.” 74 As both Soviet and Western assessments agree,
however, the most significant contribution to guerrilla support was
made by aviation.
Special Designation Aviation Support and Guerrilla Logistics

Gerhard L. Weinberg, in his fine early study of guerrilla aviation sup-
port, noted in regard to the use of aircraft that the “combination
of modern technology with a primitive form of warfare enabled the
Soviet High Command to fashion a military and political weapon of
tremendous strength from a guerrilla movement relegated by its very
name to the “little war.” 75 This kind of combination of then “high
22
technology” in an otherwise primitive environment has characterized

a number of local wars and military conflicts supported by the Sovi-
ets in the postwar period and have its analogs in other insurgencies
as well. Postwar assessments also judged that the “most effective
method of delivering various materiel to the area of partisan activity
was aviation.” 76 Soviet aviation resources used in this effort included
aircraft of front aviation, Long-Range Aviation, and Civil Aviation. A
total of some 109,000 missions were flown in behalf of the guerrillas
during the war, with personnel and cargo air-landed, airdropped, or
delivered by glider.77
Some aviation units played particularly active roles in guerril-
la support, as was the case of the 1st Aviation-Transport Division,
known until September 1942 as the “Aviation Group of Special [Oso-
bogo] Designation.” 78 This organization made some 1,000 flights into
enemy rear areas in 1943.79 The 2nd Aviation Division of Special Des-
ignation was also specifically tasked with guerrilla support as well as
other missions like the transport of high ranking military and civil-
ian officials and foreign representatives.80 The extensive use of Civil
Aviation in guerrilla support is particularly notable, with civil aircraft
landing and dropping cargoes of all types in enemy rear areas, and
also evacuating wounded from behind enemy lines.81 The practice of
using civil aircraft as arms carriers in widely varying circumstances
remained an active one, of course, with civil transport resources em-
ployed as overt and covert military cargo carriers around the world.
Postwar retrospectives present in some detail the tonnages and
types of deliveries made during various resupply operations, setting
out an aerial resupply effort that, for the time, circumstances, and
technical capabilities of available aircraft, was of substantial scope
and scale. In particular, it led to a correlation of supply with the
level and effectiveness of guerrilla activity even when materiel was
introduced incrementally. In supporting the Belorussian partisan ef-
fort, for example, military and civil aviation resources delivered some
2,400 tons of military cargo to enemy rear areas over three years of
war (July 1941–July 1944).82 The tonnages—which had a demon-
strable impact on guerrilla capabilities—are more impressive when
one considers that they were delivered by single or small numbers of
aircraft, often flying at night and without air cover, guided by unreli-
able radio communications, and landing or dropping their cargoes at
hastily prepared, poorly designated airstrips or drop zones deep in
enemy rear areas.
Looking more narrowly at the aerial resupply of Belorussian
guerrillas and its impact, in the second half of April 1943, aviation
resources of various types delivered some 282 tons of ammunition
23
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and weapons. This contributed in a major way to the guerrillas’ level

of activity, which on the basis of incomplete data consisted at least
of derailing 250 trains, killing 12,000 enemy troops and “traitors to
the Motherland,” blowing up 87 rail and highway bridges, defeating a
dozen enemy garrisons, and capturing some 35 supply depots.83 The
relationship between a supply surge and level of effective guerrilla
activity is intuitive, but the reality of what this meant on the ground
was impressed on planners then and in the postwar years.
During the course of the war, aviation delivered a broad spectrum
of weapons, explosives, and ammunition as well as limited quanti-
ties of other supplies to include medical, food, and clothing items.
Substantial numbers of personnel were delivered as well, consisting
of command cadres and operations groups; radio operators and oth-
er critical specialists; separate diversionary-reconnaissance groups
(who often only received administrative support from the partisans
while conducting their own operations); and reinforcements of vari-
ous types. Planners gave special attention to the establishment of
clandestine airfields and drop zones and their operation. The Central
Partisan Staff set up special courses at an airfield near Moscow to
train personnel in the construction and operation of such landing
areas, after which they were sent to guerrilla formations.84
German efforts aimed at disrupting Soviet aerial resupply activity
were extensive, as were Soviet countermeasures. German counterin-
telligence, for example, simulated landing or drop zones by imitating
partisan recognition symbols (usually fires or flares), captured active
guerrilla airfields in the hopes of enticing planes to land, bombed air-
fields and intercepted aircraft, and had an extensive ground and air
spotting system to determine airdrop and airlanding activity. These
efforts enjoyed mixed success.85 In addition to camouflage, conceal-
ment, and various security measures, the partisan resupply efforts
incorporated more active countermeasures to discourage German ef-
forts. This included the use of parachute bombs resembling supply
containers, but timed to go off after landing, an approach intended
“to dampen German enthusiasm for taking supply containers des-
tined for the guerrillas.” 86
Transport aviation support was coordinated by the guerrilla staffs
under the army group (front) military councils and by the Central
Partisan Staff, on the basis of requests made by partisan field forces.
Typical in this regard was the following message sent by the Central
Partisan Staff to the Chief of the Main Directorate of Civil Aviation:
I request by your order to send the following by plane: 1) For
the Leningrad Staff of the Partisan Movement—50 parachutes;
2) For the partisan detachment, two tons of TNT and ammuni-
24
tion in the area of Rabkor station (the location will be subse-

quently reported).87
According to some reports, partisan staffs located with the mili-
tary councils of army groups had some 15–30 aircraft available to
them for supporting guerrilla field forces routinely. More numerous
and heavier transports were provided by Civil Aviation and Long-
Range Aviation in accord with the process noted above.88
As noted, various branches of aviation were used in partisan
support with aircraft ranging from heavily employed single-engine
biplanes like the U-2 or R-5 found predominately at front level, twin-
engine transports like the Douglas C-47 and its Soviet copy the Li-2,
and bomber aircraft such as the TB-3.89 Assault gliders (desantnyi
planer) were also frequently employed in support missions behind
enemy lines, an approach that greatly increased the load carrying
capabilities of the single engine biplanes that played such a role in
clandestine support missions. Glider pilots were trained at a school
run under the auspices of the Soviet Airborne Troops. Sometimes
relatively large numbers of gliders were employed in partisan sup-
port, as was the case in a 13-day supply and reinforcement opera-
tion carried out in behalf of Belorussian guerrillas in 1943.90 As one
Soviet assessment described it:
The operation began on the night of 7 March and was carried
out continuously until 20 March. It involved 65 A-7 and G-1l
gliders [with capacities of 7 and 11 men or comparable cargo,
respectively]. The guerrillas received 60 tons of combat cargo, 5
printing presses and 10 radios, 106 leadership personnel were
provided, a complement of 105 guards-demolition specialists
was landed, and separate diversionary groups assault-landed
in the rear.91
Other large or sustained glider support efforts were carried out in
behalf of the partisans as well.92
Sustainment and Special Operation-Guerrilla Interaction

Far less has been written about the support of the many special op-
erations detachments and groups that were employed behind Ger-
man lines during the course of the war, though assessments of their
operations generally are substantial. As mentioned, many of these
efforts were associated with guerrilla support and informed postwar
approaches and techniques for the sustainment of remote detach-
ments, the training of guerrilla cadres, and the close linkage between
special operations forces and guerrilla interaction.
25
JSOU Report 05-4
During the course of the war, in illustration, the Soviets formed

units on the basis of specially trained engineer troops called “sepa-
rate guards battalions of miners” (explosive/demolition specialists
that were created to undertake complex demolition and diversionary-
reconnaissance missions in enemy rear areas).93 This is the dimen-
sion of operation in which Il’ya Starinov played such a major role.
These personnel operated in small groups, usually in association
with partisans. They helped train guerrilla demolition specialists,
from whom they in turn received support and target intelligence.
For example, the “guards-demolition specialists,” landed by glider
in March 1943 (noted above), were almost certainly from a so-called
guards battalion of miners, possibly the 9th Separate Guards Battalion
of Miners, which had elements parachute into the enemy rear north-
west of Novorzhev at this same time.94 In any event, aerial resupply
of these special engineer units was conducted typically by paradrop
and airlanding by powered aircraft and gliders, including small-scale
drops to isolated forces. A 23-man element of the 6th Guards Bat-
talion of Miners for example, was resupplied by a single aircraft with
ammunition, canned goods, and sugar on a night parachute drop in
October 1944 during the Petsamo-Kirkenes strategic operation.95
Special operations detachments of the so-called Separate Motor-
ized Rifle Brigade of Special Designation (OMSBON in the Russian
acronym) operated both separately and with partisan units. OMS-
BON detachments, in fact, sometimes served as the basis for es-
tablishing what became large guerrilla formations.96 These elements
and their aviation support were closely analogous to Office of Strate-
gic Services (OSS) Jedburgh Teams and Operational Groups, as well
as British Special Operations Executive (SOE) squadrons, in their
composition and “spies and supplies” activities. The OMSBON secu-
rity service organization, subordinate to the People’s Commissariat
of Internal Affairs (NKVD) in the KGB and MVD lineage, was among
the most active special operations units during the war, with its ele-
ments usually operating as small teams throughout enemy rear ar-
eas. Its very existence was kept a secret until well after the war’s end,
and its history and experience for special operations direct action is
instructive in its own right. These elements, as well as other special
operations detachments and teams, relied heavily on aviation sup-
port of the same kinds described above.97
Soviet special operations personnel and partisans played a ma-
jor role in organizing and supplying resistance groups and forma-
tions beyond Soviet borders. While this effort was most widespread
in those East European countries that now constitute the Warsaw
Pact, some Soviet personnel also participated in resistance activity
26
in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy, and France. Soviet activities in

Eastern Europe in particular included large numbers of paradrops/
airlanding of troops and supplies, an effort that has been set out in
some detail by Vladimir Andrianov and others.98
An important participant in much of this activity was Major P. M.
Mikhailov, a transport aviation pilot who flew missions into deep en-
emy rear areas and was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union
for his wartime service. His assignments during this time included
commanding an air transport squadron in an “Aviation Group of
Special (Osobogo) Designation.” 99 Among his 520 combat missions
were 70 night landings at partisan airfields for delivering supplies
and evacuating casualties. He made some 65 flights into Yugoslavia
in support of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army, as well as flying
missions for Albanian and Greek partisans. His aviation unit during
this period was based near Ban, Italy.100
The war’s end left Soviet planners with a vast body of materials
that, as addressed above, they quickly began to organize, synthesize,
incorporate into security and military training courses and to apply
around the world in the postwar period. The work of exploiting this
material was still underway when the USSR dissolved, and new mate-
rials ranging from finished scholarly treatments to raw archive mate-
rial continue to become available. While Colonel Starinov’s “sabotage
school,” established in the early postwar years for training Soviet and
foreign specialists, was at least publicly disbanded in 1992 with the
fall of the USSR, that has not been the case with the lessons learned
and formulated over many decades.101 In contemporary Russian (and
other USSR successor state) writings, the use of World War II experi-
ence continues to hold a solid place in security and military studies,
and is often linked to its lessons for guerrilla war in the Caucasus
and elsewhere. The experience is potentially valuable to US special-
ists as well, some of the reason for which are set out below.
Conclusions
The guerrilla logistic and support activities reviewed above have val-
ue that falls into several areas.102 Historically, the Soviet World War
II guerrilla, or partisan, movement was arguably the most extensive
and variegated experience occurring in any single, sustained conflict.
Collectively, it constituted as “classic” a series of accounts of guer-
rilla success and failures—and their logistic underpinnings—as any
other insurgencies for the lessons it yields. The nearly five years of
intense guerrilla operations encompassed hundreds of thousands of
participants operating in mountains, forests, swamps, plains, along
27
JSOU Report 05-4
coastal areas, in cities, and in climatic conditions that ranged from

the arctic to the Black Sea.
The value of this material was as im-
mediately clear to Soviet planners at the The value of this material
end of the war, as it was at the time to was as immediately clear
the US and its allies who were focused to Soviet planners at the
on war in Europe and more broadly cen- end of the war, as it was
tral Eurasia. While that interest in “Eu- at the time to the US
ropean guerrillas” waned as the Cold War
and its allies who were
progressed and mostly disappeared from
Western visibility, Soviet planners almost focused on war in Eu-
from the onset judged it to be invalu- rope and more broadly
able for applying in far-distant areas of central Eurasia.
the world under widely varying circum-
stances. The application of World War II
guerrilla experience to postwar insurgent support is demonstrable.
Through efforts such as the MVD (soon transitioned to KGB) Organi-
zation and the Tactics of Partisan Warfare group it was systematized,
explicitly described by participants, and characterized as an essen-
tial source of theory and practice in developing optimum solutions to
analogous “small” armed conflicts and the employment, logistics and
support problems of foreign guerrillas and for friendly special opera-
tions forces. Its pertinence for guerrilla conflicts like those in Chech-
nya and the Caucasus continues to be cited by old Soviet veterans
and current Russian specialists alike. In addition, the creation of
several generations of Soviet/allied-trained cadres left a legacy that
outlasted the USSR, since many are still active in their respective
terrorist or guerrilla groups.
Whether guerrilla support approaches 1) are still reflected in the
practices of active insurgencies, 2) are in general ways at least analo-
gous to current practices, or 3) simply reflect the innovative ways a
large guerrilla movement attempted to solve employment and support
problems in a variety of operational settings, the rich body of study
and experience merits attention. Reasons for studying it include the
potential for an enhanced understanding of how to slow and prevent
the development of small guerrilla groups into more robust, effective
armed movements, of approaches for how to defeat more mature
insurgencies, of the contribution it may make to war-gaming and
modeling, of another view of guerrilla support observations and les-
sons learned, of a wealth of illustrative field-craft that in many cases
seems quite current, and serve as an input into the contemporary
challenge of developing a range of countermeasures.
28
As discussed earlier, an examination of insurgencies and the ac-

tivities of large terrorist groups from the Greek Civil War to al-Qa-
eda suggest some key elements of guerrilla sustainment that require
continuing study and understanding. It may be worthwhile in regard
to how the Soviet World War II guerrilla contributed background or
ideas, to briefly revisit these and note some parallels:
• Local and external support dimensions: In World War II and in
the postwar period, planners studied and discussed the rela-
tive contribution of support provided from local resources and
dispatched from external sources. The changing roles of pre-
established supply caches in likely guerrilla operating areas,
captured materiel, unit fabrication, acquisition of local civilian
resources, and external support via all means of transporta-
tion were studied and assessed in the postwar period.
• Supply networks and repair, bases and caches: Extensive atten-
tion was given during the war and in the postwar period to
the optimum configuration and distribution of weapons and
materiel storage facilities in the field. Basing, personnel ac-
commodations, and medical facilities were all given consider-
ation and study in the engineering sense and the ways that
they could most successfully support guerrilla operations. The
judgment from Iraq today that the Syrian/Iraqi supply effort is
“based on the principle of ‘tiers of networks’ and personal rela-
tions by organizers who learned from the Chechen or Afghan
networks” does not seem far removed from the complexities of
some World War II partisan operating areas—certainly not in
regard to German bemusement at the time.
• Logistic cadre and infrastructure development: The organization
of guerrilla units placed a premium on establishing individuals
and groups responsible for the acquisition, storage, repair, and
distribution of resources. The logistic cells and departments
in guerrilla units and formations were essential to their com-
bat effectiveness throughout the war. At the “strategic” level,
the partisan support infrastructure was highly developed and
controlled, and was able to integrate diverse military and civil
structures in the overall logistic support efforts.
• Transportation: The mix of transport means—human, animal,
motor vehicle, boat, aviation, and , on occasion train—are all
treated in assessments in accord with the area and resources
available. The combined use of remote roads and trails, light
motor-powered boats, light planes flying at low altitudes to iso-
lated fields, paradrops of materiel, and secret bases could be
29
JSOU Report 05-4
as easily associated with guerrilla support in the Crimea, for

example, as in Central America.
• Concealment and deception: Encompassed by the term maskirov-
ka, the camouflage, concealment and deception measures as-
sociated with logistic support (and other dimensions of guer-
rilla operations) was developed and improved throughout the
war. Dummy bases, clandestine supply routes, false airdrops,
and other measures helped obscure and protect the level of
materiel arriving in guerrilla areas, and with some frequency
contributed to enemy surprise when guerrilla strength and
sustainment were revealed.
• Fabrication of mines and explosive devices and weapons repair:
One of the most important dimensions of support within guer-
rilla units and formations was the fabrication of explosive de-
vices of various types. The creation of innovative and highly
productive mine and explosive manufacturing and assembly
facilities resulted in a most effective campaign against German
railroad supply, road traffic, and buildings. Weapons repair
was critical as well, particularly in areas were local and exter-
nal supply was limited.
• Technology applications: Wartime guerrilla support featured a
continuing effort to design and improve materiel meeting the
special needs of guerrilla (and special operations) forces. This
included in particular remote demolition mines and explosives,
new fuses and detonation devices, radio and other communi-
cations means, supply containers, etc.
• Rural, urban and maritime aspects: With guerrilla activities cov-
ering such extensive areas, logistic support, the full range of
materiel (consumable supplies) technical (repair and equip-
ment supply) and medical support had peculiarities treated
according to the region. This applied to transport in particular
and was treated in detail in “rear service” assessments.
• Administering guerrilla support and operational areas: Main-
taining firm (Communist Party) control over the activities of
guerrilla units was a lesson integral to wartime and postwar
approaches. The elaborate system of controls and checks was
by the testimony of German forces enormously effective in win-
ning support in a number of occupied areas.
• Interaction with external groups: Throughout the war, guerrilla
units and formations interacted with special operations cadre
elements introduced into operating areas to train guerrillas,
form new guerrilla groups, or use the support bases of exist-
ing partisan formations for undertaking intelligence gathering
30
or direct action missions. Guerrilla units also interacted with

neighboring units and regular military forces, which exchanged
materiel and other support. Soviet partisan units that moved
beyond USSR borders into neighboring states near the end of
the war helped establish lines of communications and supply
infrastructure.
• Printing and disseminating directives, training, and propaganda
materials: The operation of “underground” printing plants and
the distribution of propaganda leaflets, training materials and
directives were essential to partisan logistic support particu-
larly since they depended on at least the neutrality and usu-
ally the more active support of the local populace. The printing
plants, paper, and ink supplied along with their operation are
part of the guerrilla experience considered in retrospective as-
sessments.
• Financial and money-raising approaches and techniques: While
today’s sophisticated financial systems, cash flows and money
laundering did not exist for Soviet guerrillas in World War II,
the practice of expropriating resources that sometimes includ-
ed currency—or being provided with negotiable assets—was
well known. Careful Party accountability was specified and the
experience and approach have been described in postwar as-
sessments.
• Logistic support for phased guerrilla movement growth into a near-
regular or conventional force: Postwar analysts of the partisan
experience noted the particular importance of providing mate-
riel and equipment in phased ways that allowed small cells to
develop into detachments, battalions, brigades and eventually
formations approaching regular units in capability. Examples
of this are addressed throughout the literature and were cer-
tainly paralleled by yet-to-be-released classified assessments
addressing specific plans for the Third World movements that
were the objects of their support.
Overall, access to much of the experience addressed above is
more available now to English-speaking specialists than it has been
in the past.103 In addition, archival material continues to become
available, resources that will be increasingly valuable as they push
into the postwar years and approach the present. While far from the
definitive word on guerrilla logistics and support, the material now
available more than justifies the investment of time to review and
may pay dividends when considered in light of current requirements
to understand the complexities of sustaining insurgency and terror-
ism.
31
JSOU Report 05-4
Endnotes
1 A.I. Kolpakidi and D.P. Prokhorov, Vneshnaya razvedka Rossii (The
Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia), Saint Petersburg, 2001, p.80,
as cited at <http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseactio
n=topics.item&news_id=105150>
2 There haven’t been many inspiring lines to mobilize the enthusiasm of
laboring logisticians. Winston Churchill’s 1898 tribute to British and
Egyptian transport, supply, and effective lines of communication in the
Nile Campaign still constitutes the most-quoted passage on the value
of logistics: “Victory is the beautiful, bright coloured flower. Transport
is the stem without which it could never have blossomed.” For our
main Cold War opponent, V. I. Lenin’s far less elegant and mildly hu-
morous (in English) dictate that “to wage war successfully you must
have a well-organized rear” was a similar catch-phrase among Soviet
rear service personnel for decades. See Winston S. Churchill, The Riv-
er War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, Classic
Books, 2001. The chapter on logistics (Chapter VIII, “The Desert Rail-
way”) is still well worth reading and, with the rest of the1902 edition,
is available at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/7rivr10.txt .
3 Martin Van Crevald, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Pat-
ton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
4 John A. Lynn, ed. Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from
the Middle Ages to the Present, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
For works dealing largely with the US, the Naval War College Press,
Newport Rhode Island, reprinted four classic logistic works recom-
mended for general military readers that include: George C. Thorpe,
Pure Logistics (1977); Duncan S. Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in
the Second World War (1998); Worrall R. Carter, Beans, Bullets and
Black Oil (1998); Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense
(1997). These works are reviewed in David Schrady, “Reading Logis-
tics,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Autumn 2002. The instructive assess-
ment by William G., Lt. General Pagonis and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank,
Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf
War, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994 recounts one of
the great logistic efforts of history.
5 “Guerrilla” or “insurgent” along with the word “partisan” are used in-
terchangeably in this paper to convey, as the Russians do, a broader
sense of the topic than the more European-associated “partisan” that
appears in most English language writings on the guerrilla move-
ments of the USSR, Yugoslavia, Greece and other European states.
In Russian (and formerly Soviet) writings, partisan (partizan) is the
term of choice for Third World guerrillas or insurgents. The Revolu-
tionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) , for example, is a “partisan
movement” (partizanskoye dvizheniye) as was the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front of El Salvador.
6 Charles R. Shrader, The Withered Vine: Logistics and the Communist
Insurgency in Greece, 1945-1949, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. Sev-
32
eral other excellent works by Shrader dealing with military logistics for
regular forces include: The First Helicopter War: Logistics and Mobility
in Algeria, 1954-1962, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. While dealing with
a regular military force, Schrader’s Communist Logistics in the Korean
War, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995, is fine focused treatment
of North Korean Army logistics.
7 In particular see Shrader, Withered Vine, Chapters 5, ”The Greek
Democratic Army: Manpower and Logistics,” and Chapter 8, “Logistics
and the Failure of the Insurrection in Greece.”
8 Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte and David E. Spencer, Strategy and
Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas: Last Battle of the Cold War,
Blueprint for Future Conflicts, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. See in par-
ticular Chapter 9, “Guerrilla Logistics/Support/Sanctuary.”
9 Ibid., p. 186.
10 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Bolivian Diary, Introduction by Fidel Castro,
trans. by Carlos P. Hansen and Andrew Sinclair, London: Jonathan
Cape/Lorrimer, 1968 (a translation of the “official” Cuban version
published in Havana that same year).
11 Carlos Marighella, The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, June 1969,
Sao Paulo, Brazil. (On-line at http://www.military-media.com/down-
load/mini.pdf )
12 Daniel L. Byman, et al, Trends in Outside Support of Insurgent Move-
ments (1991-2000), Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, 2001, MR-
1405-OTI.
13 Kim Cragin, Bruce Hoffman, Arms Trafficking and Colombia, Santa
Monica: The Rand Corporation, 2003, MR-1468-DIA.
14 Brian A. Jackson, et al, Aptitude for Destruction: Organizational Learn-
ing in Terrorist Groups and its Implications for Combating Terrorism,
Volume I, Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, 2005, MG-331-NIJ;
and Aptitude for Destruction: Case Studies of Organizational learning in
Five Terrorist Groups, Volume II, Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation,
2005, MG-332-NIJ.
15 Ibid.
16 The explosions were evidently caused during a mishap when some
weapons or explosives were being transferred from the arsenal to a
waiting vehicle. Among the best sources dealing with the Managua
Taller Santa Rosa explosions are: Roberto Orozco B., “Etarra de leva
en Nicaragua,” La Prensa, received via Internet; “ ‘Paticorto,’ presun-
to jefe del aparato logístico de ETA” El Mundo, 26 November 2001;
“En la Indefinicion Esta la Clave,” Envio, no. 138, June 1993; Tim
Johnson, “Blast Blows Kidnapping Ring’s Cover—Sandinistas’ Role
Questioned,” The Miami Herald, 20 June 1993; and Douglas Farah,
“Managua Blasts Rip Lid Off Secrets; Salvadoran Rebel Cache, Leftist
Kidnap Data Exposed; Sandinistas Implicated,” Washington Post, 14
July 1993; and Reed Irvine, ed., Sandinista Link to New York Plots?”
Accuracy in Media Report, 13 July 1993.
17 “El gran negocio de la guerrilla,” Semana, 7-14 July 1992, No. 531, p.
26-32.
33
JSOU Report 05-4
18 See Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants in the “Declara-
tion of Jihad Against the Country’s Tyrants Military Series,” a docu-
ment entered in evidence at the trial for the African Embassy bomb-
ings, Southern District Court, New York City Attorney General’s Office,
circa early to mid-1990s, in translation from Arabic. The pertinent
“Seventh Lesson—Weapons: Measures Related to Buying and Trans-
porting Them,” pp. 19-23.
19 Much of this was set out in the postwar US Department of the Army
“Historical Study” series based on German records and compiled by
German officers working with US officers. See for example, Depart-
ment of the Army, Rear Area Security in Russia—The Soviet Second
Front Behind German Lines, No. 20-240, July 1952.
20 Great Soviet Encyclopedia, http://www.booksite.ru/fulltext/1/001/
008/087/173.htm.
21 Soviet participation in the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, and
Finnish “Winter War” before also informed this base of experience as
Soviet and Russian planners pointed out.
22 The subsequent availability of some Soviet archive materials following
the fall of the USSR has increased this knowledge further.
23 See Il’ya G. Starinov, Il’ya Starinov: Soldat stoletiya [Soldier of the Cen-
tury], General Editor I.I. Komarova, Moscow: 2002; and Il’ya G. Stari-
nov, Over the Abyss, New York: Ballantine Books, 1995. His first wife
of 48 years, also a demolitions expert he met in Spain, wrote her own
account in Anna Starinov, Behind Fascist Lines : A Firsthand Account
of Guerrilla Warfare During the Spanish Revolution, New York: Ballan-
tine Books, 2001.
24 D.L. Podushkov, “Spetsnaz rozhdalsya na Tverskoy zemle” [Spetsnaz
Was Born on Tver Territory], on-line at http://starina.library.tver.ru/
us-007.htm.
25 Ibid., The 350-kilogram explosive device was buried at a depth of 2
meters in the basement of a house the general and other officers were
expected to occupy. A decoy mine—intended to be discovered and thus
end continued searches—was also planted.
26 Mikhailovich Ptichkin, “The GRU Spetsnaz Is the Elite of the Russian
Armed Forces: Spetsnaz Reconnaissance Team Competitions Were
Held in Leningrad MD”, Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kuryer, 10 Aug 2005
(as translated by FBIS CEP20050811949001 ).
27 Initiatives for creating and supporting guerrilla groups around the
USSR’s periphery were underway at this time. For example, the war-
time head of the NKVD Administration for Special Tasks, Pavel Su-
doplatov, recalled in his memoirs 50 years after the war ended that
“during most of 1948 I was preoccupied with the Berlin crisis and es-
tablishing a Kurdish guerrilla network in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey with
the goal of overthrowing the government of Nuri Said and Faisal in
Iraq.” See Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov, et al, Special Tasks, Boston:
Back Bay Books, 1995, p. 297.
28 “Sozdaniye Kursov uslovershenstvovaniya ofitserskogo sostava” [Cre-
ating the USSR KGB Improved Officer Corps Courses (KUOS)], 3 April
34
2003, received via Internet at http://www.kaskad.odessa.net/fondB.

html.
29 Vladimir Mukhin, “Nord-Ost-2: North Ossetian Version; Special Pro-
fessionalism Needed To Fight Terrorists”, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2
September 2004.
30 Soviet theorists distinguished between local war (lokal’naia voina) and
military conflict (voennyi konflikt) in terms of scope and scale. As de-
fined in I. E. Shavrov, Lokal’nye voiny istoriia i sovremennost [Local
Wars: History and Contemporary Times] Moscow: Voenizdat, 1981,
pp. 8-9, local wars are characterized by “a relatively limited political
objective, which determines a certain limit on the scale of military op-
erations, a specific strategy and tactics, and limited use of weaponry,”
while “a military conflict is an armed clash which is characterized, in
contrast to a local war, by a significantly smaller scale and smaller
quantity of forces involved in the actions.” Both forms, in the Soviet
view, stem from imperialism’s efforts to enhance its strategic position,
push back socialism and crush progressive forces around the world.
31 U. S. Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power, sixth edition
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987); and U. S. De-
partment of Defense, Soviet Military Power, seventh edition (Washing-
ton, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1988), hereafter cited as SMP-
87 and SMP-88 respectively.
32 SMP-88 pp. 29-30.
33 SMP-87 pp. 128.
34 I. E. Shavrov, “Lokal’nye voiny i ikh mesto v global’noi strategii
imperializina”[Local wars and their place in the global strategy of im-
perialism], Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal [Military-historical journal,
hereafter cited as VIZh (March 1975), pp. 57-66, and (April 1975), pp.
90-97.
35 Many articles from Voennaia mysl [Military thought] up to 1973 were
translated by Foreign Press Digest and are openly available. Local
wars and their lessons were also addressed in some detail in classified
instructional material presented at the Voroshilov General Staff Acad-
emy. See, for example, the material on local wars presented. in the
lecture, “Principles and Content of Military Strategy” reproduced in
The Journal of Soviet Military Studies Vol. 1 (April 1988), pp. 46-49.
36 M. Kir’ian, “Prospektivnaia tematika voenno-istoricheskikh issledovanii
na 1981-1991 gg.” [Prospective military-historical research themes for
1981-1990], VIZh (May 1981), pp.44-47, and (June 1981), pp. 59-61.
37 Among these topics were “the strategy and tactics of counterinsur-
gency activity of the American imperialists in Indochina (1960-1975);”
“the development of tactical aviation in local wars (tactical and army
aviation);” “urgent problems of organizing the armed defense of na-
tional liberation revolutions;” “development of the means of conducting
combat actions in the course of local wars;” and “features of military
structure in countries moving on the path of a revolutionary transfor-
mation of society.”
35
JSOU Report 05-4
38 Up to that time, most of these works have been memoirs of various

types, which in many respects give more insight into the complexi-
ties, successes, and failures of Soviet unconventional warfare efforts
in World War II than do official dispatches.
39 The first identified article in this regard is V. Andrianov, “Sovetskie
partizany za rubezhom” [Soviet partisans beyond the border], VIZh
(September 1961), pp.17-32, while one of the later treatments is V. N.
Andrianov, “Internatsional’naia pomoshch’ sovetskikh partizan anti-
fashistskomu dvizheniiu stran Tsentrai’noi i Iugo-Vostochnoi Evropy”
[International assistance of Soviet partisans to the antifascist move-
ment of countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe), VIZh (July
1988), pp. 30-37.
40 V. Andrianov, “Organizatsionnaia struktura partizanskikh formirova-
nii v body voiny” [The organizational structure of partisan formations
in the war years], VIZh (January 1984), pp. 38-46.
41 Ibid., p. 40.
42 Ibid., pp. 46 and 43.
43 Ibid., p. 46.
44 A. D. Zharikov, “’Bol’shaia zemlia’ snabzhaet partizan” [‘Boi’shaia zem-
lia’ supplies the guerrillas], Voprosy istorii [Questions of history] (April
1973), p. 121. “Bol’shaia zemlia” may be translated as “Great Land.”
45 B. Dolgotovich, “0 material’no-tekhnicheskom ohespechenii partizan-
skikh formirovanii Belorussii” [On the materiel-technical support of
guerrilla formations in Belorussia], VIZh (May 1983), p. 30.
46 Ibid.
47 “Explosive NKVD Legacy Hidden under Moscow Architecture,” Moscow
News, 15 July 2005, received via Internet. The man recalled that his
father had told him of a number of such caches in Moscow buildings,
sparking justified concern among some Moscovites that that they too
remained hidden and forgotten.
48 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” pp. 121-122.
49 Ibid., and Dolgotovich, “On Materiel-Technical. Support,” p. 30.
50 V. Andrianov, “Bazirovanie i material’no-telchnnicheskoe obespech-
enie partizanskikh formirovanii v body Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny”
[Basing and materiel-technical support of partisan formations in the
years of the Great Patriotic war] VIZh (May 1972), p. 80.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid., pp. 80-81.
53 U.S. Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military Histo-
ry, draft translation of an assessment by D. Karov and V. Voizhanin,
“Supply of Partisan Units During the War, 1941/45,” with an evalua-
tion by Franz Halder, no. P-125, 1953, p. 8.
54 See Ibid., pp. 7-10, for a number of anecdotes regarding German effort
to discover partisan bases.
55 Andrianov, “Basing,” p. 80.
56 Ibid, pp. 80-81.
57 Department of the Army, “Supply of Partisan Units,” p. 5.
36
58 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” p. 122.

59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Dolgotovich, “On Materiel-Technical Support,” p. 32.
62 Ibid.
63 Department of the Army, Supply of Partisan Units,” p. 32; and US
Department of the Army, Rear Area Security in Russia: The Soviet Sec-
ond. Front Behind German Lines, Department, of the Army Pamphlet
no. 20-240, Washington, D. G., July 1951, pp. 32-33. this pamphlet
is available from the Army’s Center for Military History on the Internet
at http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/20240/20-240c.htm.
64 Ibid., pp. 24-25, and Andrianov, “Basing,” p. 82.
65 Rear Area Security in Russia, pp. 33-34.
66 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” p. 123, V. Andrianov, ‘Sovershenst-
vovanie strategicheskogo i operativnogo ruhovodstva partizanskim
dvizheniem” [Improving the strategic and operational leadership of
the partisan movement], VIZh (December 1982), pp, 22-27; and John
Armstrong and Kurt DeWitt, Organization and Control of the Partisan
Movement, Project “Alexander” Monographs: Volume 4, Headquarters
United States Air Force, December 1954.
67 Ibid., p. 123.
68 Ibid., p. 125.
69 Ibid., p. 124.
70 Dolgotovich, “On Materiel-Technical Support,” p. 34.
71 Ibid., p, 33.
72 Bernard B. Fall , “The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counter-
insurgency”, Naval War College Review, April 1965, received by Inter-
net at http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/1998/winter/art5-
w98.htm
73 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” p. 126; and Andrianov, “Basing,” p. 83.
74 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” p. 125; and Andrianov, “Basing,” p. 83.
75 Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Role of Airpower in Partisan Warfare, Project
“Alexander” Monographs: Volume 3, Headquarters, United States Air
Force, December 1984, p. vi.
77 Andrianov, “Basing,” p. 83.
79 Ibid.
80 D. H. Mel’nik, “Aviatsionnye voenno-transportnye formirovaniia oso-
bogo naznacheniia” [Aviation military transport formations of special
designation], VIZh (March 1986, p. 94.
81 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” pp. 126-127; and A. Kniaz’kov, “Deistviia
partizan v khode podgotovki i provedeniia Krymskoi nastupatel’noi op-
eratisii” [Actions of guerrillas in the course of preparing and conduct-
ing the Crimean offensive operation], VIZh (May 1984), p. 31.
82 Dolgotovich, “On Materiel-Technical Support,” 34.
83 Ibid., p. 33.
37
JSOU Report 05-4
84 This information is included in an otherwise abbreviated version of

Andrianov, “Basing,” published a few months later as V. Andrianov,
“Partisan Bases and their Supply, SMR (December 1972), p. 61.
85 Weinberg, The Role of Airpower, pp. 31-33.
86 Ibid., p. 32.
88 Weinberg, The Role of Airpower, pp. 25-27.
89 Ibid., pp. 29-30.
90 V. Kazakov, “Planery v nebe voiny” [Gliders in the sky of war], VIZh
(February 1983), pp. 44-45.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid., p. 45.
93 Ibid., P. 45.
94 For a discussion of these little-studied special operations units, see
S. Kh. Agonov, ed., Inzhenernye voiska sovetskoi arrnii 1918-1945
[Engineer troops of the Soviet Army, 1918-1945] (Moscow: Voenizdat,
1985), pp. 459-462.
95 A. F. Khrenov, Mosti k pobede [Bridges to victory] (Moscow: Voenizdat,
1982), p. 323. For other illustrative examples of special operations
force support see M. A. Bahikov, Otriad osobogo naznacheniia [Detach-
ment of special designation] (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1986), pp.
57 and 167; I. P. Barchenko-Emel’ianov, Frontovye budni Ribach’ego
[Front-line days of Ribachii] (Murmansk: Knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1984),
pp. 146-147; and A. G. Golovko, Vn’ste s flotom [Together with the
fleet] (Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1984), p. 241.
96 F. L. Kurlat and L. A. Studnikov, “Brigada osobogo naznacheniia” [Bri-
gade of special designation], Voprosy istorii [Questions of history] (Sep-
tember 1982), p. 100.
97 See Ibid., pp. 95-104; and S. A. Vaupshasov, Na trevozhnykh per-
ekrestkakh [At troubled crossroads], 3d ed. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1988).
Regarding air support for the OMSBON, Kurlat and Studnikov, “Bri-
gade,” p. 97, notes: “The insertion of OMSBON special detachments
into the enemy rear was accomplished by pilots of the 101st Long-
Range Aviation Regiment commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union V.
S. Grizodubov. They carried out landings at partisan airfields, trans-
ferred wounded soldiers, women and children, German documents
captured by agents and underground operatives, and captured Ger-
man soldiers to Moscow. For the pilots of this regiment and the OMS-
BON aviation detachment, it was normal to make a flight across a
front line of one thousand kilometers or more.”
98 See, for example, Andrianov, “Soviet Partisans Beyond the Border;”
and Andrianov, “International Assistance of Soviet Partisans,” which
as noted above, were the first and one of the latest of Andrianov’s pub-
lications on partisan operations.
99 I. I. Skadov, ed., Geroi sovetskogo soiuza [Heroes of the Soviet Union],
vol. 2 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1988), p. 95.
38
100 Ibid., and L. Zabavskaya, “To Serve People,” SMR, October 1980, pp.
56-57.
101 “Military Secret,” RenTV, 0945 GMT, 21 May 2000.
102 The treatment is far from comprehensive in terms of sources and ar-
chives now available on World War II and the postwar period. In ad-
dition, it does not include such important antecedents as the Soviet-
Finnish ‘’Winter War” (1939-1940), Soviet military assistance to Spain
(1936-1939), and the Russian Civil War (1917-1922)—all of which had
their lessons to offer to Soviet planners and theorists.
103 For an illustration of the kinds of material becoming available from
FSB and other archives, see the review by CIA staff historian Benja-
min B. Fischer of V. S. Khristoforov, et al., Lubyanka in the Days of
the Battle for Moscow: Materials from the Organs of State Security SSSR
from the Central Archive FSB Russia, Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom “Zvon-
nitsa-MG,” 2002. 480 pages.
39

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Joint Special Operations University

Brigadier General Steven J. Hashem

The Strategic Studies Department also provides teaching and curricu-

JSOU Report 05-4

Comments about this publication are invited and should be forwarded

Lt Col Michael C. McMahon

Logistic Support and Insurgency

rary guerrilla and terrorist groups. Before addressing this, however,

to postwar insurgent support around the world and its continuing

Analyzing Insurgent Logistics

The many insurgencies and sustained terrorist campaigns in the

value problematic, but it constitutes an unusually focused theoreti-

termined a close correlation between the deployment of the various

Guerrillas and Logistics: Soviet Partisans and Postwar Applications

stroyed; the types and quantities of supplies provided; and countless

His name and training techniques remain closely associated

As late as the mid-1990s, Colonel Starinov advocated, from re-

Starinov’s experiences and innovations are instructive for a wide

Supporting Guerrillas at the Height of Soviet Power

viet/Soviet bloc/Cuban-trained foreign cadres, remnants at least of

Historical Experience and Contemporary Experience

revolutionary movements, to include what constitutes appropriate

well. These special operations detachments frequently operated with

Supplying Unconventional Warfare Forces in World War II

Infrastructure and Fieldcraft for Sustainment

utilization of local resources obtained from propositioned caches or

Andrianov and others have described in some detail the base

non-explosive obstacles were set up on the approaches to the base

and when guerrilla formations were of sufﬁcient strength.63 Provi-

While the manner of providing materiel to the guerrillas varied,

to develop equipment better-suited to unconventional operations. At

Special Designation Aviation Support and Guerrilla Logistics

technology” in an otherwise primitive environment has characterized

and weapons. This contributed in a major way to the guerrillas’ level

tion in the area of Rabkor station (the location will be subse-

Sustainment and Special Operation-Guerrilla Interaction

During the course of the war, in illustration, the Soviets formed

in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Italy, and France. Soviet activities in

coastal areas, in cities, and in climatic conditions that ranged from

As discussed earlier, an examination of insurgencies and the ac-

as easily associated with guerrilla support in the Crimea, for

or direct action missions. Guerrilla units also interacted with

2003, received via Internet at http://www.kaskad.odessa.net/fondB.

38 Up to that time, most of these works have been memoirs of various

58 Zharikov, “Bol’shaia zemlia,” p. 122.

84 This information is included in an otherwise abbreviated version of

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