“War’s nature is violent, interactive between opposing wills, and driven by politics. War’s character, its conduct, constantly evolves under the influence of technology, moral forces (law or ethics), culture, and military culture, which also change across time and place.”It is common to hear analysis and commentary about the ever-changing character of war: the known is becoming unknown; the predictable, unpredictable. It is also almost unanimously agreed upon that organizations and people who can rapidly and effectively adapt are more likely to prevail; those who cannot, will fail. And while this perception seems to prevail, as a scientist who studies societies, cultures and peoples, I argue that it is equally – if not more important – to understand the human element of war and warfare. An essential part of understanding said human experience is understanding the stories and narratives that people use to communicate this experience to others, especially to the immediate group. Words matter. At a community/tribal level, group memory, shared experience and perception of the immediate and not so immediate past are essential building blocks of social identity. Finally, it is this social identity that plays an existential role in the national narrative and, if needed, for the will to fight in a populace.Tzarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation have managed to skillfully integrate the human element in their military art. Resistance movements and a populace’s will to resist are closely connected to the socio-cognitive profile of the indigenous people. Historical experience plays a major role, but so do socio-economic factors, language, and the information environment. The central thesis of this article is that Russia has successfully implemented what we tried in the US, namely the Human Terrain Project. A foundational element of this method to prosecute political warfare was the Soviet partisan movement.Historical Experience in RussiaIn Russian language sources, the definition of resistance is intertwined with Soviet experience of Word War II, the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Resistance Movement was a liberation movement against fascist occupiers and regimes, as well as against collaborators in Europe during World War II. The movement developed in the occupied territories as well as in the countries of “the fascist bloc.” It also included the activities of the governments of the occupied countries, patriotic organizations, and parties in exile. The participants of the movement used various forms and “methods of struggle,” namely: failure to comply with the orders of the occupiers, anti-Fascist propaganda, assistance to persons persecuted by fascists, intelligence activities in favor of allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, strikes, sabotage, demonstrations, and even armed uprisings. While the concept cannot be found in currently available open-source Russian doctrinal documents, the concept can be found in speeches, interviews, academic articles, conventional media and social media, as well as in films (both artistic and documentary), music, and various cultural products.During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviets developed and finessed a new technique of resistance: partisan warfare. It is foundational to understand and accept that language is a fundamental element of human cognition and, therefore, in order to understand Russian understanding of resistance, it is important to clinically evaluate the way the concept was born and constructed in Russian collective consciousness. Partisan warfare is a sort of Russian style resistance; one that leverages human terrain stay behind networks comprised of intelligence operatives and assets as well as local populace and community influence vectors. At the time, a significant and novel element was that guerrilla warfare, or what Russian sources sometimes call revolutionary warfare, was not a regular guerrilla operation per se, but a thoroughly, almost professionally, developed force, auxiliary to but also instrumental for the conventional formations of the Red Army. On the ground, the Wehrmacht was concurrently fighting the Red Army and the partisan movement. Stalin himself spoke first of these formations, the people’s militia: “Comrades! Our forces are inestimable. The workers of Moscow and Leningrad have already begun to create a people’s militia of many thousands to support the Red Army”.The socio-cultural cognitive elements of the partisan movement can be identified today in direct or indirect manifestations in European strategic consciousness. Their implications for societal resistance capacity to territorial as well as psychological invasions are significant.In Russian sources, a partisan movement is a type of struggle of the masses for the freedom and independence of their country or social transformation, which is conducted in the territory occupied by the enemy (controlled by a reactionary regime). The main form of partisan warfare is armed struggle conducted by partisan formations (brigades, detachments, groups, etc.), propaganda, and agitation aimed at undermining the political, military, and economic activities of the occupation authorities. Another important target is the morale of the enemy.The Soviet Partisan Movement (Советское партизанское движение)The Origin Story The most important origin documents on the organization of the partisan movement, what Russian sources also call the underground struggle, were the directive of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) of June 29, 1941 and the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of July 18, 1941 “On the organization of struggle in the rear of the German troops.” Joseph Stalin himself had given the order for the establishment of partisan movement(s) in a speech he gave on July 3, 1941. The order clearly required for the Soviet war establishment to form mounted as well as unmounted partisan units. Stalin also underlined the significance of society in war, the Soviets understood the importance of the human element in warfare. A major assignment for the partisan units were diversion groups created for the purpose of combat-partisan warfare everywhere. Tasks included, but were not limited to, blowing up bridges and roads, damaging telephone and telegraph communications, and setting woods on fire, waste disposal sites, and transportation elements. The ultimate goals were to create “unbearable conditions for the enemy and all who help him in the occupied areas.”The word “partisan” comes from the Italian Partigiano – persons who voluntarily took up arms, fighting in the territory occupied by the enemy, and not part of the regular armed forces. In the 1930s in the USSR, such people were called “red partisans“, that is, “the one who previously participated in partisan actions in the Civil War on the side of the Red Army”.The partisan movement developed primarily in Belarus and Ukraine, but it essentially existed in all Soviet republics. By August 1, 1941, more than 230 partisan groups and detachments (over 10,000 people) were operating in Belarus alone. Only a few months later, by October 1941, 738 partisan detachments had been formed in Ukraine. In total, by the end of 1941, about 3,500 partisan detachments and partisan formations were created. In addition to operating as major disruptors of economic life in occupies territory, the Movements acted as a very powerful psychological weapon to discourage local populations from becoming collaborators. This element is significant because after the end of WWII, the Soviets used the same techniques in reverse. Namely, after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin sent intelligence officers all over Europe to infiltrate the political, economic, educational, and cultural spaces. A common finding that came up during academic interviews I conducted was that another way to leverage the infiltration method was to select citizens of the satellite states, send them to the USSR for indoctrination, and then send them back to their home country, usually with a Soviet-born spouse. To be covered operatives meant to infiltrate the human terrain in the host country. This had a meaningful impact on local populations, on the education system, and on societies in general. It is something that was strong enough to resist the test of time and the “transition to democracy” after the conclusion of the Cold War. The Soviet partisan movement was a powerful psychological “cultural inoculator” against socio-cultural erosion by occupation. These socio-psychological elements of the movement are most relevant to today’s events in Europe; nonetheless, some of the least explored, analyzed, understood, and discussed in Western academia and research forums.Structurally, the movement(s) included employees of state security agencies, members of the NKVD troops, and military intelligence officers, but also civilians. Specifically, what literature calls “special units” began to be formed at the intelligence departments of the fronts, preparing reconnaissance and sabotage groups for operations in the deep rear of enemy-occupied territory. So, only the intelligence agencies of the Western Front from the beginning of the war until August 1, 1941 – 500 scouts, 17 special partisan detachments and 29 reconnaissance and sabotage groups – were trained and transferred to the rear of the German troops. Nonetheless, partisans were operating both in the physical and the human terrain, and the ladder is reaping significant strategic benefits in present-day Europe. In fact, a noteworthy role in partisan success in WWII was the political rigidity of the German invaders who remained indifferent to the necessity to win the cooperation of the local populace of the occupied territory. The Germans were relying heavily on superior technology and more manpower. In later years, during the Warsaw Pact days of the Cold War, Soviet-centralized control/rule manifested, among other things, through a re-education of sorts. In all occupied countries, the Politburo sent civilian operators to penetrate the human terrain of all satellite states and to sabotage any historical demeanor of local resistance movements. Furthermore, these political partisans were tasked with infiltrating the education system, the military, the sciences, and, of course, the local intelligence community. Resistance, as a form of warfare, can be conceived as part of a layered, in-depth national defense strategy.In the Human Terrain Program, the central idea was correct, but the application fell short. Instead of a tactical cultural awareness program, it should have been a multi-agency strategic level intelligence program. This is what the Soviets essentially built. When a non-Soviet regime occupies the Kremlin, the benefits of the program are even felt today. By leveraging behavioral and social sciences, and by integrating the human terrain and societies in the operational concept, the success was not dependent on the political inner workings of the Kremlin.The International Character A district trait of the Soviet partisan movement was its international character. If general resistance movements are born out of grass roots, informal, civil society rooted currents, the Soviet partisan was as diverse as the Soviet Union herself. At first glance, this might seem like a natural expression of the multitude of peoples and religious groups in the territory of the USSR, but at a closer look, it is easy to identify the intentionality of Soviet planners to control the movements narrative – the partisan is the anti-fascist fighter who opposes the invader and is ready to die for the ultimate goal: defend the motherland but also the Communist Party and its ideals and values. This element will resurface over and over again in post WWII communist propaganda, both in the USSR and in its satellites in Central and Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, one consequence was the intellectual high jacking of local narratives that belong to local populaces, of the resistance movements across the former Warsaw Pact States and in today’s Post Soviet space. In Romania, for instance, the resistance was complex: there were communist elements, fascist elements, and also regular peasants fighting against forced collectivization or intellectuals loyal to Romania and the monarchy. They were all lumped together into the “fascist narrative,” denigrated and silenced in history books and across the Romanian socio-cultural space. The population was not educated about its own past and at present this is leveraged by all political segments in Romanian society, ultimately eroding the democratic essence of the Romanian Republic.In Poland, the total number of Soviet citizens who fought in 90 Soviet or mixed Soviet-Polish partisan detachments and groups was 20 thousand people. In Czechoslovakia, a total of 3,000 Soviet partisans fought, in Yugoslavia – more than 6,000 people. In France, at the beginning of 1944, there were up to 40 partisan detachments and almost the same number of groups in which up to 4,000 Soviet citizens fought.In the partisan detachments of Italy, 5 thousand Soviet citizens participated in the fight against fascism. In Italy the Soviet Partisan Movement together with the Italian resistance fighters participated in military operations in Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, Veneto, Liguria and other regions. Fedor Poletaev, Fore Mosulishvili, Nikolay Buyanov and Daniil Avdeev were awarded the highest award of the Italian Republic-the Gold Medal “For Military Valor”. Seven more of their comrades were awarded Silver and Bronze medals.Participants of the movement were also operational in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Bulgaria, Greece and other countries. In France, as in other countries, many representatives of the Russian emigration participated. It cannot be denied that the movement made a significant contribution to the defeat of fascism in WWII, nonetheless, it was a means to and end for the Stalin regime and later for the Soviet leadership and due to the aforementioned highjacking of local narratives, this was the one aspect that dominates in societal consciousness at present.It is important for the American strategist and commander to never loose sight of the fact that the Soviets in general and the Partisans in particular cannot be reduced to one definition, nationality, religion or gender. Wether in a negative or positive mental frame, the Soviet partisan are etched in European consciousness.Applications in Contemporary Russian Operational Art The most obvious contemporary example of how impactful the partisan movement was in the human terrain is the war in Ukraine. Russian strategic goals in Ukraine were very clear from the beginning; namely, a change of government in Kyiv in favor of a pro-Russian regime (nothing new here), “de-Nazification,” or the Kremlin euphemism for crushing any trace of Ukrainian nationalism, demilitarization, or leaving Ukraine without combat power sufficient to defend against another Russian attack, and “neutrality,” meaning no ties with Western organizations such as NATO or the EU, and no Western aid programs. All of them are directly linked to Soviet partisan warfare.The carefully-crafted narrative and the psychological inoculation, in tandem with infiltration, produced and reinforced the stories/narratives desired by the Russian leaders. Humans think in stories. Humans and inherently the human brain and human nervous system are an indispensable component in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), referred to as Human-Cyber-Physical Systems (HCPSs). Western-centric social science discussions often pivot around emerging security challenges, where cognitive attacks can exploit vulnerabilities of human cognitive processes, and eventually affect human behaviors, ultimately damaging the HCPS. The Russian perspective, if you will, is far more complex. First, it stems from decades of scientific research and philosophical debates about the very nature of society, about how the human mind works and around consciousness. These debates are taking place beyond the war planning rooms and are scientific, rather than ideological, in nature. In addition to this, the Russian World paradigm, now the official Russian narrative for advancing its goals in IR, is heavily influenced by socio-cultural cognitive development theory which posits that human cognition is rooted in language, culture, and social environment as mediated by caregivers and community. The advancement of narratives is not limited to cyber campaigns; they are a real element in Russian motional consciousness and, therefore, seamlessly present in pull discourse. For instance, Sergey Naryshkin, who serves as the Chairman of the Russian Historical Society, opened the round table “Resistance Movement: People, History, Memory” with a speech that underscored that the memory of our compatriots who participated in the Resistance movement is preserved, thanks to the efforts of specific people-historians (конкретные люди-историки) and public activists. Mr. Naryshkin underlined that for many of them, the history of the Resistance is part of the family memory. Mr. Naryshkin also used key words: people-historians, namely scientists who document not historical events, but the evolution of Russian consciousness, of Russian peoples. Historical memory is experienced as a group/community/society. It is at the basic, tribal level, that we tell and understand stories.Some ConclusionsThe first verses of the Soviet anthem mention an “unbreakable union of freeborn republics created in struggle by the will of the people.” In Russian group consciousness, free will and its relation to authority have been a consistent theme. The Marxist movement was built on the work of Marx, but also on the Gramsci’s analysis of free will and meaning-making. The Soviet Resistance Movement was instrumentalized by Russia in three major ways.First, the partisans and the underground struggle became synonymous with righteous, anti-fascist fighters. History was re-framed and reality on the round was altered.Second: Frame and Re-Frame. To understand a society, one must showcase a greater focus on understanding how people use and understand language, not the actual language alone. As it relates to US foreign policy and security and defense policy, it is imperative to never lose sight that the central aim of Russian foreign policy is to dilute US power and influence globally. Moreover, it is equally critical to understand and accept that our American Weltanschaung is not identical to the Russian one, nor is it to any ally, partner, or foe. Akin to all aspects of Russian statecraft, the concepts of underground, underground struggle, and partisans are intertwined with the development of Russian political and strategic cultures. It would be a grave strategic mistake to evaluate Russian strategic posturing by reducing it to imperialism or authoritarianism. Yes, by American standards, the Russian Federation has an authoritarian leadership and no doubt, Russian foreign policy is expansive. Nonetheless, these are the problem variables, not the solution. Whether we like it or not, the Russian Federation is a great power, a nuclear power, a nation-state with vast resources and intricate human terrain networks of influence worldwide. President Putin pursues a realist foreign policy, and one of the central legacies of the Soviet partisan movement is exactly that: Human terrain influences stay-behind networks in Europe and beyond. In order to counter them, the US must go back to the George Kennan school of political warfare, embrace its story, and do a much better job at understanding Russia in the Russian cognitive frame. Words matter. Words create our thoughts and our thoughts create behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and actions. The Soviet partisan movement was a solid building block in the foundation of the intellectual and cognitive invasion of Europe (yes, Europe, not just Central and Eastern Europe).Finally, as it relates to Russian operational art, the significance of resistance is, at the very least, two-fold. First, Russian operational art is a means to construct asymmetric elements in pursuing great power strategic advantages, while internally, it manifests itself through a thorough control of opposition elements and dissident speech. In Russian operational art, asymmetric activities include Special Operation Forces (SOF), the actions of the internal opposition, and the information activities. Nonetheless, the Russian approach to information activities is not what Western-centric sources tend to think of.Finally, the national experience of resistance movements is vastly different. It is as important for the American strategist to study resistance movements in Europe as it is to study European history and conventional armed forces. In the case of the Soviet partisans, they developed in close proximity to Soviet political and strategic cultures, and this process was heavily influenced by the militarized intelligence apparatus stemming back from before the CHEKA or NKVD, but also by the psycho-social elements of Soviet nation-building.The post The Human Terrain Program Done Right: Legacy of the Soviet Partisan Movement and the Underground Struggle appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.