There was not any significant support to the national partisans from the West. Most of the agents sent by the Western-
British (
MI6),
American, and
Swedish secret intelligence services in a period from 1945 to 1954 (about 25 agents) were arrested by
KGB and could not get into contact with partisans. And also this poor support diminished significantly after MI6's
Operation Jungle was severely compromised by the activities of British spies (
Kim Philby and
others) who forwarded information to the Soviets, enabling the
KGB to identify, infiltrate and eliminate many Latvian partisan units and cut others off from any further contact with Western
intelligence operatives. of a Latvian national partisan in the Latvian War Museum, 2006. The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Latvian national partisans lasted over a decade and cost at least thousands of lives. Estimates for the number of fighters in each country vary. Misiunas and
Taagepera estimate that figures reached between 10,000 and 15,000 in Latvia. The number of active combatants peaked at between 10,000 and 15,000, while the total number of resistance fighters was as high as 40,000. One author gives a figure of up to 12,000 grouped in 700 bands during the 1945–55 decade, but definitive figures are unavailable. Over time, the partisans replaced their German weapons with Russian ones. The partisan organizations which attempted to unite and coordinate their activities were the Latvian National Partisan Association in
Vidzeme and
Latgale, the Northern Courland Partisan Organization, Latvian National Partisan Organization in
Courland, Latvian Defenders of the Homeland (partisan) Association in Latgale and the "Fatherland Hawks" in Southern Courland. The Latvian national partisans were most active in the border regions. The forests hid the partisan dugouts, their workshops for weapons, their printing presses for leaflets and underground newspapers. Areas where they were most active included
Abrene district,
Ilūkste,
Dundaga,
Taurkalne,
Lubāna,
Aloja,
Smiltene,
Rauna and
Līvāni. In the Northern regions, they had ties with Estonian Forest Brothers. As in Estonia, the partisans were killed off and infiltrated by the
MVD and
NKVD over time, and as in Estonia, Western assistance and intelligence was severely compromised by Soviet
counter-intelligence and Latvian double agents such as
Augusts Bergmanis and
Vidvuds Šveics.
Decline of the resistance movements To destroy the partisan base of support, a
major Soviet deportation of civilians took place in March 1949. Most part of supporters were deported and others were forced to join
kolkhozes. By the early 1950s, the Soviet forces had eradicated most of the Latvian national resistance. Intelligence gathered by the Soviet spies in the West and KGB infiltrators within the resistance movement, in combination with large-scale Soviet operations in 1952 managed to end the campaigns against them. The Soviets gradually consolidated their rule in the cities, help from rural civilians was not as forthcoming, and special military and security units continued to be sent to control the partisans. Many of the remaining national partisans laid down their weapons when offered an
amnesty by the Soviet authorities after
Stalin's death in 1953, although isolated engagements continued into the 1960s. By some accounts, the last groups emerged from the forest and surrendered to the authorities in 1956–1957. Possibly, the last of the national partisan groups was one of three men that had been operating since 1944 under the leadership of Polish-Latvian fighter
Staņislavs Zavadskis (nom de guerre “Pans”) in
Cesvaine district, received a special invitation from Latvian SSR KGB chairman
Jānis Vēvers. In exchange for laying down arms, the members were granted amnesty and permission for Zavadskis to join his mother in the
Polish People's Republic. Zavadskis later lived in
Łódź without persecution, and his comrades Pēteris Tirzītis and Ivars Grabāns worked at a kolkhoz near Cesvaine. After the
Prague Spring in 1968, however, Tirzītis and Grabāns were sent to prison for several years. One of the last known individual guerrillas to “legalise” himself in December 1959, was Arnolds Spārns, who had fought in the area of
Priekule. Some individual guerrillas are reported to have remained in hiding and evaded capture into the 1980s, by which time Latvia was pressing for independence through peaceful means (
Baltic Way,
Singing Revolution). Latvia
restored its independence in 1990-1991. ==Aftermath, memorials and remembrances==