Military crimes as one of the factors of the partisan movement in the Crimea 1941-1944

Based on previously unknown documents from the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea, as well as the memoirs of direct participants in the events, the article examines for the first time in Russian historiography the issue of war crimes in the partisan movement in Crimea in 1941- 1944.For the first time, quantitative indicators are given, both in terms of the numerical composition and the sentences imposed. Special attention is paid to the issues of desertion and the use of capital punishment. The main attention is paid to the analysis of the specifics of the partisan movement in Crimea, its regional differences, as well as the influence of a number of subjective factors.Special attention is paid to the participation of such a national group as the Crimean Tatars in the partisan movement. The further fate of all the Crimean Tatars, who had served the invaders before coming to the forest, has been traced. The conclusion is drawn about the disparity of the pre-existing periodization of the partisan movement in Crimea and the author’s version is proposed, adding preparatory and final periods, as well as changing the time of one of the periods. The author comes to the conclusion that the earlier conclusions about the mass desertion in 1941 are incorrect and the term “missing persons” was more appropriate, which is illustrated by specific examples. The state of military discipline of the partisans was directly dependent on the quality of the partisans, who were initially represented by party-Soviet assets, and then by the “partisans of the forty-third year,” many of whom had a trail of previous crimes. The biased assessment of the partisan movement in Crimea was negatively influenced by the serious conflict between the “military” and the Crimean Regional Committee of the CPSU (b).