What is the underground? This word has several meanings. The first involves a utility room, located under the floor or basement. The second is socio-political. This is an illegal activity of opposition organizations conducting their work against existing regimes and governments. She, as a rule, is prohibited by the legislation in force in the country and is prosecuted by law enforcement agencies.
Political underground: what is it and where can it be
The underground is of different types depending on the illegal activity. It can be in any country. It is believed that the more democratic freedoms there are in society, the less is the need for clandestine activities, since the removal of an objectionable government or leader is possible in a legal way - through elections. As a rule, the underground appears where totalitarian regimes dominate, when absolutely all spheres of life, including the personal one, are subordinate to the state.
But in a democratic society, where everything that is not prohibited is allowed, there is not only legal opposition, but also hidden, that is, underground, but it cannot be mass. This is because in any state there are areas that are in the sphere of its interests, both economic and political, whose activities are not regulated by democratic methods. Here resorted to either sole or collegial methods.
Structure
What is the underground? This is a secret organization, forced to oppose the regime, opposing its domestic and foreign policies. Underground by type of activity may have:
- Their organizations are parties, societies, unions that can set as their goal the deposition of the ruling elite through armed struggle.
- An ideology is a scientifically based doctrine by which an organization wishes to achieve its goal.
- Propaganda - conveying to the population their views, theories with the help of typographic publications: leaflets, proclamations, newspapers, as well as radio, television, the Internet.
Category Types
What is the underground in terms of prohibiting society from participating in the consideration, discussion and resolution of political and economic issues in authoritarian states under occupational, colonial regimes? Here it is necessary to proceed from what types of activities are prohibited in the state. Among them:
- The political underground. Any covert actions directed against the authorities existing in the state. Usually they are in authoritarian regimes where it is forbidden to have an opinion that is different from that imposed by the state.
- The revolutionary underground. This is a kind of political underground. It is created when state formations change. Secret political parties are formed here.
- The terrorist underground. This is a political underground with its own goals, which are achieved through violence - the use of weapons.
- The economic underground. This is a shadow economy, a criminal economy whose main goal is the concealment of income and tax evasion. This type of underground can be in any state.
- Criminal underground. These are organizations (gangs). Their activities are aimed at the property of the state and citizens who also have weapons, but they have no political goals.
The underground during the war
During the war, part of the territory is captured by the enemy, an occupation regime is established. Patriotic citizens decide to go underground, conduct actions that damage the invaders (both economic and military). An example is the underground during the Great Patriotic War, when a large number of people went to partisans or, being in conspiracy, sabotaged economic activity, led hidden military resistance, thereby risking their own lives. It was such an underground in the war that distracted the enemy military units with the front line, which helped the main troops bring the victory closer.
The Bolsheviks, having spent many years underground, had practical fighting skills in these conditions, their reliable rules of conspiracy. Therefore, during the retreat, trained people were left who were able to organize resistance in the occupied territories. Almost every city had a well-organized and conspiracy underground, which committed sabotage and reconnaissance.
The Nazis had an equally perfect mechanism for tracing underground organizations, which was developed in the thirties during the struggle against the German underground. They used it in the occupied territories. This led to the defeat of organizations and the deaths of hundreds of people. But the resistance did not become less - it gained mass.
"Young guard"
The underground organization, operating in 1942-1943 in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, occupied by the Nazis, consisted of young people, Komsomol members. It consisted of about 110 people. The Young Guard acted under the leadership of an underground party organization and carried out a series of terrorist acts against the Nazis. As a result of the betrayal, the lists of the Young Guard fell into the hands of the Gestapo, which arrested almost all members of the structure.
After inhuman torture at the end of January 1943, the crippled members of the underground were thrown into the pit of a 57-meter mine. Above are trolleys for transporting coal and grenades. 71 people died in the mine. In early February, Oleg Kosheva, the head of the organization, was shot in the gendarmerie of Rovenki. In the forest near Rovenki, four more members of the Young Guard headquarters were shot.
After the liberation of Krasnodon, an investigation was conducted that established all the details of the death of the underground. Five members of the headquarters were posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. These are Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Oleg Koshevoi, Sergey Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova.
Anti-fascist and partisan movement
The partisan and anti-fascist movement in Russia has its own traditions and history. Partisans in the Patriotic War of 1812 had a great influence on the outcome of the war, when, fleeing the French, they left whole villages to the forests. They made sorties, destroyed convoys of invaders, attacked small detachments, hid fodder and food. Seeing the benefits of the partisans, whole military units of the Russian army collaborated with them, for example, the horse detachment of the hussar Denis Davydov, who became the commander of the partisan movement.
During the Civil War, partisan units in the Far East fought with entire military formations of the Japanese and White Army. The Japanese partisans were not taken prisoner. The underground, who conducted propaganda, collected information about the movement of enemy troops, committed acts of sabotage, had well-established communications with partisan detachments that make up entire divisions, armies.
In Europe during the Second World War, an anti-fascist movement was operating in the occupied territories, in which citizens of almost all countries took part. It covered France, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Slovakia, and in Germany itself there were organizations that were in deep underground.
Partisans during the Great Patriotic War
The partisan movement in the USSR is part of anti-fascist resistance. It was a "war within a war." It covered large areas of the Oryol, Bryansk, Smolensk, Kursk, Ukraine and Belarus. This is an organized resistance that was coordinated from the center. It included more than a million people.
The tactics of the struggle included sabotage work, which included the destruction of communications, rail war, the destruction of communication lines, bridges, the collection of information about enemy forces, as well as open hostilities with enemy units. The Nazis had to withdraw from the fronts selected units to fight the partisans.