Peasant Battalions (, abbreviated as BCh) was a Polish resistance movement, guerrilla and partisan organisation, during World War II. The organisation was created in mid-1940 by the agrarian political party People's Party and by 1944 was partially integrated with the Armia Krajowa (Home Army). At its height, in summer 1944 the organisation had 160,000 members.

History

Initially after the occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and Germany, the peasant parties were reluctant to forming their own armed resistance forces. Since mid-1940 several smaller groups were formed, mostly for self-defence of Polish peasants against German terror and economic policies. Most of members of peasant parties grouped into CKRL (Central Directorate of Peasant Movement) who received military training before the war were transferred to other armed resistance organizations, most notably to ZWZ.

However, in early 1941 it was decided that an armed force be created. The core of the newly formed BCh came from the earlier organization Chłostra (an acronym of Chłopska Straż - Farmers' Guard), as well as from other underground organizations of the farmers movement, such as Związek Młodzieży Wiejskiej (Association of Rural Youth), Chłopska Organizacja Wolności "Racławice" (Peasants' Freedom Organization "Racławice") and Centralny Związek Młodej Wsi "Siew" (Central Union of Village Youth "Sowing").

The structure of the BCh was based on pre-war administrative divisions of Poland. Areas were roughly correspondent to pre-war Voivodeships, and were further divided onto districts (based on powiats) and commune-based units. By mid-1943 10 areas were formed:

:# Warsaw

:# Warsaw Voivodeship

:# Kielce

:# Lublin

:# Łódź

:# Kraków, Rzeszów, Silesia

:# Białystok

:# Volhynia

:# Lwów, Stanisławów, Tarnopol

:# Poznań

Each of the areas fielded its own armed units. The units were basically of two types:

  1. territorial militias - created for self-defense, sabotage and preparation of future all-national uprising
  2. tactical units - strictly militarized, created for use as the core of the future all-national uprising

The units of the latter type were later mostly joined with the Armia Krajowa. The commander of the BCh was Franciszek Kamiński, his chiefs of staff were Kazimierz Banach (until 1942) and S. Koter.

During the process of unification of Polish underground, large part (approximately 50 000 men) of the BCh soldiers was integrated by the Government Delegate's Office at Home with Armia Krajowa and Państwowy Korpus Bezpieczeństwa. Also, by early 1943 part of the tactical units were transformed into Special Units specialized in diversion and reprisal actions. An estimate for summer 1944 the Bataliony Chłopskie had approximately 160 000 members grouped in 70 units.

See also

  • History of Poland (1939–45)
  • Cichociemni

References

  • Kazimierz Przybysz, Bataliony Chlopskie, published by Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, Warszawa 1985.
  • Wojciech Jekielek, Bataliony Chlopskie w Malopolsce i na Slasku. Kalendarium. Warszawa 1987.