Anti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe

However, the last known "cursed soldier", Józef Franczak, was killed in an ambush as late as 1963, almost 20 years after the Soviet take-over of Poland.

As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, 50,000 residents of these countries used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and base for armed anti-Soviet resistance.

Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defense, to large and well-organized groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle.

An armed resistance movement against the communist government in Romania was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s.

After the overthrow of Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1989, the details about what was called “anti-communist armed resistance” were made public, thanks to the declassification of the Securitate archives.