 Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Romania and Galicia (Eastern Europe).The Red Army occupied the formerly independent Latvia in 1940–1941 and, after the period of occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, again in 1944–1945.As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, thousands of residents of this country used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and basis for armed anti-Soviet resistance.