The 'Malo-Vishera Offensive Operation' was the Soviet first of the two sub-operations together constituting the 'Tikhvin Strategic Offensive Operation', whose other component was the 'Tikhvin-Kirishi Offensive Operation' (10 November/30 December 1941).

General Leytenant Stepan D. Akimov’s Novgorod Operational Group of General Leytenant Pavel A. Kurochkin’s North-West Front and General Leytenant Nikolai K. Klykov’s 52^nd Separate Army took part in the 'Malo-Vishera Offensive Operation'. They were opposed by elements of Generaloberst Ernst Busch’s 16^th Army of Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Heeresgruppe 'Nord', namely Generalleutnant Paul Laux’s 126^th Division and Generalmajor Antonio Muñoz Grandes’s 250^th Division (spanische) of Spanish volunteers, to whom the formation was known as the División Azul, and later Generalleutnant Siegfried Hänicke’s 61^st Division, Generalleutnant Rudolf Lüters’s 223^rd Division and Generalleutnant Baptist Kniess’s 215^th Division.

The Novgorod Operational Group played only an auxiliary mission during the operation as its formations had been entrusted with the defence of the Plovnaya Gorka line and the mouth of the Msta river to the east of Novgorod with part of its strength, and advancing with its main strength in the direction of Selishchensky in co-operation with the 52^nd Army to seize a bridgehead on the left bank of the Volkhov river in the area of ​​Selishchensky. It was on 10 November that the group went onto the offensive, but without any success, and on 12 November elements of the 52^nd Army joined the offensive to the south and east of Malaya Vishera.

The Soviet offensive developed very slowly. The 52^nd Army’s first task was the capture of Malaya Vishera. The army advanced on a 30-mile (48-km) front from Zelenshina to the village of Poddubye, 8.7 miles (14 km) to the south of Malaya Vishera. The army had not created a shock group, and had therefore to stretch all four of its divisions along the front as its first echelon. Thus, only two regiments of the 259^th Division were available for the direct assault on the well-fortified village: without proper reconnaissance and artillery support, the two regiments attacked Malaya Vishera frontally until 19 November. On the following day, in a night battle after an outflanking manoeuvre, parts of the 52^nd Army compelled the 126^th Division to fall back from the village, but further development of the the Soviet offensive only slowly.

By 9 December, Soviet troops had been able to advance only 12.5 miles (20 km) to the west of Malaya Vishera. From 12 December, the pressure of the Soviet troops had become strong and constant, and the German troops continued to retreat, albeit in good order. The elements which fell back included those in front of the Novgorod Operational Group, which forced the Spaniards to leave the strongpoints at Posad, Otensky and Shevelevo. On 15 December, the Germans ordered a withdrawal from the area of Malaya Vishera to the western bank of the Volkhov river, and by 23 December the German forces had crossed the Volkhov river, and the Soviet forces had reached Volkhov, which restored the front line to the position in which it had existed in October. The Soviet forces immediately began to seize bridgeheads. On 25 December, the 259^th Division and 267^th Division managed to win several bridgeheads in the area to the south of Gruzino, although all but one of the bridgeheads seized by the 111^th Division, in the area of Vodosye to the north-east of Chudovo near the railway linking the latter with Kirishi, were then lost. The Germans also retained a bridgehead in Gruzino, and this remained in their hands until January 1944.