First Published: Vanguard, Vol. 1, No. 6, July 1964.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Ian Roberts, Paul Saba and Sam Richards
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The Albanians are direct descendants of the Illyrians, neighbours of the Greeks in classical times, and with their own distinct culture and civilisation. The Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 referred to them as “The most ancient race in South-Eastern Europe,” and continued, “The determination with which this remarkable race has maintained its mountain stronghold through a long series of ages has hitherto met with scant appreciation in the outside world.“ For 500 years the Turks established nominal suzerainty over the Albanian people. But the struggle for liberation from oppression continued century by century. Scanderberg united the Albanian people to fight thirteen great campaigns against the advancing Turks between 1444 and 1466 and countless Albanians followed his example in later years and fought against the Turkish tyranny. Indeed, the Turks never succeeded in establishing their rule over the mountainous districts of Albania.
With the 19th century a new stage in the struggle for freedom was reached. The national identity of all the Albanian people emerged as the result of the work of those who fought to establish the ancient Albanian language in written form. A stream of books emerged from the printing presses of the nationalists, and were disseminated widely among the people, despite the bitter opposition of the Turkish overlords. The movement for national liberation achieved a great victory on the 28th November, 1912, when Ismael Qemal raised the flag of national independence in the ancient city of Vlora, in Southern Albania. But the manoeuvres of the imperialist powers destroyed the first independent republic of Albania.
At the end of the First World War a republic was established, with Fan Noli, a priest, as Prime Minister. But the adventurer Zogu, acting as the agent, first of the Yugoslavs, and later of the Italian bourgeoisie, had established himself as President by 1925, and ousted Fan Noli, who left the country and lives today in the U.S.A. (This sincere nationalist and scholar has translated many works into Albanian for the Albanian people. Despite all the pressures which must have been brought to bear on him by the imperialists he has resolutely refused to say one hostile word against the Albania of today.)
In 1926, with the 1st Treaty of Tirana, Zogu made Albania virtually an Italian protectorate. Working in alliance with “King” Zog (for he had given himself this title in 1928) the Italians spent much money in Albania, and to this day many fine buildings in the centre of Tirana, the capital, bear witness to this. But as with all such imperialist “aid” the more that is poured into a country the more the suffering of the people increases and more their hatred for the foreign oppressors, and their stooges within the country, grows. In April 1939 the Italian army moved into Albania and established direct colonial rule.
During the inter-war years, and despite a legal ban on activity, three or four different Communist groups were established in the main towns of Albania; in Shkodra, Tirana, Korca and elsewhere much work was done by Communists in mobilising the working people in defence of their class and national interests. But the different groups did not succeed in uniting into one Communist Party for many years. Not until 8th November, 1941, was a successful conference held in Tirana to establish the Communist Party of Albania. (At a later Congress of the Party the name was changed to the Albanian Party of Labour.) The initiative in the struggle to establish a Party came from the Korca group, and in particular from Comrade Enver Hodja. Strong opposition from leading members of the Tirana group was encountered. They argued that because the Albanian population was overwhelmingly peasant, and with only a small working class, that the objective conditions for a Communist Party did not exist. Such mechanical arguments have been encountered in more than one country. They were defeated and the Party was established. For a time they accepted this decision, but before long most of them had turned against the resolution and betrayed the interests of the people.
In three years, by November 29th, 1944, the complete victory of the struggle for national liberation against the Italians, and the Germans, had been achieved. The Party mobilised the people for armed struggle against the invader, in town and country. By November 1944 70,000 men and women were under arms, organised throughout the country. The struggle within the borders of Albania was fought by the Albanian people alone. They liberated their own land, although the mighty victories of the Red Army played an indispensable external role.
In the course of the guerrilla war against the Fascists the British ruling class, anxious to establish their control over Albania following the defeat of the Central Powers, did their best to promote an alternative leadership for the Albanian fighters, a bourgeois leadership which would prove subservient to British interests when the war was won. They failed miserably. Their representative, General Davis, also failed to persuade Enver Hodja and the leadership of the national liberation army to surrender at a most difficult moment in the campaign, when encircled by hostile forces. Davis himself surrendered.
At the end of the war a British task force heaved to off the Albanian coast and British troops disembarked, to “aid” the Albanian people. In Greece a similar expedition was allowed to land, and duly re-established a neo-fascist state. In Albania Comrade Hodja and the leadership of the Party told the British commander, “We do not need your help. Pull off or we will fire on you.” After some while the British troops withdrew.
Until 1944 Albania was probably the most backward land in Europe, with the peasants oppressed with great cruelty and ruthlessness by feudal landlords. 85% of the people suffered from malaria, the death-rate among young children was very high, and the average expectation of life (in 1938) only 38 years. The great majority of the peasants obtained no education, and could not read or write. The first essential task for the Albanian people was the reorganisation of agriculture.
In August 1945 the Land Reform Decree was passed, and by November 1946 this first stage of the reorganisation had been completed. Under the Decree all feudal estates were expropriated and the peasants became the owners of the land. The allocation of land was made in accordance with the size of the peasant family. The selling of holdings was prohibited. This great reform fulfilled the age-long aspirations of the Albanian peasants, who comprised 80% of the population.
The second stage of reorganisation was achieved over a much longer period of time; this was the collectivisation of agriculture. Only with the establishment of collective farms and the introduction of the modern techniques of production (for which a collective farm has the necessary land, capital and labour) can the productivity of agriculture and the living standards of the people be progressively improved. Between 1946 and 1954 slow but steady progress was made. The Party determined that at every stage collectivisation should only be achieved with the willing consent and support of the peasants. The customs and conservatism created by centuries of feudal conditions could not be broken down overnight. A great campaign of education among the peasants was organised over many years. Little by little their confidence and support was won.
By 1954 it became possible to speed up the process of collectivisation, for which the industrial basis had now also been laid. By 1959 87% of all peasant holdings were collectivised; only hill farmers now remain outside the 1,500 collective farms throughout Albania. Each peasant retains a plot of 1/1000th of a hectare; the rest of the farm is worked collectively, and each peasant is paid according to the days of work he puts in. The Machine Tractor Stations operate, service and maintain the tractors, each providing for a number of collective farms. There are some 7,000 tractors in Albania today. By 1965 there will be 9,000. Albanian agriculture is more highly mechanised today than most East European countries.
The Albanian people did not abandon their Machine Tractor Stations and sell off the machines to the collective farms, as Khrushchev has done in the U.S.S.R. This only means that the richer farms gain at the expense of the poorer, who are unable to buy all the machines they need for their own use.
Some 14% of cultivated land is run by State farms. This land was taken from the feudal beys, the Italians, and also reclaimed from the marshes. Before liberation some 220,000 hectares were under cultivation; today about 480,000 hectares. Much drainage and irrigation has been undertaken (today 50% is irrigated). Despite the immense improvements in agriculture Albania still today imports some wheat. The aim within a few years will be to make the country entirely self-sufficient. To achieve this productivity will be substantially increased by further mechanisation and increased use of fertilisers.
By 1962 a twenty-five-fold increase in industrial output over 1938 had been achieved. The third five-year plan will be completed in 1965. The following industrial enterprises are already in operation: textiles, wood processing, food processing, mechanical engineering, oil refining, sugar refining, cement works, copper, iron-nickel, chrome and coal mines, hydro-electric power stations, wine, fruit and vegetable processing, tobacco processing, brick and glass works, and others.
Only a visit to Albania can fully convey what Socialism has meant for the people. But a few figures can indicate why there is such firm unity between Party and people, why there is such enthusiasm for the further tasks of socialist construction which lie ahead. The population has increased from 1,000,000 to over 1,800,000 since the liberation. The life expectation had risen by 1960 to 64.9 years. In 1938, as already mentioned, it was 38. Malaria has been completely eradicated. All receive free education. The health service is free, and sick pay is provided by the state at 80% to 90% of the working wage until recovery is complete. The average wage is 7,000 leks a month; and although most families have more than one wage-earner the rent varies from 200 leks (minimum) to 300 leks (maximum) per month; approximately one day’s pay each month. The difference in wage between lowest and highest paid workers is less than 4:1.
The Albanian people can well be proud of what they have achieved in just under 20 years of independence and socialist construction, under the leadership of the Albanian Party of Labour. But none of this would have been possible without the maintenance of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Albania, without the people in arms dealing ruthlessly with all enemies sent in by the imperialists and their agents to disrupt their work, and with those within the international Communist movement who have attempted the same sabotage – the modern revisionists led by Nikita Khrushchev. At the end of the war the Party decided that the people as a whole must be armed. Only in this way could the tasks of Socialist construction be safeguarded against the armed bands of counter-revolutionaries sent in by the Greek, Italian, British and United States capitalists, and, before long, the Yugoslav revisionists. Over a period of years all such armed attacks have been smashed by the people. Today Albania is free from counter-revolutionary guerrillas. The people in arms have been, and remain, the foundation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Albania.
But the most insidious foe of the Albanian people has been modern revisionism. The Tito group in Yugoslavia ruthlessly suppressed genuine Communists in their country in the years after the war, as they developed their own “national” brand of Communism, a cover for growing collaboration with imperialism. They made plans to swallow up Albania, as the 7th province of Yugoslavia, in 1946 and 1947, and did their best to force their views upon the international Communist movement, with one-sided and false arguments. The C.P.S.U., under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, and other fraternal Parties, rejected their arguments, at first in private discussion and then, when it became clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the Tito group were determined to abandon Marxism-Leninism and to collaborate with imperialism against their own people, with the 1948 Resolution of the Communist Information Bureau. This Resolution, signed by Stalin and Molotov, reiterated the basic truths of Marxism-Leninism, and warned against the possibility of the restoration of capitalism within a Socialist country as a result of degeneration within a Party. It condemned Tito and his group for denying that classes and class struggle still continued within Yugoslavia, for denying the need for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, for playing down the leading role of the Communist Party, for violating inner-Party democracy, and for nationalist external policies, such as that adopted towards Albania.
It is not without reason that Comrade Stalin’s memory is held in deepest regard by all the Albanian people. Without this firm stand led by the C.P.S.U. and Comrade Stalin, the independence of Albania might well have been lost, and the nation languished under foreign oppression. What might have been the fate of the Albanian people can be seen from the way in which the Tito Government to this day denies basic rights to the several hundred thousands Albanians living in Yugoslavia.
Tito led the way within Europe in developing the ideas and practices of modern revisionism. Khrushchev and his followers have fought for years to follow along the same road, and to carry the international Communist movement with them. In doing so they have been compelled to attack Stalin and to rehabilitate Tito, for the true line and the false are inseparably connected with the political work and teaching of these two men. They symbolise, on the one hand, Marxism-Leninism and the path of struggle against imperialism, on the other, modern revisionism, and the path of collaboration with imperialism.
The leaders of the Albanian Party of Labour refused to bow to Khrushchev, to rehabilitate Tito and condemn Stalin. He therefore tried to break them to his will by withdrawing all aid, and maintaining an economic blockade of Albania. In 1961 all agreements between the two countries were torn up. All technicians and military missions were withdrawn overnight. All orders of tractors and every type of equipment were halted. All cultural training schemes were ended. All tourism to Albania was checked. This economic blockade completed the encirclement of Socialist Albania already undertaken by the imperialists and the Tito Government. It inflicted grave damage to industry, to agriculture, and to cultural life of the country. It weakened Albania’s ability to withstand attack from the imperialists and their agents. It was the act of a group of traitors to Socialism.
But the Albanian Party of Labour dismissed the two members of the Central Committee who were willing to succumb to Khrushchev’s blackmail. They took the issues to the people. The people supported them. And relying primarily upon their own strength the Albanian people have, since 1961, steadily overcome all the grave difficulties created by Khrushchev’s blockade. In this hard task they have received fraternal aid from the People’s Republic of China, which now provides most of the tractors and other equipment which Albania cannot yet make for itself. They have received fraternal support from all genuine Communist Parties and from the peoples of all lands. The encirclement of Socialist Albania, aimed at by the imperialists and the modern revisionists has been broken. They will never achieve the overthrow of the people’s power.
Indeed, the attacks of imperialism and modern revisionism have only cemented the unity of the Party and the people of Albania. Following the correct general line advanced since 1941 by Comrade Enver Hodja and the Central Committee of the Party, the Albanian people have overcome all difficulties. In so doing they have learned to rely primarily upon their own strength, and have become confident of their ability to tackle the many tasks which lie ahead. They are enthusiastic about the future. Life is good for the Albanian workers, peasants, and intellectuals. It will become better with each year of Socialist construction.
By correctly relating the tried and tested principles of Marxism-Leninism to their own country the Albanian people have achieved great success. By defending these principles against all the attacks of modern revisionism they have earned the gratitude and respect of genuine Communists and militant workers through the world.