Cultural Revolution in the PSR Albania [Archive]

Ismail

25th March 2013, 13:23

(1) How was the decision to start the Cultural and Ideological Revolution made?Albanian materials do not speak of a specific "cultural and ideological revolution," but use the term as part of a continuous process which began since liberation in November 1944. The period beginning in 1966 was an intensification of that process.

After what the Albanians regarded as the triumph of revisionism in the Soviet Union there were many concerns within the Party of Labour both as to how revisionism emerged triumphant and how to avoid a similar process in their own country. Bureaucracy was one of the more obvious targets and much of the period was dealt with efforts to combat it. Hoxha's report to the 5th Congress of the PLA in 1966 is generally recognized as the clarion call.

(2) Did there exist an Albanian equivalent of the Red Guards?No. Hoxha specifically criticized (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1966/10/01.htm) the formation of "Red Guards" and the general course of China's "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" shortly before the Fifth Congress.

What role did the workers play in the revolution?Even before the Fifth Congress, "In October 1965, the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of Ministers published an Appeal to the broad masses of the people to participate in the discussion and drafting of the 4th Five-year Plan (1966-1970)... Unlike the previous discussions... this time in the draft-directives the central state organs gave not detailed figures, but only some main tentative ones." (The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania, 1988, pp. 232-233.) In other words, "henceforth workers in enterprises would discuss broad plan targets, which the enterprise would use in drafting a detailed project plan, rather than being sent a detailed plan from the state hierarchy without any such preliminary.... neither was he any longer to be simply the recipient of centrally determined tasks requiring unquestioning execution." (Stalinist Economic Strategy in Practice: The Case of Albania, 1982, pp. 27-28.)

In addition, "Laws, codes and ordinances were put forward for discussion to the working masses, reviewed with a critical eye and unburdened from unnecessary articles, complicated formulations, everything outdated and alien, and thus made easier to understand." (The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania, p. 236.) One thing that was emphasized was workers' control over the state organs, which translated into specific teams of workers being sent to check up on enterprises and government ministries, the usage of factory wallpapers for political mobilization and criticism of bureaucracy and personnel shirking from responsibilities, etc.

"In industry, building work and other sectors, individual standards of work were slowly replaced by collective standards representing a higher level of socialist organization. More and more, priority was given to the moral stimulus... salaries for the most part no longer carried bonuses now that higher salaries had again been reduced. The funds thus saved were returned to the workers by raising lower salaries, increasing credit allowed for the maintenance of crèches and nursery schools and the suppression of tax [abolished in 1969] from workers' incomes." (The History of Albania: from its origins to the present day, 1981, p. 279.) In schooling a new system "instituted a stage where all pupils leaving secondary schools had to take on the jobs of simple workers before passing on to more advanced establishments; admission to advanced colleges was subject to the approval of all the people in the work collective where the pupil had done his 'stage'. Similarly, a stage in production was imposed on students before ending their studies and working on their diploma thesis." (Ibid. p. 285.)

Members of the intelligentsia as well as enterprise managers and various government ministers were required to do varying amounts of manual labor and involve themselves directly in the production process from one to four months each year.

In agriculture the process of collectivization, which encompassed most of the country's agriculture by 1961, was furthered so that by 1969 Albania became the most agriculturally collectivized society in Europe. In addition, "the abolition of the 28,000 member artisan co-operatives and their re-establishment of state enterprises" occurred, "a feature found nowhere else in Eastern Europe." (Political Opposition in One-Party States, 1972, p. 184.)

Notable advances were also made in the field of women's emancipation, while the struggle against religion scored a... particularly unique milestone.

At the 6th Congress of the PLA in 1971 Hoxha reported that, for the first time, the percentage of working-class members of the Party constituted the majority of its members (36% compared to 34% white-collar workers and 30% peasants.)

(3) What was the relationship of the revolution to the existing state and Party apparatus?Besides the abolition of some ministries, Hoxha advocated reducing the amount of Party members in said ministries and administrative posts, arguing that Communists should concentrate on grassroots work. The Party continued to guide the process of further revolutionizing society.

(4) How did the Cultural and Ideological Revolution end?Albanian materials don't really speak of it ending. Even in 1990 Ramiz Alia was claiming continuity between his right-wing economic and social policies and the efforts at revolutionizing the country in the 60's and 70's.

One hostile source notes that the drive for workers' control "caused a good deal of confusion in the minds of a people inured to the harsh discipline of obeying orders, working hard and generally minding their own business. The theory, if not the practice, of workers' control was therefore kept alive by means of repetitive propaganda throughout most of the 1970s....

On the other hand, the policy of pruning the vast bureaucratic establishment, by which the régime had set such great store, turned out to be a failure. By 1972 it was clear that far from contracting in size, the bureaucratic monster had gone on growing merrily since the heady days of 1966... The press was full of accounts of this unhealthy growth. For instance, the number of officials employed by the local-government administration of the Tirana district had increased by 2,300 between 1966 and 1971. Other local government bodies showed similar increases. The tendency to proliferation was also present in central government departments. The staff of the ministry of education had increased by 80 per cent during the same period. What worried the authorities, apart from the sheer rise in the number of civil servants, was the fact that most of the new recruits were members of the communist party. This meant that the gulf separating the régime from the mass of the people was wider than ever. In an attempt to remedy the situation, the leadership fell back on the hoary routine of more propaganda and more empty rhetoric. But the effort was wasted. Some 3 years later it was disclosed that the expansion of the central bureaucracy, in particular, was proceeding remorselessly.

Although the large-scale revolutionary campaigns were over by 1969, they continued to have important repercussions and ramifications for several years to come." (The Albanians: Europe's Forgotten Survivors, 1977, pp. 163-164.)

The early 70's did, however, see widespread purges (non-violent save for some leading figures accused of being involved in a coup plot) in the party, state and army apparatuses. Thus, besides the sacking of three Politburo members, "Of the seventy-one Central Committee members elected in 1971, twenty-eight were dropped from the Central Committee and seven were demoted to candidate status. Hoxha also replaced twenty-four of the twenty-six rreth (district) party first secretaries prior to the Seventh Congress [held in 1976]." (A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, 1999, p. 74.)