History of the Party of Labour of Albania (1982)

[Ismail]

http://www.enverhoxha.ru/Archive_of_books/History_PLA/history_of_the_party_of_labour_of_albania_second_e dition_eng.pdf

This is a major work from Socialist Albania, which encompasses the origins of the working-class movement in the country up to the year 1980. It fulfilled the same educative function as the Short Course (http://marx2mao.com/PDFs/HCPSU39.pdf) did in the USSR, and as such Enver Hoxha played a significant role in its creation, just as Stalin did with the Short Course. I physically own the 1971 edition so I can attest to it being an interesting work.

Hoxha placed importance on a party in power having its own history. It makes an interesting contrast with the Maoists: "An incontestable fact is that the Communist Party of China, with this 'great' chairman and with these 'outstanding' leaders, still to this day [1976] has not a written, officially approved history of the party. No, this does not exist! Where do the generations in China learn the history of their communist party, with its good points and mistakes? Nowhere... It is hard for them to define and analyse from the Marxist-Leninist angle the stages which it has gone through, the events, the changes and the motives for them, the role of this or that leader or group, etc. If they write such a document, those who have to do this must assume the responsibility for its content... they are not Marxist-Leninists, but are opportunists, pragmatists, involved for scores of years on end in factions and plots, because they have been in astonishing political and ideological instability...

What is more, the history of the great liberation war of China has not been written either, and is still not being written. I am speaking of a scientific history, and not of isolated articles in which the facts are written like the legends of mediaeval 'knights' and the leading knight is Chairman Mao. We know that the war was waged, then why is this rich history not written for people to study it? In my opinion the reasons are the same as those I gave for the history of the party." (Reflections on China Vol. II, pp. 324-325.) The History of the PLA discusses in appropriate detail the country's Anti-Fascist National Liberation War.

The end result of such a policy as the Chinese were pursuing was obvious: "Everything we have read on this major problem we have read from foreign bourgeois historians, scientists and sociologists." (Ibid. p. 234.) The Short Course and the History of the PLA precluded such reliance, and their content reflects the Marxist-Leninist line both parties had in common.

[Ismail]

Normally I wouldn't bump this topic, but I just scanned The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania, which can be downloaded here: https://archive.org/download/TheHistoryOfTheSocialistConstructionOfAlbania/The%20History%20of%20the%20Socialist%20Constructio n%20of%20Albania.pdf

It covers the 1945-1975 period and makes a good introduction, alongside the History of the PLA, of the efforts of Socialist Albania and the Party of Labour in domestic and foreign affairs.

Also of note to those wanting to learn more is The People's Revolution in Albania and the Question of State Power (not scanned by me): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1ZP6ZurgOg-bm9jX0lxR3k3M0E/edit (you can download it by clicking on "File" at the upper-left)

This work explains the character of Albania's revolution, as well as how the carrying out of democratic and socialist measures during and immediately after the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War were handled.

[Jolly Red Giant]

'All Hail Our Glorious Leader, Enver Hoxha, and the Glorious Party of Labour of Albania'

A proper Marxist history of the Hoxhaist dictatorship in Albania needs to be written - but this stuff is not it.

[Ismail]

'All Hail Our Glorious Leader, Enver Hoxha, and the Glorious Party of Labour of Albania'There are a number of Trot histories of their respective parties, however partial they may be I doubt you'd attack them simply because they uphold the lines of said parties. The History of the PLA is fairly detailed and does note instances of self-criticism.

[Five Year Plan]

There are a number of Trot histories of their respective parties, however partial they may be I doubt you'd attack them simply because they uphold the lines of said parties. The History of the PLA is fairly detailed and does note instances of self-criticism.

I don't think Jolly Red Giant is attacking the history just for being Hoxhaist. I think he's attacking it for being Hoxhaist, and for the fact that he thinks Hoxhaism has abandoned the historical materialist method in arriving at its conclusions. Just as I would expect you to attack Trotskyist histories of Trotskyist parties not just because they are Trotskyist, but because they are Trotskyist, and you think Trotskyism abandoned the historical-materialist method.

Its certainly true that no tendency has a monopoly on good analysis, and I would expect at least occasional insights in books produced by even the left tendencies I disagree with the most strongly. But I don't think Jolly Red Giant's comment is unfair.

On a related note, since I changed my primary tendency from Trotskyist to Democratic Centralist, I have noticed that all sorts of posters who would just block out everything I had to say, or who from the get-go would be antagonistic just for the point of being antagonistic, or would not respond seriously to anything I would say but instead just try to insult Trotsky, are now suddenly capable of engaging me in a level-headed way.

I wonder why this is. :confused:

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I have the 71 edition one edition as well. It's interesting if you're a history nerd. I suppose it's worth reading. It obviously has bias and needs to be read in the same way you would read any historical source.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

The problem with Albania is that there is very little easily accessible academic research about it which makes it harder to get an accurate image of it.

[Ismail]

Its certainly true that no tendency has a monopoly on good analysis, and I would expect at least occasional insights in books produced by even the left tendencies I disagree with the most strongly. But I don't think Jolly Red Giant's comment is unfair.I'd say writing off a 600-page book detailing the history of a party in power (including how it came to power) as useless propaganda is pretty unfair.

[Five Year Plan]

I'd say writing off a 600-page book detailing the history of a party in power (including how it came to power) as useless propaganda is pretty unfair.

Where did he say the entire thing was useless propaganda? The way I interpreted his comments, he was passing judgment on the balance of the trustworthiness of its conclusions. As it turns out, highly skewed propaganda can itself be a useful historical source.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Besides, even propaganda is useful in historical research. It tells you a lot about a society or at least the ways they regarded themselves. Nazi propaganda tells us a lot with imagery about the kinda ideology and society that they were striving for. Religious imagery tells us a lot about the kinda role a church had in a society (big cathedrals tell us a lot about how dominant the church was). And so on and so forth.

[Ismail]

The Albanian archives are being searched for materials. For instance the complete transcript of the final meeting between Hoxha and Khrushchev (in November 1960) is available (http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/117494) (an abridged version was published during the socialist period.) Two amusing excerpts:

Comrade Enver: Yes, but do you know what your own ambassador has said? Instead of mentioning many cases, I will mention one that is a military matter. He has put into the question to which side the Albanian army would swear allegiance.

N. S. Khrushchev: Who has he said this to?

Comrade Enver: To our generals, at the airport, in the presence of your general. Our officers replied that the Albanian army would remain faithful to the party and the socialist camp.

N. S. Khrushchev: If our ambassador has said such a thing, then that is sheer stupidity.

Comrade Enver: But this stupidity is political.

N. S. Khrushchev: This is every kind of stupidity.

Mikoyan: Maybe you are inferring that the ambassador’s behavior is our official position?

Comrade Enver: One case of stupidity from one idiot may be forgiven, even if it is political, but when it is repeated many times it is official position.

N. S. Khrushchev: Yes, this is true.

Comrade Enver: Your ambassador has been the best friend to our party and to us on a personal level. He is not an idiot.

N. S. Khrushchev: If he has spoken so, he is an idiot.

Comrade Enver: His stupidity only came out after Bucharest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Albanian_split#Bucharest_Conference ). Why did he not do this for three years in a row? This is strange.

[...]

Comrade Ramiz Alia: (Reading from page 46 of the letter). You publicly accuse us of anti-Sovietism.

N. S. Khrushchev: This is our opinion. Do not get angry.

Comrade Mehmet: You attack us, and we should not get angry?

N. S. Khrushchev: You accused me over our conversation in [April] 1957. [Back] then, Comrade Enver spoke for two hours, while I kept my mouth shut. I spoke for five minutes and you interrupted me immediately, and then again and again. I said that you do not wish to listen and I could stop talking. Then you came to our Central Committee, said that what happened was not a good thing and [we] reconciled. Now you should let me speak. All four of you are interrupting me again.

We are sorry about what happened to these people. You do not believe us. I do not know Koco Tashko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Albanian_split#Pro-Soviet_faction_in_Albania). I may have seen him before, but even if you showed me a picture of him, I would not recognize him.

Comrade Enver: If you would like a picture, we can bring you one.

N. S. Khrushchev: Why do you talk this way?

Comrade Enver: I apologize.

N. S. Khrushchev: You sent me the picture in which we are hugging. Maybe you burned that one. I keep mine at the Central Committee. I will keep it no matter what happens.

Comrade Enver: I keep mine in my children’s room.There's also a 2011 article titled "Defying De-Stalinization: Albania's 1956" which relies on the Albanian archives. Has some interesting stuff, like Beria attacking Hoxha during his first post-Stalin meeting with the Soviet leadership (saying of Albania's inflated party and government functionaries that "not even Rockefeller or Morgan could afford to maintain such a bureaucracy"), and also when Hoxha returned to Albania following the 20th Party Congress:

Hoxha was initially determined to keep Khrushchev’s speech secret. Although he summarized it at a Politburo meeting after he returned from Moscow, he ordered delegates at the Seventeenth Plenum on 2 March to close their notebooks and pocket their pencils. “This matter,” he instructed them, “will stay here and will not leave this room because nothing will be told to the party about it.” He proceeded to give a summary of the report “from memory” but going into some detail on Stalin’s assorted wrongdoings. Utter confusion engulfed those who heard Hoxha’s remarks. What would happen next? Hoxha uttered something vague about drawing valuable lessons from the CPSU. He also reminded delegates that the party was above everyone and everything. As for the ubiquitous and gigantic portraits of party leaders on display everywhere, he clarified that “they still have them in the Soviet Union” but that they might consider emphasizing Lenin from then onward.The Albanians had already published Hoxha's 1956 diary entries, including his immediate reaction to Khrushchev's "secret speech" while in Moscow:

"Moscow, Sunday
February 26 1956

All night long I read the secret report of N. Khrushchev that he gave to us as he did the same with all other foreign delegations. The report rejects the figure and all the acts of the great Stalin.

I understood the position of Khrushchev and his other companions against Stalin and his glorious acts during the meeting of the congress where Stalin's name wasn't mentioned even once for anything good, but I never thought at that time that they could ever come to this point.

I shudder when I think how much the bourgeoisie and reactionaries will rejoice when they get this report in their hands, for I'm sure will they will launch a campaign of lies and who knows how much that will last. Tito should be very glad after reading this report, as I'm sure he has read it.

What an incalculable damage for the Soviet Union and the socialist camp! What an embarrassing responsibility in front of history!

I cannot put anything onto paper. It's too little to say: 'I am shocked'!"
(Enver Hoxha. Ditar 1955-1957. Tiranë: 8 Nëntori. 1987. p. 125.)

[Five Year Plan]

What I would like to see, to be honest, is some social history of the period under Hoxha. The daily routines, culture, and political opinions (and potential oppositional activity) among the masses of laborers. Quotes from the Great Men can take us only so far in our understanding of history.

[Ismail]

In the great many works I've read on Albania, none talk about working-class opposition. Quite a bit of opposition among government, party and military personnel throughout the socialist period, but not workers. There was some tribal unrest in 1945-46 in the north, fomented by Catholic clergymen.

"'In Albania, dissidents did not exist', Fatos Lubonja explained after the collapse of communism led to his release. 'There is a difference between a dissident and a victim of the régime. A dissident is someone who has the possibility to enlighten other people, to express his opinions, maybe to go to prison but to inspire others and to make a choice. While in Albania, we were just victims which means we did not inspire others but were instead people whose experiences instilled fear into others.' For those caught in the web of the Sigurimi, the experience was comparable with Stalin's Great Terror of the 1930s. Yet this régime of labour camps, arbitrary arrests, beatings and shooting continued until 1990, over three decades after Khrushchev's secret speech, five years after the death of the last old-style Soviet leader - and the Berlin Wall already a memory!" - Misha Glenny, The Balkans, 1999, p. 568.

"Intellectual revisionism of the type appearing in Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia is almost nonexistent." - Richard F. Staar, Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1988, p. 13. Another work claimed that in the 80s Albania was the only Eastern European country where disgraced members of the government or party were likely not just to be expelled, but executed as well.

[Five Year Plan]

I think if you looked at the files of the Sigurimi (are they open? I doubt they are.), you'd arrive at very different understanding of whether covert oppositional activity took place, rather than looking at public statements by government officials or citizens not wanting to be targeted by the state.

[Ismail]

Modern works, again, do not note any oppositional activity of note from the working-class. Certainly far, far less than the Bolsheviks faced, or the revisionist regimes faced (of course the content of such opposition was different.) There were no strikes, for instance.

[Five Year Plan]

Modern works, again, do not note any oppositional activity of note from the working-class. Certainly far, far less than the Bolsheviks faced, or the revisionist regimes faced (of course the content of such opposition was different.) There were no strikes, for instance.

Of course, if the files where oppositional activity (which would necessarily have to assume a highly covert character) would be noted are not open to researchers, researchers will not be able to remark upon oppositional activity, except reproduce official statements by the government, which as you might imagine have a vested interest in creating the image of total contentment.

I mean, the way you are depicting Albanian history, the popular discontent that aided in toppling the Alia government in 1990 and 1991 just occurred out of the blue, and had no precursors whatsoever, no culture or networks of covert resistance from which it was drawing. I just don't find it believable. I wonder what the government's explanation for the discontent was? Probably "outside agitation," which was the same argument Southern whites made about discontented blacks in the civil rights movement of the 1950s.

[Ismail]

I mean, the way you are depicting Albanian history, the popular discontent that aided in toppling the Alia government in 1990 and 1991 just occurred out of the blue, and had no precursors whatsoever, no culture or networks of covert resistance from which it was drawing. I just don't find it believable.And yet the fact is that there were no such networks or covert resistance. The events of 1990-1991 occurred due to a breakdown in state authority following the restoration of capitalism and the consequent economic breakdown. Again, if there was any opposition from the working-class in the 40s-80s, it was not significant. It is only necessary to compare the situation in Albania with pretty much every other Eastern European country.


I wonder what the government's explanation for the discontent was? Probably "outside agitation," which was the same argument Southern whites made about discontented blacks in the civil rights movement of the 1950s.It's also the same attack the Maoists use against Stalin, accusing him of "police methods" and of viewing every danger to socialism as originating from outside sources.

[Five Year Plan]

And yet the fact is that there were no such networks or covert resistance.

The absence of (openly available evidence) is not the evidence of absence, Ismail. The fact is, a large security apparatus like Sigurimi would not have been necessary if covert resistance were unthinkable or virtually non-existent. This goes without saying, and would only be denied by people with a vested interesting in shilling for said state apparatus.

[Ismail]

The absence of (openly available evidence) is not the evidence of absence, Ismail. The fact is, a large security apparatus like Sigurimi would not have been necessary if covert resistance were unthinkable or virtually non-existent. This goes without saying, and would only be denied by people with a vested interesting in shilling for said state apparatus.Covert resistance obviously did exist, hence the various plots among governmental, political, military and cultural figures, as well as outright attempts to overthrow the state by force (e.g. the USA and UK airdropping counter-revolutionaries in the late 40s and early 50s.) But among the working-class? Again, nothing of note.

You're pretty much engaging in wishful thinking. I don't see the point in going on about this.

[Five Year Plan]

Covert resistance obviously did exist, hence the various plots among governmental, political, military and cultural figures, as well as outright attempts to overthrow the state by force (e.g. the USA and UK airdropping counter-revolutionaries in the late 40s and early 50s.) But among the working-class? Again, nothing of note.

Nothing that the state would "note" openly, you mean. Again, the files of the Sigurimi would determine this definitively, but as I said, they are almost certainly closed to researchers. I wonder why?

EDIT: Oh, here's a story I found just on a quick google search: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/09/13/uk-albania-spies-idUKGOR32900320080913

[Ismail]

Nothing that the state would "note" openly, you mean. Again, the files of the Sigurimi would determine this definitively, but as I said, they are almost certainly closed to researchers. I wonder why?Obviously because they'd reveal the formation of the Trotskyist League of Albania, which had half a million members at the time of its first congress in 1960 and kept Hoxha awake at night dreading the workers' revolution.


EDIT: Oh, here's a story I found just on a quick google search: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/09/13/uk-albania-spies-idUKGOR32900320080913What about it?

[Five Year Plan]

Obviously because they'd reveal the formation of the Trotskyist League of Albania, which had half a million members at the time of its first congress in 1960 and kept Hoxha awake at night dreading the workers' revolution.

What about it?

Who said anything about Trotskyists? That's a way for you to avoid the obvious: in a society with a sprawling surveillance apparatus geared toward suppression dissent, open expressions of political discontent by workers are not likely to occur except in cases where the regime is already teetering. The state, under its pretense of being "socialist," will not acknowledge worker discontent. This creates a dearth of reliable evidence about what worker discontent, if any, existed. (The public pronouncements of the state, with its vested interests, are not reliable on this issue. They want to project the image of happy workers in a workers socialist paradise.) The set of sources that researchers would have to look to have been sealed for over twenty years, and, according to speculation, has already been sanitized in any event, its most self-incriminating records supposedly destroyed.

What was the prison population of Albania in the 1970s and 1980s, out of curiosity?

[Ismail]

Again, one need only see what happened in the rest of Eastern Europe to understand the differences between the revisionist, state-capitalist regimes there and the socialist system in Albania.


What was the prison population of Albania in the 1970s and 1980s, out of curiosity?According to a 1985 estimate (cited in a bourgeois work, Human Rights in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, 1990, p. 49), 32,000, but according to a 1989 estimate it was in the four digits. The population of Albania was about 2.5 million at this time.

[Five Year Plan]

Again, one need only see what happened in the rest of Eastern Europe to understand the differences between the revisionist, state-capitalist regimes there and the socialist system in Albania.

I don't know what differences you have in mind here. Albania fit the pattern of Eastern Europe revolutions, with the only major difference being how belated it was (in terms of months, not years), as a result of the relative cultural and political isolation which the Hoxha and Alia regimes imposed on the population.

[Ismail]

I don't see how there was "political and cultural isolation." Concerning the subject at hand, Albanian media covered the unrest occurring in Poland in the 70s and 80s, pointing out that both the Polish regime and Solidarity should be opposed while at the same time stating that only the working-class could save Poland through the establishment of a vanguard and Marxist-Leninist trade unions. They covered various negative phenomenons existing in the other Eastern European countries as a way of contrasting what was taking place in them from Albania. When 1989 rolled around said media (according to one source) were fairly detailed in their reporting of events. They referred to them as examples of counter-revolutions within counter-revolutions (a term hitherto used to describe movements like Solidarity), because they resulted in the loss of various gains won by the workers in the first few years after WWII while obviously not overthrowing capitalism in these countries.

[Five Year Plan]

I don't see how there was "political and cultural isolation." Concerning the subject at hand, Albanian media covered the unrest occurring in Poland in the 70s and 80s, pointing out that both the Polish regime and Solidarity should be opposed while at the same time stating that only the working-class could save Poland through the establishment of a vanguard and Marxist-Leninist trade unions. They covered various negative phenomenons existing in the other Eastern European countries as a way of contrasting what was taking place in them from Albania. When 1989 rolled around said media (according to one source) were fairly detailed in their reporting of events. They referred to them as examples of counter-revolutions within counter-revolutions (a term hitherto used to describe movements like Solidarity), because they resulted in the loss of various gains won by the workers in the first few years after WWII while obviously not overthrowing capitalism in these countries.

Do you have a neutral source on the Albanian state media's coverage of the Eastern Europe revolutions? I would like to read that.

[Ismail]

My source is safely anti-communist, so you should have no problem with it.

From Biberaj, Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy, 1997, pp. 28-29:

It linked Eastern Europe's internal problems with what it termed "revisionist" policies and betrayal of socialism. In a speech to the Eighth Plenum of the PLA Central Committee in September 1989, Alia called for greater vigilance against the dangers of revisionism and the restoration of capitalism in Albania, and added:

"We have not opened up. We do not open up or close up. Nor do we make changes under anyone else's influence. . . . [W]e will never retreat, no matter what the circumstances may be, in certain directions. We will never permit the weakening of the common socialist property. We will never permit that the way be opened to the return to private property and capitalist exploitation. We will never permit the weakening of the people's authority, the weakening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the same way that we have never and will never share power with any antipopular force. We will never relinquish and will never permit the weakening of the leadership role of our Marxist-Leninist party for the sake of the so-called pluralism dished out by the bourgeoisie."

The official media insisted that the Communists in Albania enjoyed legitimacy, because they had come to power on their own, in contrast to the Communists in the Warsaw Pact countries, who were installed in power by the Soviet Red Army. Vangjel Moisiu, in an article deploring the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, argued that political pluralism and socialism were incompatible, adding that the sanctioning of opposition parties would contradict "the basic principles of socialism and Marxist-Leninist theory."Likewise on page 32 the author states that, "The 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe did not take the Albanian regime or population by surprise" and "Albanians were well informed about developments in the region." In part this was because they had pretty easy access to Yugoslav and Italian radio and TV (which was tolerated), but also because, as Biberaj notes in an earlier work (Albania: A Socialist Maverick, 1990, p. 104): "The Albanian media provided unusually detailed and objective reporting on the upheaval in Eastern Europe. The Tiranë government was among the first to denounce former Romanian dictator Nicolaie Ceausescu and recognize the new government."

[Five Year Plan]

Yes, if you define communism as what existed in Hoxha's Albania, then I am "anti-communist" and would want to seek "anti-communist" sources. Now that you post those sources, I do recall that bits of information about Italian and Yugoslav television/radio.

All of my earlier points, however, stand.