Enver Hoxha

[rice349]

Enver Hoxha, perhaps a rather unknown and lesser-talked about leader when compared to Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, he had quite an impressive resume in creating a socialist state in Eastern Europe that, upon the revisionist betrayal of Khruschev, broke away from the Warsaw Pact and sided with the PRC after the sino-soviet split.

It's interesting to think of some of the achievements that were accomplished during Hoxha's leadership. After Hoxha's and the Albanian Party of Labour's assuming of power, the government led Albania to becoming one of the fastest growing industrialized states in the Eastern Bloc.

Some of the more impressive achievements under Hoxha included:
successful collectivization of farmland from the wealthy peasantry which helped make Albania almost completely self-reliant; brought essential utilities such as running water and electricity to all corners of the nation, aided in stopping the spread of disease and brought an end to the number of ethnic conflicts which plagued the area for centuries.

Your thoughts and opinions?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I heard from somebody who'd spent time there that Hoxha turned Albania into a veritable pillbox - was absolutely certain that the revisionists were going to invade at any moment.
Given Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe, vis-a-vis the behavior of the Warsaw Pact countries, I suppose I don't really blame him for being a touch paranoid about that, mind you.
What I'm curious about is the shape of political expression under Hoxha - the organization of the government and his own party, of unions, participation of the working class at large in political matters . . . if you could post an outline, I'd be mad-thankful. I'm quite curious.

[rice349]

Yes, it is true that Hoxha and the Albanian Party of Labour was quite concerned with an invasion of the revisionist powers, in fact, after their own split with the Chinese, they basically lay in political isolation from the rest of the communist bloc. I've been to Albania as well and i've seen the little bunkers that Hoxha had built for protection from a possible invasion. While i'm not quite sure of the organization or political situation under Hoxha other than that it operated in a more bureaucratic form similar to that of stalin. Hoxha himself as a great admirer of Stalin and modeled Albania similar to the Soviet Union prior to Khruschev.

[Hiero]

Did Hoxha criticise Mao. I think i read that he said there never were any Marxist Leninist in the Communist Party China.

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

Enver Hoxha Refuted (http://website.lineone.net/~partisan_britain/ISML/isml05/isml0505.html) by N. Sanmugathasan, General Secretary, Ceylon Communist Party

Originally published in A World To Win magazine, giving a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analysis of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania's line.



The death of Stalin and the usurpations of power by the Khrushchovite revisionists in the Soviet Party and State struck a deadly blow at the monolithic unity of the international communist movement which had been built up under Stalin. Besides, the ideological rift between Marxism-Leninism and Modern Revisionism completely sundered both the organisational and ideological unity of the international communist movement. New Marxist-Leninist parties that repudiated Khrushchovite revisionism sprung up everywhere. They looked for leadership to the glorious Communist Party of China, led by Comrade Mao Tsetung, which had remained steadfast in its defence of Marxism-Leninism and had launched polemical battles in its defence.

Perhaps this was the most opportune time to revive the Communist International. But the opportunity was not taken. The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party seem to have considered that the time was not yet ripe for such a venture, and confined themselves to bilateral exchanges between parties. Their later practice of recognising more than one party in a country as Marxist-Leninist did not help unity of Marxist-Leninist forces on the national level. Instead, it proved to be divisive. For its part, the Party of Labour of Albania recognised only one party in a country as Marxist-Leninist. But it had no clear-cut or principled norms.

The only opportunity that delegates from Marxist-Leninist parties and groups got to meet each other was at national congresses of the Parties of China and Albania. In respect to China, that opportunity, too, ceased with the 9th Congress, when the Chinese Communist Party ceased its practice of inviting fraternal delegates from other parties to its congress. It also discontinued the practice of sending its delegates to Congresses of other fraternal parties. No official explanation has been given for these actions.

Perhaps, the absence of an international forum for Marxist-Leninists was felt most when, immediately following the death of Mao, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party slid into the slime of modern revisionism and put forward the utterly revisionist theory of the 'Three Worlds' as a strategic weapon for the international communist movement.

Undoubtedly, a large number of Marxist-Leninist parties and groups - and, foremost, the Party of Labour of Albania - came forward to denounce the revisionist theory of the Three Worlds. But, instead of uniting these forces firmly and posing a formidable front to both Soviet and Chinese revisionism, the Party of Labour of Albania further disunited these forces by dragging still further in the mud the flag of Mao Tsetung Thought, which had been flung into the mud by the Chinese revisionists. The Albanian Party had the chance of picking up the banner of Mao Tsetung Thought from the mud into which the Chinese revisionists had thrown it and to unite all the genuine Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries round that banner. Instead, they chose to do the opposite. Using the influence of their State power, they subverted a number of undoubtedly revolutionary forces into the false position of opposing Mao Tsetung Thought and led them into the political wilderness where they are floundering.

Why did the Albanian Party do this! This will probably remain an enigma. But the magnitude of their treason can only be understood if one realises the magnificent potential that existed in 1977 and that was not tapped because of the disruption by the Albanian Party.


....

Enver Hoxha is trying to trace the origins of the revisionism of the present Chinese leadership back to Mao. He seems to ignore the fact that Teng Hsiao-ping has reversed all the correct decisions of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and is seeking to erase the entire period of Mao's leadership of the Chinese Party as a bad dream. Even the rehabilitation of Liu Shao-chi, whose denunciation as a capitalist-roader by Mao has the approval of Enver Hoxha (in his book Reflections on China), has not woken up Enver Hoxha to face realities. Perhaps, only the expected open denunciation of Mao by the next Congress of the Chinese Party alone can completely expose the political bankruptcy of Enver Hoxha. Surely, it must be clear even to the meanest intellect that if Teng Hsiao-ping's revisionism springs from Mao, Teng could not be so venomously opposed to Mao and everything he stood for.

Enver Hoxha accuses Mao of being an idealist and a metaphysicist. But, in fact, it is Enver who is guilty of that charge. Let us illustrate this by the way he approaches the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which is, perhaps, one of the greatest revolutionary events that has ever happened. In calling this great event as being neither great, nor proletarian nor cultural nor a revolution, Enver Hoxha displays not merely total ignorance of what the revolution is all about, but also displays his mechanical, metaphysical attitude.


Read the rest here: http://website.lineone.net/~partisan_brita...5/isml0505.html (http://website.lineone.net/~partisan_britain/ISML/isml05/isml0505.html)