– N. Ribar –
Where to begin when writing about the extensive and rich all-encompassing work of Comrade Enver Hoxha, that leader of a small country and people who, so many times, seemingly accomplished the impossible? Mentioning impossible feats, it seems to me impossible to answer such a question adequately in the span of a short article. Indeed, for such a thing as an in-depth Marxist dialectical analysis of the life and work of Comrade Enver Hoxha, entire volumes of scientific work would have to be dedicated. In lieu of such an approach, I have decided to write down some preliminary thoughts that come to my mind when thinking about Comrade Enver Hoxha.
As the First Secretary of the CC of the Party of Labour of Albania’s voice was choking up as he concluded his speech at the funeral of Comrade Enver sombrely with “Lamtumirë, shoku Enver” (“Goodbye, Comrade Enver”) and “Të rrojë Partia” (“Long live the Party”) suddenly all that could be heard in Skanderbeg Square and throughout the whole of Albania was the outburst of an immortal, militant slogan. “Party-Enver, Jemi Gati Kurdoherë!” — Party-Enver, We are Ready Any Time — chanted the Young Pioneers of Enver at the top of their lungs, tears streaming down their cheeks. This slogan represented the strivings for further successes along the socialist construction, their devoted stand towards their Party, and their determination to do whatever it took, smashing every obstacle and barricade, to create a bright future for themselves and for the working class of all nations. What better way to honour our beloved Comrade Enver Hoxha than to seal an article about him with this slogan, which meant so much to him and to the millions he loved! What better way to pay tribute to that man who only ever filled our hearts with joy! What better way for me to address myself to that man whose exhaustive writings were and are a real school to me!
Leader of the Albanian People
Comrade Enver Hoxha was born on October 16, 1908, in Gjirokastra, southern Albania, at that time part of the Ottoman Empire. This is not the place for a biographical exposition of his upbringing or how he came to become a communist revolutionary; that is enshrined in his many pages of memoirs and in the stories that his many friends and comrades shared about him. But it is worth noting that patriotism ran in his blood, and not just because he was an Albanian, but directly.
First and foremost, he was always a son of his heroic people, the ancient people, the Albanians. All the foremost Albanologists as well as the scientific experience accumulated by the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania have declared, based mainly on unerring linguistic and cultural connections, that the Albanian people are the descendants of the ancient Illyrian peoples, who had lived on a massive stretch of Europe from modern Germany to the Ukraine for at least a millennium B.C., were driven south by the migration of Slavs into parts of land which today touch Serbia, Greece, Macedonia and Montenegro. The name “Albanian” itself derives from Albanoi, the ancient Illyrian tribe. The Albanians are, therefore, easily one of the oldest peoples in Europe. This did not prevent the Byzantine hordes and, later, the Ottoman hordes, from occupying her, but neither did the Albanians ever take it laying down. The Albanian flag today, the double-headed eagle, derives from the symbol of the Kastrioti family — a family with more than one national hero, but most prominently Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg. Poised to be a military leader from an early age on orders of the Sultans, on November 28, 1443 he returned to his beloved Albania, to the then-capital Kruja, and began a glorious rebellion for national independence that would last nearly four decades. Small Albania defended not only herself, but all Europe from Ottoman advance — and despite being disadvantaged severely in weaponry and personnel, the aggressors were defeated by the Albanians in dozens of battles and many campaigns. Fast forward four centuries, and the Albanians, still under the Ottoman yoke but still with that ardent flame in their heart for independence, launched their League of Prizren in 1878, headed by Naim Frashëri. This began the Albanian National Renaissance, the work of the intellectuals to end the brutal spiritual devastation caused by the occupiers. Though the National Renaissance had its roots first and foremost in enlightenment, it also rooted itself deeply in the customs and traditions of the Albanian people, illuminating for the first time a coherent national culture. Though this did not in and of itself bring independence, it rapidly accelerated the movement for it — and on November 28, 1912, 469 years to the day since Skanderbeg began his popular uprising, the Congress of Vlora declared an independent Albania, with Ismail Qemali at the head. Old Ismail Qemali’s keen ability to grasp the key link in all developments foresaw that the First Balkan War created ripe conditions for the launching of such a movement. He never backed down to anyone — not to the imperialists, and he bluntly, along with another patriot Isa Boletini, told the English Foreign Secretary Grey that they would never, ever accept Albania’s division by the imperialists again. Skanderbeg, Naim Frashëri and Ismail Qemali — this was the national patriotic tradition Comrade Enver Hoxha was born into. Time was to confirm that his stature would be raised higher than all three of these great men of pure virtue.
After the Albanian people took state power into their own hands, Comrade Enver Hoxha famously took up the question of religion by restating the line of the National Renaissance poet Pashko Vasa: “The only religion of Albania is Albanianism!” This single line expressed the entire determination of the Albanian people for national independence, to see the light of a free nation. A great people, who were neither Muslim, nor Catholic, nor Orthodox, had been split up by imperialist-imposed religions for centuries, whether by the Ottomans, Byzantines or Constantinople. This doctrine of “divide and rule” was despised by all Albanian men of culture — as such, religion remained a lymph node on the people, to be cut off by their struggle. Comrade Enver Hoxha had this in his blood, as I have stated. His patriotic uncle, Hysen Hoxha, whom Comrade Enver Hoxha referred to as “my father” in his memoirs, was a delegate from the Gjirokastra region to the great Congress of Vlora, and remained a dedicated atheist all his life. He hated all splitting of his one nation, the Albanian nation, as did his nephew, who was filled with just as much patriotism and love for his people.
And oh how Comrade Enver Hoxha loved his people indeed! In the moments before his passing, his patriotic spirit was so intense that he would not allow a foreign doctor to come to Albania. This patriotic spirit only grew over time, rather than lessened. And while, eventually, some of the doctors on his team did consult foreign doctors, his behest was carried out — no foreign doctor came to Albania to treat Comrade Enver Hoxha. He was no Tsar, no Kralj, as some modern revisionists craved to be so intensely: his dignity came from being one with his people, in seeing them build up their new and happy life and to live with their heads held high, never to be oppressed or exploited by foreign or local reaction ever again. These were the aims that guided all of his activity.
On October 28, 1941, Comrade Enver Hoxha organized the three communist groups — that of Korça, Shkodra and the “Youth” Group — and the masses of Tirana into a massive anti-fascist demonstration in what is today Skanderbeg Square. The ruthless Italian carabinieri attacked the demonstrators without fail. That day, many who did not know Comrade Enver Hoxha and would not know him for quite some time saw a tall comrade seize the commander of the fascist police and strike him down in one blow. Such a tall comrade would prove to the Albanian communists that, despite what some internal Trotskyites were saying, it was possible to defeat the fascists relying purely on their own forces. That tall, fearless comrade was Comrade Enver Hoxha.
The demonstration of October 28 sent resounding sentiments throughout all of Albania that a powerful act of resistance had been undertaken. It gave impetuses to all to carry out the revolutionary struggle for national liberation. It was no coincidence that the most vital act for the carrying out of this struggle was issued just over a week later on November 8, 1941. A modest home in a small quarter of Tirana that night served as a lightning rod to organize the new movement. As Comrade Enver Hoxha describes in his book When the Party Was Born, in that small home a fierce struggle went on with the vacillant and opportunist elements, mainly “Qorri” and “Xhepi” from the “Youth” Group, old renegades in contact with the Greek Trotskyite trend known as the archieo-Marxists. Comrade Enver Hoxha, the de facto leader of the Korça Group, as a true master of communist conduct, separated the mass members of the “Youth” Group from these renegade leaders, and with the support of the Shkodra Group led by Comrades Vasil Shanto and Qemal Stafa, forged the new Party. Comrade Enver Hoxha was elected organizing secretary, and at the 1st Conference some months later, was named General Secretary of the Communist Party of Albania. At the founding meeting he declared “The Communist Party of Albania has been founded unanimously. Long live the Communist Party of Albania!” Then all the participants rose to their feet and, with the house illuminated by kerosene light, keeping their voices low, sang The Internationale and then chanted over and over again in the same way: “Long live the Bolshevik Party!”, “Long live Stalin!”, “Glory to Marx, Engels, Lenin!”, “Down with fascism!”, “Long live our heroic people!”
Thus, the fighting detachment of the Albanian working class, which would be thrown into hundreds upon hundreds of tests challenging its fortitude, was born. Cadre training and party-building was organized immediately, foreseeing the necessity for a protracted partisan war. In late 1942, the first partisan çetas were organized and the heroic Albanian people, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head and facing a monster of an enemy armed to the teeth, went into the mountains with their 1920s guns and a couple bullets in their bags and began the National Liberation War. First, they fought the Italian fascists and resoundingly defeated them, and organized the deserters into the Antonio Gramsci Battalion of the army; second, they fought the advanced German nazi war machine and expelled them all from Albania. This was done entirely by their own efforts — the 100,000 combined soldiers the nazi-fascists sent to crush the resistance were doomed to failure. Comrade Enver Hoxha once again confirmed that it is the people who decide the outcome of wars, not the imperialists, the aggressors or the nazi-fascists, no matter how big their guns or superior their technology.
But this was not the only challenge the people’s movement in Albania faced. It also came up against the internal feudal lords and bourgeoisie, those social strata who sided wholly with the occupier. The Balli Kombëtar (literally “National Front”), an Albanian “nationalist” organization, was founded directly to challenge the influence of the Communist Party of Albania and the National Liberation Front upon the masses. Deceiving them with pseudo-patriotic slogans, especially in the North, it was able to win a section of the backwards peasantry to their side and support the nazi occupation government as an “independent” unified state of Albania. At this time, there were not a few “patriots” and even “communists” within the National Liberation Front who wanted to take the approach that they should “mend what can be mended, and let time mend the rest” with regards to the Ballists. Comrade Enver Hoxha opposed all compromises with the traitors to the people, the nazi executioners responsible for the misery of the Albanian people. There was also another organization set up to represent a different group of the bourgeoisie dissatisfied with national liberation — the Legaliteti, who advocated for the return of Ahmet Zogu, the former “King of Albania” from 1924 until the Italian invasion of 1938. This section, too, advocated for collaboration with the Ballists and occupationists, and later on became direct agents in the Anglo-American imperialist scheme to occupy the North of Albania and split the country up into two, with the intent of isolating the National Liberation Front in the South. Comrade Enver Hoxha opposed collaboration with this other group of national traitors too — and in this lies a contribution to the treasury of the science of Marxism-Leninism: his unique and creative elaboration of our proletarian ideology to Albanian specificities posited that, despite the feudal and backwards state of Albania, because of the stand that the bourgeoisie took, it was the task of the workers and peasants to form their own state and liquidate that parasitic social class. He did not go about revolution blindly, sticking to mere general principles of the Comintern, because if he did, and they attempted to collaborate with a non-existent “national bourgeoisie,” it would have meant ruin to the revolution and the ridiculous notion of talking behind closed doors with collaborators instead of waging struggle against them. Thus was Comrade Enver Hoxha!
If the reader would permit me, I would like to take a short deviation to tell a story about how Comrade Enver Hoxha treated traitors, cowards and collaborators. Though his book The Anglo-American Threat to Albania is filled with such characters, spies sent by British intelligence to wreck havoc on the National Liberation War, one of the worst was a certain General Davies. Amidst an arduous and long period where the partisans were on the road, got lost due to snow and rough weather, were cut off by nazis in their paths, etc., this exasperated cosmopolitan, who was without his biscuits and cookies, was angered and declared all hope was lost, that they would all be wise to surrender. Comrade Enver Hoxha denounced him on the spot, stating that from the moment he came to the front he was nothing but a dead weight on the morale and material supplies of the partisans, that he was a coward and that he may surrender but they would never. How characteristic! Realizing his massive lapse in judgement, General Davies begged for forgiveness, and the comrades begrudgingly allowed him to attach himself to them for a certain time. Not long after this incident, they were out of the woods and the mountains and into the warm hospitality of the simple people, homes where the people themselves protected the partisans from the fascists. Davies, amazed at the look and feel of these small Albanian homes and the acts of these brave people, attempted to cloak himself in an obsequious manner for some time. The cowardous British bourgeois was nothing for the battle-hardened yet pure and virtuous heart of the Albanian masses. Eventually, he was the coward he seemed to be and surrendered to the German nazis without a bullet.
That short diversion aside, in connection with a stand of principle during the war, on May 24, 1944, the National Liberation Front met to lay the foundations of the new people’s state. I will not go into depth here on the Congress of Përmet — as Comrade Enver Hoxha has done that already in his book Laying the Foundations of the New Albania. But what I will mention is that this Congress took a great decision which meant the end of the centuries-old national humiliation that such an heroic people were subjected to by foreigners. It stated categorically that it would never recognize any loans, debt or otherwise coercive agreement with any outside power made in the past by Zogu or anyone else who claimed to represent the Albanian people. This bold and courageous step was the cornerstone of postwar Albanian state policy, and one which the U.S. and British imperialists in particular would never forgive Comrade Enver Hoxha for. He always said: when all the enemies attack you, you are on the right road.
On November 29, 1944, the Albanian Anti-Fascist National Liberation Army cleared Tirana from the nazi occupiers and Ballist scum who had laid waste to Albania and the new Democratic Government marched into the capital, with Comrade Enver Hoxha in the lead. It was on this historic moment, in his speech to the people, that he declared the red banner of Vlora, raised so high by Ismail Qemali and the patriots of his time, unsullied, as the ever-lasting and historic banner of the Albanian people, the Albanian workers and peasants, who would continue to aid fraternal peoples in liberating their countries, conduct a nation-building project from the interior including a land reform based on the principle of “land to those who till it” and implement a peaceful state policy postwar.
Both up to that point and after, anyone who raised their hand against the Party, the communists or the people, had to face Comrade Enver Hoxha. From Niko Xoxi and his “theory of cadres,” claiming that the communists should not interact with the masses until capitalism had been built, to Qorri and Xhepi, who had approximately the same outlook, or to the Trotskyite Zai Fundo, who was captured by the National Liberation Army while fighting as a nazi, to Sejfulla Malëshova, that “excellent” Bukharinite theoretician who was nothing but a windbag that spoke for the bourgeoisie, to Koçi Xoxe and his followers, who attempted to overthrow the People’s Republic of Albania and turn it into the 7th Republic of Yugoslavia, to Koço Tashko, the lifelong coward who bowed before his Khrushchevite masters, to Beqir Balluku, who had his “theory of slipping away,” stipulating that the Albanian Army should vacate the cities in the case of an invasion and rely on Ceausescu Romania and Tito Yugoslavia, to Abdyl Këllezi, who attempted to introduce Titoite self-administration into the economy, and to Mehmet Shehu, a long-time agent in the pay of the CIA, KGB, SIS and UDB, who had conspired in every plot up to that point as an old agent of the Gestapo and Harry Fultz, the American academian in Tirana during Zogu’s time. In all of these cases, Comrade Enver Hoxha lived up to that magnificent song the people sung and still sing about him: “Enver Hoxha took up the fight, Once again to put things right…” And put things right he did. His slogan “Always Vigilant!” was a clarion call to the whole country to be aware of these internal bandits who, conspiring with foreign powers, wanted to liquidate socialism and the people’s gains.
Two main weapons the external and internal enemies used against socialist Albania were bureaucracy and liberalism. Comrade Enver Hoxha regarded these trends not as having their source in the socialist relations of production, which were free of exploitation of persons by persons, but in the backwards elements, carry-overs from feudo-bourgeois society, as well as of the imperialist blockades and the enemies they send. On the one hand, bureaucracy hid behind socialist slogans but in fact hindered progress by demeaning all that was truly progressive, trying to excessively tie down the youth and regiment them as strictly as war barracks. In this way, reaction gains a foothold to preach “liberal plurality” and “freedom” as opposed to “totalitarian communism.” Such bureaucrats were those of the calibre of Mehmet Shehu, for whom the younger generation could do nothing right. But there was also the more damaging trend of liberalism. Albania, despite what has been alleged in the minds of its slanderers, was no isolated country — much of the population had access to bourgeois-revisionist television and culture. And, moreover, some renegades thought outside cosmopolitanism was something to replicate in the country. The radio-television national song competition in 1972 was an enemy attempt, with a renegade by the name of Toni Lubonja at the head, to introduce modernist and bourgeois artistic influences into the country — shameless, content-less, vulgar music in content was combined with everything base in form, including songs replicating well-known Anglo-American rock bands. Comrade Enver Hoxha fought both against the strict regimentation of society and against the anarchist-liberal ideology that preached the soul and mind “free of society” — and for a consciously educated population in the spirit of the class struggle.
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s fight for the new school is one of the most fantastic achievements in his time. As the ideological and cultural revolution was ramping up, as the great spirit of the masses formed one gust of wind crushing all obscurantism and reaction, new directives for a new genuinely socialist school had to be issued to meet the needs and demands of the next generations. In this situation, it was Comrade Enver Hoxha personally, once a teacher himself at the lyceum in Korça, who elaborated these theses and set the schools on the correct Marxist-Leninist path. He taught that not only should the schools teach Marxism-Leninism as a subject, as they had been, but it should run as a red thread through all of the subjects — that there was no subject, no class, which had nothing to learn by studying the science of society, dialectical materialism. These were major shifts in content. In form, Comrade Enver Hoxha warned against the prevailing dictatorial professor who thinks he is above the students and, indeed, above reproach by anyone. No, the school did not need such haughty academics, those who are just as pleased when someone fails as when someone passes. On the contrary, Comrade Enver Hoxha taught, if a student is disengaged, that is the fault of the lecturer who has not made the material relevant, brought out its full life in interconnection with ongoing developments. He also insisted that there should be discussion around whether quantitative marks, which are quite arbitrary and cause unnecessary distress for the students, should be replaced with qualitative assessments — i.e. answering the question: is the student able to competently perform the task they are being asked to do? This was not only a move away from unfair marking schemes, but also a step towards communist society, where quantitative incentives are replaced with qualitative incentives. This was the genius of Comrade Enver Hoxha — there was no question on which he avoided, there was no question which he believed was too big for a man of the people such as he. Because although he might not have been an expert in many academic subjects, he knew how to evaluate the way they are taught as a Marxist-Leninist, from the standpoint of the ideology of the proletariat, a universal and ever-important skill.
Not only was Comrade Enver Hoxha a man of the people; he was a man of the people in specific socio-historical times and conditions. His communist rigour established him to seamlessly evaluate the key link in each point in time, always navigating toward what was new and progressive, against what was old and outdated. This can be seen throughout all the slogans he issued:
More Culture for the People — during the National Liberation War, when there was a great lack of pens and paper, let alone schoolteachers, it was not an easy decision to issue the slogan that the people needed culture. Many asked: where are you to get this culture? How will you get culture without teachers? But Comrade Enver Hoxha responded, full of the revolutionary optimism which encapsulated his whole life, by stating resolutely that although the level of education as it was was extremely low, one teacher can train 30 people how to read, and 30 literates can train 900, and 900 to 27,000, and so on and so forth. And this is how it was done! What incredible faith in the people! What resolute determination in the face of everything thrown in the face of the communists during the National Liberation War!
The Masses Build Socialism, The Party Makes Them Conscious — although socialist relations had already been built in the main, this slogan issued in the early 1970s captures perfectly the deeply dialectical relationship between the communist party and the masses of people. Comrade Enver Hoxha knew that without leadership, the masses would degenerate into an unorganized force and the outside forces of reaction would quickly consume Albania. He also knew that the Party cannot build socialism by its own volition, that only the masses are able to build socialism. That is, the communists and non-communists alike, as labourers, as workers and peasants, have a common interest to build socialism, led by the communists as their advanced detachment. But as a man of social science, Comrade Enver Hoxha saw the Party as it was, as the most precious thing, as the leader and organizer of the new society.
Think, Work and Live Like Revolutionaries! — issued by Comrade Enver Hoxha at the Party of Labour of Albania’s 5th Congress in 1966, this slogan was a trailblazer for the masses to pick up their weapons, both mental and physical, and steel themselves continually. It was a call to the communists to never forget that no matter what they do, they must always be revolutionary in how they do it. What does it mean to think like a revolutionary? It means to always subordinate one’s thoughts to the interests of the class and its revolutionary ideology and philosophy, its fundamental guiding principles and to have fidelity above all to what society itself reveals. What does it mean to work like a revolutionary? It means to have exemplary self-discipline, to double and triple outputs for the good of the whole society, to be guided always by not only your individual interests but also the collective interests. What does it mean to live like a revolutionary? It means to be aware of bourgeois vices such as drugs and excessive alcohol, and to subject oneself to a lifestyle that is conducive to furthering one’s ability to serve the people — to temper oneself in an all-round way so as to embody the new socialist man coming into being through mass moulding.
These are just three of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s most important slogans, and among them there are dozens, if not hundreds and thousands! Many slogans require elaboration, but these slogans are simple, and such was always characteristic of Comrade Enver Hoxha. He, indeed, here was also a man of his beloved Albanian people, a simple people who have never had any need for “theory for theory’s sake,” for overtheorizing with the intent of impressing men with long beards. No, the people have always been clear. And they had a clear leader, a national leader, in Comrade Enver Hoxha.
A Renaissance Man
Today, I distinctly remember a certain moment when I was a schoolchild. In a history class, one of my teachers discussed the concept of so-called “Renaissance Men,” that is, men during the enlightenment period who were proficient across many different subjects. At the time, I was already aware of this history, but what was most revealing and important was the question he posited: “how come there are no renaissance men today?” I had, at that time, already been acquainted with the communist literature and knew precisely why that was. In the last days of feudalism, any progressive claim or statement was tantamount to sacrilegious blasphemy. But eventually, the productive forces outgrew such a theocratic ideology, and when the productive forces themselves rebelled against the feudal ruling relations and the new burst asunder, a great stream of new men, imbued with ideals of science and reason, were created. We, today, are not living in the latter, but the former. The old openly proclaims that it is the final stage of human development, that it is human nature, that any other society would lead to drastic deteriorations in human living standards — the only difference is that God has been replaced with the cult of private property. Such a society cannot spontaneously produce renaissance men as it did centuries ago.
But if we cannot find such men in modern capitalism, we can find them in modern communism. Comrade Enver Hoxha was such a man. Indeed, there was no field in Albania in which he did not leave his indelible impact.
First of all, and this should be obvious to everyone, Comrade Enver Hoxha was a master of politics, a foremost example in statesmanship. At the helm of a ship sailing the most turbulent seas, he was at the head of the new Albania, a society built relying on nobody and, indeed, times of an imperialist-revisionist all-sided blockade. How to manoeuvre in such a situation? How to keep calm and move ahead, even if the world did not want you to exist? These were the questions Comrade Enver Hoxha had to work out both in 1961 and in 1978, when the Soviets and Chinese blockaded Albania respectively, and it must be said that his contributions to Marxist-Leninist science on the thinking of a self-reliant economy, not only in foodstuffs but also light, electricity of the people and heavy industry, represented a great theoretical and practical step forward, and an experience for future generations to learn from. Throughout Comrade Enver Hoxha’s life, even the most well-known bourgeois were forced to admit his great skills in politics — among them were De Gaulle and Jimmy Carter.
Comrade Enver Hoxha was a man of science, both natural and social. Wherever there were archaeological excavations across Albania to understand more about an ancient people whose scientific capabilities had been stunted up until the people’s state power, he was on the frontlines of observing results and making conclusions from said results. In this way, Comrade Enver Hoxha showed himself to be a true natural scientist. Socially, he was an astute psychologist — all those who met him know precisely how he acted. Every move, every step, was calculated 10 moves in advance to inculcate the maximum positive response in the individual to whatever solution or problem he was talking to them about. While he was fierce with enemies, and there were many enemies to socialism, to party activists, to the masses of people, to foreign comrades and well-wishers, he was a scientist of human thinking, and used this to elicit the greatest human potential in each individual. Indeed, an entire book was published from Comrade Enver Hoxha’s writings titled About Science.
In history, Comrade Enver Hoxha was keenly interested in every development, but especially when it came to dealing with the history of his people, the Albanian people. Before the people’s state power, Albanology was a field for mainly western scientists to read a few dusty book about Albania and make their conclusions, possibly go to Albania but gather very little due to the backwardness of occupations and satrap regimes. But Comrade Enver Hoxha placed special emphasis on Albanians developing Albanology further. In this, he stated: Albanian history for Albanians! And how correct this was! It came from no place of xenophobia, where interested foreigners could not study Albania — no — it was to say that a new, highly cultured people should study their own past primarily. And this yielded incredible fruits. Comrade Enver Hoxha and Albania’s top historians, in coordination with many branches of social science, determined the definitive continuity of Albanians from the Illyrians and proved that they are an autochthonous people on the land they live.
He was, of course, a master of art, literature and culture generally. His most prominent writings on this topic are assembled into his book On Literature and Art, where he provided guidance of a high ideo-political content to the people’s artists to carry out work more suited to the masses of people and not to intellectuals who stay within the four walls of their university lecture halls. He opposed both conservatism and liberalism, modernism and reaction — one, he said, overrates tradition, proclaims it to be everything; while the other wholly foresakes tradition and pushes for an “internationalization of culture,” by which the colonial countries are robbed of all patriotic culture. Comrade Enver Hoxha instead posited a dialectical unity of tradition and socialist content, using the correct formula gained from the Soviet experience: “national in form, socialist in content.” All that was progressive in the past should be kept, while all that is negative should be discarded once and for all. And this was not decided by self-proclaimed high ideals, but by the working class themselves as supreme judges of all culture — artists must get inspired not by beautiful imaginations, but by reality as they see it unfolding around them, resembling the people’s struggles for social liberation. The people do not want deformed nonsense — they want to see the beautiful life they are building. This is what Comrade Enver Hoxha contributed to the Marxist-Leninist aesthetes.
There are so many other topics Comrade Enver Hoxha knew so keenly, but which do not have the deserved space in this article. Even mathematics, which he very much disliked in his youth and, while he was studying at Montpellier, even skipped out on lectures (as he details in his book Years of My Youth), became his top concern later in life, especially when needing to understand and work out specificities of the Five-Year Plans without credits. He truly was a Renaissance Man in every sense of the term.
International Significance
What does Comrade Enver Hoxha mean to the rest of the world? This is a difficult question to answer, because, put quite simply, it meant different things at different times. One could go through various breaks, and some, indeed, remain important today. But I think it most important to focus on those acts which were of the greatest aid to proletarian internationalism, his greatest contributions to the world struggle which he carried out so selflessly. Indeed, it is true he had an unbounded love for other peoples and hoped to see them all join the socialist camp, where they would be united in unbreakable fraternal bonds.
One such decision worthy of so much recognition but receiving so little, is his decision, as Commander-in-Chief of the National Liberation Army, to send the 5th and 6th Divisions into Yugoslavia to help liberate brotherly peoples after the Albanians had already liberated themselves from the nazi-fascist yoke. They jointly liberated, together with the heroic Yugoslav partisans, entire regions of Kosova, Sandžak and southern Bosnia, for which 600 brave heroes fell in battle. This tremendous internationalist aid, and that of a small country for a country about twenty times the size, was proof of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s deep love for the Yugoslav peoples. At the time he assigned these two divisions to this task, he stated that they were undertaking this duty because it was an obligation of all Marxist-Leninists, of all communists, to provide for friends whenever they can. On the contrary, those who aimed non-stop for decades to cover up this act and to slander him as an anti-Yugoslav chauvinist were guilty of opposing internationalism and upholding great-state chauvinism themselves. Albania never received so much as a thank you for these deeds, no less the honour it deserves.
Another aid provided for a brotherly people was Albania’s resolute stand in the Korean War. Neither economically, nor politically, nor particularly militarily, could small Albania, so many kilometres away from brotherly Korea, provide direct support. In complete honesty, Albania itself was lacking in all these things at that time. But what was always there was the moral fortitude, that conviction which would make the Albanians world-renown for decades as upstanding internationalists who would support any progressive cause that sprung up. This effort, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, inspired such great works of the people as follows:
We harvested wheat in Albania,
Stacked high the golden grain
And made stores of provisions.
But our eyes were turned toward faraway Korea
Where live our brothers and friends,
Who love their homeland
And will never submit to the bonds of slavery.
And still today Korea does not and never will submit, always striving for the much deserved reunification of their homeland, sabotaged over and over again by the U.S. imperialist occupation forces. This was no one-off phenomena for Comrade Enver Hoxha — it was a matter of principle, as I have said. Which is why when Vietnam was carrying out its national liberation war, a war the whole progressive world supported against the largest power in the world which wanted so badly a puppet state in Southeast Asia, Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha in the lead extended their most sincere fraternal solidarity in struggle, and this time were able to provide modest aid comparative to their size as a nation to help the war effort. Or, later, when the people of Iran overthrew the U.S.-installed oil dictator Shah Pavlavi. Comrade Enver Hoxha was no purist, and he understood very well that his views and that of someone like Ayatollah Khomeini were at odds, especially with regards to the emancipation of women, but he recognized the historically progressive role of the Iranian revolution in spite of these sometimes severe disagreements. Against the intrigues of Iraq and various other puppets of imperialism, Iran stood steadfast in their national sovereignty against the two superpowers, to which socialist Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha always provided support and congratulations.
Comrade Enver Hoxha also wrote many entries in his diaries about the friendly Greek people, with whom Albania shares a border and which has an Albanian minority, just as Greece has an Albanian minority. These were assembled into an entire book entitled Two Friendly Peoples. His upbringing in Gjirokastra, close to the Greek border, certainly made an impression on him from an early age. His love of the Greek people stemmed from their ancient history, their art and traditions, their rich philosophic background, which Comrade Enver Hoxha has written about extensively, and more. In these notes, he proved that though Greece remained very hostile to Albania, indeed in a state of war, for many years after the Second World War, not even that act was a barrier for Comrade Enver Hoxha in recognizing the beauty and virtues of a fraternal people.
But aid for Albania did not simply consist of congratulations or sentiments, or even of sending men. The aid Comrade Enver Hoxha provided to the world was mainly in his defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism. The story of the rise of the Khrushchevites is told well in his book of memoirs The Khrushchevites, and the particular issues arising from the 20th Congress in his Congress of Betrayal and the issues of 1960 are elaborated in Through the Pages of Volume 19 of the Works of Comrade Enver Hoxha, so this is neither the place to elaborate on how the Khrushchev group came into being, nor would such an effort be wise here. But, in essence, through the theses of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, the proletarian revolution was replaced by a peaceful parliamentary road and the peaceful coexistence between states was replaced by the peaceful competition between social systems. Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania never agreed with such views and made them known to Khrushchev and company.
What these theses led to, later the same year (1956), was the counter-revolution in Hungary. Due to a “liberalized” social life, all freedoms were given to the ex-nazis, the Horthyite bandits, the extreme reactionaries and other highly dangerous people to organize themselves into a gang in order to overthrow socialism in Hungary. Comrade Enver Hoxha, who had passed through Hungary some months before the events took place, reported what he saw (reactionaries organizing themselves in the so-called “Petofi” Club) to Mikhail Suslov, whose naivety was astounding — he proceeded to pull Imre Nagy’s “self-criticism” out of his drawer and use it to insist that he had become a changed man and there would be no more plots. In fact, this was not naivety at all, but rather the Soviet attempt to push the envelope for what was possible for them to do in the Eastern Bloc. And their “experiment” got so out of hand that they themselves had to come in and crush the counter-revolution. The dark deeds of the Soviet leaders contrasted with the frank sincerity of Comrade Enver Hoxha, who earnestly described the conditions of Hungary as he saw them and foresaw the tragedy which was about to occur.
In November 1960, Comrade Enver Hoxha, along with Comrade Hysni Kapo among others, travelled to Moscow for an historic meeting set to put to rest differences that had emerged between the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But he was not going to let the opportunity pass by, have another meaningless declaration be agreed to by all (and which the Soviets were bound to violate, if not in the days to come, in the weeks ahead) and for everyone to pretend the situation had been solved until another question of principle came up. No, Comrade Enver Hoxha was determined to personally deliver a speech that pointed out not only the solid and well-founded criticisms of the revisionist theses of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, but also to elaborate, in front of the communist and workers’ parties of the world, the savage pressures that the Soviets had been exerting on small Albania, which had never done anything to hurt anyone and did not deserve such a disgraceful and anti-Marxist treatment by the Kremlin Tsars. This enraged Khrushchev and the others, and they had their puppets line up one by one to denounce and slander the Party of Labour of Albania as “Trotskyite,” as having “sold themselves out to imperialism,” and the like. But in truth, the speech was outstanding, and to stop its effect from taking full hold over the entire communist and workers’ movement, many parties prohibited their mass members from reading the speech on account of alleged “anti-Sovietism.” It was very dangerous to them, and as Comrade Hardial Bains, the founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), has remarked in his book The Name and Work of Karl Marx Are Immortal, it was this speech which began the struggle against modern revisionism within the international communist movement, leading to the new international Marxist-Leninist communist movement.
Differences between Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Soviet leaders did not arise purely due to the 20th Congress, however. They began one year earlier, when not even the most sceptical Marxist-Leninist would have been able to know revisionism was afoot. Suddenly in 1955, and without consulting all the Marxist-Leninist parties, Khrushchev visited Yugoslavia and then unilaterally annulled the 1949 Cominform resolution which categorized the Yugoslav Titoites as fascist gangsters and thugs in the service of U.S. imperialism on the basis of trials carried out in Albania, Bulgaria and Hungary. This decision caused indignation within Albania, where the deeds of the Yugoslav Trotskyites were known best, as Comrade Enver Hoxha himself has written about in his masterpiece The Titoites. While Khrushchev was kneeling before Tito, the Party of Labour of Albania stood as firm as the rocks on the Adriatic Sea. It continued to expose the role of the renegade Tito on the world scale, to hoodwink the peoples with his phoney “non-aligned” or “third world” movement. Comrade Enver Hoxha never forgot great Lenin’s teaching that the imperialist states set up supposedly independent states which are in fact dependent on one or the other superpower. The Titoites were all fluffy, would talk about a new unexploitative type of international cooperation, but then like drug dealers, like venomous snakes, they would offer some “medicine” (loans, “aids” and credits) to latch and hook your economy into imperialist finance capital. To abandon exposing these evil manoeuvres of the Yugoslav Trotskyites, those long-time CIA agents who tried to bring misery to Albania by invading her and planning to reinstate feudalism with Ahmet Zogu at the head once again, would be a betrayal of the peoples, would be tantamount to renouncing the problem of national sovereignty. Comrade Enver Hoxha declared: No, never! Comrade Khrushchev, we will never do as you are doing, we will never bow to traitors!
Another slander in the wheelhouse of both the Yugoslav and Soviet Trotskyites, the Titoites and Khrushchevites, was the defamation of the great Stalin. And, certainly, Tito was very pleased upon reading Khrushchev’s secret speech. To his immense credit, Comrade Enver Hoxha never regarded these slanders as credible, and declared in the open soon after the Hungarian counter-revolution that those who negate Stalin are treading the path of revisionism and betrayal of the cause of the proletariat. In his historic Moscow meeting speech, he stated: “We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin! He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward!” What incredible courage Comrade Enver Hoxha had! In the face of incorrigible slanders, the sole voice to stand up for the great Stalin on a world scale, in such a significant international meeting, was him, and he continued to do so for the rest of his life. Later, he wrote his book of memoirs detailing the five meetings he had with Stalin, titled With Stalin, which showed the true character of that great Marxist-Leninist and leader of the Soviet people — kind, modest and caring; the bourgeois caricatures are just that, fictional caricatures.
For the next two and a half decades, Albania being savagely blockaded by both superpowers, Comrade Enver Hoxha turned to exposing them both in the light of Marxism-Leninism for their schemes against the peoples. His book of reflections entitled The Superpowers clearly draws lines of demarcation between the struggles of the peoples and the intrigues of the imperialists. Indeed, it is almost a daily journal, a chronology of events from 1960 until 1984 — for all those years that is how much attention Comrade Enver Hoxha paid to the international situation, the ratio of forces in the world, where each of the two superpowers were headed as well as those countries under their boot. Reading his works on the superpowers, one immediately gets the sense that he was not isolated informationally to the point of paranoia like the bourgeoisie and the revisionists have always slandered, but rather he was informed correctly and soberly about everything, and with Albania’s many friends in the world they could determine joint action.
And not only the looking at the superpowers, there was no part in the world which left Comrade Enver Hoxha’s field of view. His book Reflections on the Middle East carries an immense weight for evaluating, minute to minute, all those extremely complex international developments that were keeping the peoples of the world on their toes — the oil crisis, the Iranian revolution, elevated Israeli aggression against Palestine, which way would Egypt go, etc. All these things were examined with the greatest Marxist-Leninist rigour. Another book of his, which contains two volumes adding up to a total of approximately 1,600 pages, is his Reflections on China. All of these reflections, coming from a time when Albania and China were publicly very friendly, tell the story of how Albania was attempting to evaluate what was going on in China — particularly during the events of the cultural revolution and the Hua-Deng coup, their conflict with the gang of four and other events. Though many notes there admit that, at the time of their writing, Comrade Enver Hoxha did not have access to particularly accurate sources because the Chinese told them nothing, they still form a significant part of his thinking, showing how communists deal with such difficult situations.
Yet another trend Comrade Enver Hoxha was forced to settle scores with were the Eurocommunists. With ultra-revisionists like Santiago Carrillo, Enrico Berlinguer and Georges Marchais at the head of the Spanish, Italian and French communist parties respectively, the proletarian revolution was replaced with complete obsequiousness to the bourgeois state, merely vying for seats in parliament and spots in the bourgeois cabinet, and indeed claiming that the state would transform itself into a new society of its own volition due to the technical and scientific revolution. Far from proving to be the case, Comrade Enver Hoxha shows with Marxist logic how the proletarian revolution is still the solution to the problems of the day, that only it can fundamentally resolve the crisis in favour of the people and how the bourgeois state would rather carry out a rein of terror upon hundreds of millions than lay down its class character and arms. Thus, Comrade Enver Hoxha liquidated the liquidators with all this in his book Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism.
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s direct assistance to the fraternal parties, the international Marxist-Leninist communists, also greatly aided the struggle around the globe. If the Marxist-Leninist movement grew strong and was able to challenge the bourgeoisie, this was only because of the strong leadership which Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania gave it when they came out in the open against Khrushchevite revisionism, when they denounced the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries, helping the proletariat of the world to see through the veil placed on them and take the only correct road, the road of struggle and liberation. The international meetings Comrade Enver Hoxha held with them, the many talks, the comradely advice, the limitless time and undying effort to build this movement, marked his incredible determination and will to see the red star not only over Albania, but over the whole globe.
By the time the 8th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania occurred in 1981, major changes were underway in the international situation, and in specific in the ratio of forces in the world. Comrade Enver Hoxha analysed in his Report to the Congress, with the utmost clarity and foresight, that the main and most powerful imperialist in that age was U.S. imperialism, that the Polish “Solidarnosc” and other extreme reactionary movements popping up throughout Eastern Europe were not grassroots, although some came to have the illusion of a mass character due to the great discontent with the bourgeois-revisionist system. This took some expert “anti-revisionists” by surprise, but Comrade Enver Hoxha was never for abstract ideals. He saw real life in its motion and interconnections and clearly analysed that Soviet social-imperialism was in decay and U.S. imperialism was rearing up for its great offensive against the people. And how right this statement of his turned out to be in 1989-91! Even nearly 40 years after his death, we still revisit it for its incredible truth!
Indeed, in light of this and in light of the anti-social offensive that has developed, whereby enemy number one of U.S. imperialism has not been some rival power but the peoples themselves in their strivings for social and national liberation by means of revolution, these teachings of Comrade Enver Hoxha have become very important. This new period has meant a retreat of revolution, a change in tactics for all those who see the objective conditions for what they truly have been over these past 30 and some years. But despite this retreat, we still remain persistent in our conviction that this epoch is that of imperialism and the proletarian revolution, that moribund bourgeois society can, must and will be transformed into a higher society. This is the conviction Comrade Enver Hoxha always held in his heart, even at the gravest times or the largest betrayal of Marxism-Leninism — materialist dialectics taught him that the new was youthful and the old was bound to die. That is why it attacked and still attacks the peoples so savagely, because it is deathly afraid of them. “Don’t lose heart!” Comrade Enver Hoxha used to say to the comrades in such situations. Shall we never lose heart, just as he never did!
Personal Qualities
What is to be said about the personal qualities of Comrade Enver Hoxha? Those comrades of his who knew him best wrote extensively about this question. Why? Because he was irreplaceable, not just as a leader of the Party and state, nor only of the people, but also as a sincere comrade and friend. The attention he gave to every minor detail, to the health of a comrade, which he regarded just as crucial as the opening of a hydro-power station, was truly a result of his great character and high moral fortitude.
On one such question he always showed himself to be modest, to care about everyone who was building the new Albania. What I mean to say is that he hated being attributed with the accomplishments of the people. He hated those who, sometimes having something to hide but also sometimes naively expressing their misplaced beliefs, behaved in such a way that dedicated every victory, every success to him. On such occasions, he would remark: “No, I did not do this — the Party and the people did, that great force which bore me, taught me this in struggle and in the building of our new socialist life.” How simple, how pure! When the question of cults came up, he stated the same thing — he detested with all his might the formation of a cult of personality, and when some foreign intriguer posing as a journalist would say something to the effect of “Enver Hoxha’s Albania,” he would break out in anger, insisting: “Nobody has bequeathed Albania to me!” Such was Comrade Enver Hoxha’s composition! Such was the love he had for his great Party and people!
Everyone who met him expressed that his kindness was rare in a human being. There are many stories of this, but a most remarkable one is how Comrade Enver Hoxha, visiting a hospital, ran into a doctor who he remembered had been sent to prison for some time for engaging in anti-people activity. He approached him and asked him how he was being treated after his release, and the doctor told him that his past had blocked him from becoming a full-time doctor. Comrade Enver Hoxha was shocked: “Nonsense! You have learned as have many who formerly damaged the integrity of our people and state, and thus repaid for their crimes. You are an excellent, highly competent doctor and deserve to be a full doctor here at the hospital!” Comrade Enver Hoxha never forgot such guarantees, and the doctor soon received a letter that he had indeed been given the job he wanted. Comrade Enver’s personal intervention helped the lives of so many people, and though he was stern and fearless with the enemies of the people and state, those who had committed murder, direct plotters and putschists and those guilty of other heinous crimes, he gave every chance to those who deserved it. Indeed, he lived for the common folk. His incredible memory allowed him to not have visited a village or an enterprise in 30 years, and though the faces of the workers and peasants he met may have gained a few wrinkles, without fail he always recognized them. He even remembered those he met when they were young children, who had grown up into adults and had children of their own!
Part of this love he showed for the people and for the comrades certainly stemmed from his experiences during the National Liberation War. As he tells in his book Among Simple People, the National Liberation Army would not have lasted a single day in armed uprising if not for the safety guaranteed to them by the many thousands of simple people, old men and women primarily, who were ardent patriots and so deeply desired for their Albania to be free. They were the ones who housed the partisans, gave them warmth and meals, washed their clothes, kept watch for any adversaries as they slept, and provided the most sincere hospitality. This allowed the illegal comrades to move around city quarters, to move from village to village, conducting their mass work and propaganda against the nazi-fascist occupier, and have a safe place for them to hide and stay should they be in any danger. How many historic moments in the history of the Party were held in such simple homes! Not just the founding meeting of the Party on November 8, 1941, but the 1st Conference of the Party in April 1942 among other events were held in homes of the people, most of whom were not communists but ardent patriots who knew that the communists were leading a just struggle. It was such acts that birthed Comrade Enver Hoxha’s great approachability, his love for the masses of the people! Later in age, Comrade Enver Hoxha would complain that it was too long since he had visited this village or that district, and he would yearn about the people he met in all these places.
His highly developed ideo-artistic tastes in music, as have already been described, were expressed in his choice of music in honour of the Albanian people, his glorious people. His favourite song was Mentor Xhemali’s “Per Ty, Atdhe” or “For You, My Homeland.” “This song,” said Comrade Enver Hoxha, “is a hymn to our socialist Homeland, to our unconquerable people and Party. It was born at the difficult moments of the revisionist blockade and is permeated by a lofty revolutionary and optimistic spirit. If not every day, at least every two or three days, in moments of joy or difficulty, I like to listen to it on my tape recorder and it always moves me and inspires me to work…” Indeed, it is such a song that inspires immense work in serving the people. I will allow the reader to listen to the song for themselves, and they will see why Comrade Enver Hoxha, with his ardent patriotism, thought of it so highly.
Part and parcel of all this patriotism and love for the common people, for his Party and the people’s state power, was the incredible dedication he had to never missing any meeting of importance for the future of Albania. Indeed, he never missed a Plenum on reasons of his declining health until April 1985. Even in those dark days of the winter of 1984-85, when he was in grave health, he still attended the Plenums of the Central Committee of the Party. He was always concerned first of all with how the Five-Year Plans were progressing, how the socio-educational moulding of the working people was developing, how the work of the Party in every district was appreciated by the people. These are the questions he always asked the comrades even when he knew they wouldn’t be able to answer them because of his frail health. Few people knew this up until April 1985, but in fact Comrade Enver Hoxha had been very ill for quite some time, even dating back to the 60s after his diabetes diagnosis. Indeed, in 1978 when he returned to his home, Gjirokastra, for the first time in ten years, he was highly embarrassed, addressing the people in explanation and with his sincere apologies: “Why have I not returned? Well you see…” He did not elaborate further because although the reason was his health, he did not believe this to be an adequate excuse. Indeed, he never complained to any of the comrades ever about his health and very rarely to those closest to him. He put the people and the Party, his work for their well-being, above himself. Such an incredible selflessness embodied all his personal qualities so well! Such integrity embodied his entire being!
The only thing Comrade Enver Hoxha ever did to hurt his people, indeed to hurt the working class of all countries, all progressive humanity, was to pass away on April 11, 1985. A working woman at the construction of the Koman hydro-power station expressed the sentiment that: “These days, we have shed enough tears to fill the basin of the dam.” Some of the best works of art the Albanian people have ever created were from those days. As one poem expressed the sentiments of the whole people:
Eleventh of April, why dawned this day?
Bringing such sorrow and dismay.
The sea in frantic waves rears up,
Beats against rocks and dissolves in tears.
All these works were dedicated to that man they loved so much, and who in turn loved them every day of his life. It was a truly spontaneous outpouring of grief, a way for the working people to channel their feelings on those dreary days into masterpieces, into dedications to the Party, to the new socialist social order, to Comrade Enver Hoxha, their beloved leader and teacher.
Zef Shoshi’s portrait of Comrade Enver Hoxha, painted in the style of the partisan war, is one of, if not the greatest portrait of the man. Wearing the partisan uniform and a trenchcoat, gun on the wall, paper in hand and pen resting on the table, a fireplace lighting up the whole room — this portrait represents the perfect link between theory and practice. The fire in the situation, the objective conditions, allow for the elaboration of a resounding theory that expresses the needs and will of the masses of people, as all of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s theoretical work was, and the inevitability to take up the gun against the occupier in the end to realize such people’s aspirations. This portrait encapsulates Comrade Enver Hoxha’s whole mode of thinking, how he ceaselessly reached conclusions and worked out solutions to each new problem facing society.
In his passing, Comrade Enver Hoxha was placed in the Cemetery of the Martyrs of the Nation, where he could be together with the 28,000 of his comrades who he led in the National Liberation War, but who perished. This War’s many complexities always were Comrade Enver’s most cherished moment — the whole Albanian people rose as one and said “Get out of Albania!” to the nazi-fascists and their local lackeys. More than that, they partook in a thorough-going revolution to build a new state that represented the interests of the workers and peasants, with the proletariat in the lead, not that of the bourgeoisie. Comrade Enver Hoxha was at the head of the greatest moments in the history of the Albanian people, and deserves so dearly to be with those 28,000 anti-fascist heroes.
After his death, and specifically after the tragic events of 1990-91, Comrade Enver Hoxha was removed from that place of honour by the neo-fascist gangsters who usurped power. He was placed in a cemetery among common people. The fact that they believed this to be an insult, and that they have allowed that cemetery to fall into complete disrepair since the fall of socialism, shows not only their disrespect for Comrade Enver Hoxha, but their hatred of all the people, a fiery people that they are so scared of. He would never have minded where he is today laid to rest, even though it is not his rightful place.
The Albanian people are an heroic people, a fire has always raged in their bosom and they have never submitted to anyone. While the statue of Skanderbeg that Comrade Enver Hoxha inaugurated sits in the middle of Tirana, while the neo-fascists pay lip service to it, they know that the legacy of Skanderbeg is not theirs. The people will certainly settle scores with this bourgeoisie, this disgrace and a blight on the nation, and the joyous days of socialism, of the people’s state power, will return in a new, higher and all the more unconquerable form. The name and figure of Comrade Enver Hoxha will return, as the greatest man the Albanian people have ever produced, and also one of the greatest men the world has ever produced.
On April 15, 1985, the day when they buried Comrade Enver Hoxha, nature herself wept, rain pelted down on Skanderbeg Square where the masses were awaiting the memorial meeting for the incredible man that would no longer be alive to make them happy, to endow them with enthusiasm and courage to face up to any enemy, internal or external. The day when Comrade Enver Hoxha is returned to the Cemetery of the Martyrs of the Nation, that will certainly be a warm, sunny and bright day. We will all celebrate our unforgettable teacher, our beloved comrade, our leader in an entire period of human development, the great and immortal Marxist-Leninist, Comrade Enver Hoxha!