– Nexhmije Hoxha –
After invading our country, fascist Italy tried in every way to drag the Albanian people in behind it against those countries on which it had declared war. But our people have never, on any occasion, reconciled themselves to an invader. On the contrary, they have risen even more fiercely against them and linked their liberation war more and more closely with the war of the oppressed peoples. They reacted particularly strongly when the Italian troops, start ing from occupied Albanian territory, committed their aggression against the Greek people, as well as later on when the German and Italian armies attacked Yugosla via. Our freedom-loving people foiled the plan of the Italian enslavers to transform Albania into a calm and secure bridgehead for the invasion of the other coun tries of the Balkans. Albania became a land on fire, its soil burning under the feet of the Italian aggressors.
The perfidious attack of Germany against the Soviet Union was not only received with great indignation in Albania, but it also gave fresh impetus to the liberation war of the Albanian people, who, as Comrade Enver Hoxha says, now “felt that their blood would not be shed in vain.”1
The Communist Party and the National Liberation Front, making a very correct assessment of the anti- fascist coalition of the people and of the alliance of the Soviet Union with Great Britain and the United States of America as an historical necessity which was dictated by the circumstances for saving the world from fascist bon dage, worked with might and main, all through the war years, to strengthen the linking of our anti-fascist war with the Anti-Fascist World War, and made the insurgent Albanian people one of the most active participants in the coalition of the Anti-Fascist World War.
In proportion to its very small population and terri tory, insurgent Albania made a valuable contribution to the common victory over fascism by fully engaging in this war 15 Italian and German divisions and inflicting he avy losses on the enemy. It did not permit the Italian and German occupiers to send even a single small detachment of Albanian mercenaries to fight on the Soviet Front or any other front outside the country. On the contrary, it sent thousands of fighters of its National Liberation Ar my to aid the valiant Yugoslav peoples and the Albanian brothers of Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro, in the heroic fight they were waging together against the Ger man nazis.
Twenty eight thousand martyrs laid down their lives for the liberation of the Homeland and for the common cause of the war against fascism. The active role of the Albanian people in the great anti-fascist war is already recognized throughout the world. Only some bourgeois- fascist and revisionist politicians and historians have, for evil purposes, sought to play down and deny this contri bution, to obscure this truth.
Of course, the contribution made by our people, as participants of the anti-fascist coalition, is only one as pect of the links of our National Liberation War with the Anti-Fascist World War. The other aspect is the great as sistance which our insurgent people found in the common war of the great allies and the enslaved peoples against fascism. This war was a powerful support, both for all the other enslaved peoples and for the insurgent Albanian people, because it hastened the inevitable doom of fascism and opened prospects for the final liberation of these peoples, including our own.
An especially important and decisive role in the des truction of fascism was played by the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people and by the Red Army led by J.V. Stalin, a role which the Congress of Përmet assessed as “the greatest aid ever given our people throughout history.”2
The Albanian people have never denied and will ne ver deny such assistance. Although the Red Army did not come to Albania, the Albanian people consider the victo ry of the Soviet Union over Hitlerite Germany as the de cisive external factor of their historic victory, in the sense that, by bearing the brunt of the Second World War and playing the chief role in destroying fascism, the Soviet Union created the appropriate conditions for our people to wage such an heroic and revolutionary, war and to achieve the complete liberation of the country and the establish ment of the people’s power, through their own struggle.
Notes
1 Speech at the Meeting of the Presidium of the National Li beration General Council, April 15, 1944. Central Party Archives.
2 Declaration of the Congress of Përmet, May 1944. Documents of the Supreme Organs of the Power… p. 155 (Alb. ed.).
(Excerpt from Nexhmije Hoxha’s report “The Anti-Fascist National Liberation War — A Great People’s Revolution Led by the Communist Party of Albania,” in The National Liberation Conference of Studies of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War of the Albanian People, The “8 Nëntori” Publishing House, Tirana 1975, pp. 31-33, Eng. ed.)