Chapter II of Our Enver, Ramiz Alia’s book of reminiscences of Comrade Enver Hoxha
In the difficult wartime conditions, when the party press operated in complete illegality and the means of information were totally in the hands of the enemy, propaganda to popularize the leader of the movement and the commander of the partisan army was almost impossible. In fact, the first photograph of him published in the party press belongs to the period after the Congress of Përmet. But the partisans and the people had long heard about Enver. Deeds speak for themselves, the saying goes. Enver’s name and pseudonyms were passed from mouth to mouth, from south to north, all over the country. The legendary figure of “Shpati” very quickly won a place in the people’s imagination as a symbol of the new heroism and patriotism.
A song which was composed and spread quickly in the last months of the war went:
We warriors of Enver
With our ideal in our hearts
Will strike a blow at Hitler
Smash him to smithereens.
This must have been one of the first songs, if not the first, in which Enver Hoxha is directly mentioned.
I, personally, became “acquainted” with Comrade Enver for the first time in the great anti-fascist demonstration of October 28, 1941. As we know, he was the leader of that demonstration. I did not meet him that day, but only caught a glimpse of him. It was precisely at the moment when the demonstrators were attacked by the fascist police and carabinieri in the square in front of City Hall, today’s Skanderbeg Square. In the ensuing scuffle between the demonstrators and the fascists, we saw a tall comrade seize the officer in command of the carabinieri with both hands and strike him down with one powerful blow. I can say that this courageous fellow, whose name we did not learn till later, won the hearts of all of us youth of that time.
It was not by chance that most of the participants in the movement saw Comrade Enver for the first time precisely in manifestations and demonstrations, in militant activities in general. As a leader of the new type, Enver Hoxha was a man of action. He led both through the political line he mapped out and through his direct participation in the struggle to implement it.
In those turbulent times, revolutionary action was of decisive importance to orient the masses correctly and arouse them to struggle. In the beginning of the war there were many who paraded their patriotic feelings and great “theoretical” knowledge, but actions were the touchstone. Anyone who shirked them exposed himself as a demagogue. Enver Hoxha, however, threw himself into the struggle from the very outset. This is precisely what enabled him to gather around him the soundest forces of the communist groups, those most determined to fight and win and, together with them, to form the Communist Party and unite a whole people around it.
So the demonstration of October 1941 may be considered my first “introduction” to Enver. I have often recalled this important moment in the history of the anti-fascist struggle of our people and of my own life. I have recalled it in happy days and in difficult times. And it has always aroused great emotions in me. But I was filled with very different emotions on that day in April 1985, when we gathered in Skanderbeg Square to accompany Comrade Enver to his last resting place.
“On this square where we have gathered for our last meeting with Enver,” I said in opening the speech I delivered at the funeral ceremony, “forty-four years ago he led the great anti-fascist demonstration and called on the people to rise against the occupiers and traitors. And from that day to the end of his life, he remained at the head of the Party and the people as the legendary commander of the National Liberation War and the heroic leader of the construction of socialism.”
And while I spoke, the square packed to capacity, I returned in my imagination to that unforgettable day of October 28, 1941. There where we had “met” for the first time, I gave Enver his last farewell. That square, which about half a century earlier had echoed to the shouts of the youth and working people of Tirana against fascism and the occupation, echoed that day to the monumental slogan “Party-Enver, we are ready any time!”
Who is Enver Hoxha? What does he represent for our people? What role did he play and what is his place in the present and future of socialist Albania?
During the Anti-Fascist Second World War, a number of great personalities and outstanding leaders emerged from the ranks of the peoples. Some of them are still remembered with respect, while with the passage of time others have been left behind and lost their value. Enver Hoxha is one of those figures whose stature increases as time goes by.
Men such as he emerge from revolutions and belong as much to the future as to the time in which they live. Hence, everything related to Enver is dear and precious to us. Our people are proud that whenever the name of this glorious son of theirs is mentioned anywhere in the world, Albania, socialism and communism, and genuine social and national freedom and independence are implied.
His name is linked with our whole contemporary history. The liberation of the Homeland, the profound cultural and economic transformations, our internal and foreign policy, every action or event of modern times worth recording in history, are linked directly with the contribution and role of Enver Hoxha. Not simply as the commander, but as a militant revolutionary who is guided by lofty interests and noble aims, as a popular leader with a high sense of responsibility about the role which the people and the Party have entrusted to him, in every situation, at every step of the revolution and socialist construction, he acted to the advantage of the progress of the Homeland, the prosperity of the country and the ceaseless improvement of the life of the people.
The figure of Enver Hoxha symbolizes ardent patriotism and revolutionary militancy, the wisdom of the people and the enlightened mind of a man of rare qualities cultivated in the school of the revolution, the modest son of the people and the talented leader of the Party and state. His work has been poured into all the solid foundations on which today’s Albania has been built. His thinking has illuminated all the heights to which our society has been raised, and his wise and ardent words have warmed the hearts of all our people.
With his struggle, his stands and his example, Comrade Enver Hoxha played the main role in tempering our Party of Labour as a revolutionary party; in forging the unity of the people as the basic factor of every success and victory; in strengthening the National Liberation Army as a people’s army and a weapon of the revolution; and in implanting the confidence and strengthening the conviction of the working masses that the common people themselves can and must choose the road of the future development of the Homeland.
The National Liberation War is the most brilliant page in our national history. Enver Hoxha was the leader of that war. In those difficult years, he led the newly-founded party of Albanian communists with rare wisdom, just as he commanded the partisan army with the talent of a great strategist to achieve the twofold historic victory: the liberation of the country and the establishment of the state power of the working people. He did not lead the war from offices and safe refuges, but in the midst of the people, at the head of the partisans, from battle to battle, in daily struggle, using the rifle, the pen and debate, having a clear view of things when others were blinded, instilling courage and determination when enemies and traitors sowed fear and defeatism, and coping courageously and wisely with the intrigues of reaction, the Balli Kombëtar, the Legaliteti and the Anglo-Americans, when some people became confused, or wavered and lost their bearings.
The socialist construction in Albania has been an extremely difficult struggle — not only because the plots of internal and external enemies continued after the victory over fascism, but also because the grave backwardness inherited from the past had to be overcome within a very short time. Colossal social, economic and cultural transformations had to be carried out, poverty and disease had to be combatted, and above all, the forces of production had to be developed, the old relations of production had to be changed and new socialist relations established.
To lead Albania from the wooden plough to modern agriculture, from the primitive forge to metallurgy, from the oil lamp to the complete electrification of the country, from illiteracy to the University and the Academy of Sciences, was an undertaking which, apart from other things, called for knowledge, courage, determination and persistence. It required unshakeable faith and conviction in the future and revolutionary optimism. Enver Hoxha put these lofty qualities which he possessed in the service of the Party and the people, mapping out the plans and projects of the socialist development of the country, personally verifying in practice the correctness of the line pursued and listening to the most advanced opinion in the ranks of the working class, the working peasantry and the people’s intelligentsia.
With the Party at the head, Albania will forge ahead non-stop. Its economy and culture will be raised to higher levels. Without doubt, the future victories will be beyond any comparison with the previous achievements. This is the dialectic of socialist development. But what our Party has done for Albania in the time of Enver Hoxha and under his leadership is unparalleled and will be remembered with profound respect, generation after generation. The people’s state power will be strengthened and democratized ceaselessly, but it will always remain a fact of history that the people became masters of their own destiny for the first time in the epoch which is linked with the name of the Party and Enver. As such, this epoch has and will have no equal. It is the foundation of all foundations. Our future is built on this solid and durable basis.
The coming generations will honour the Party and Enver Hoxha, who have thought and worked day and night to build the impregnable Albanian socialist citadel. The revolution and the transformations that have been accomplished under their leadership have lightened the burdens and tasks for the present and future generations. This epoch has left no debts for the future.
The loss which the Party and the people suffered on April 11, 1985 is irreparable. However, it cannot even be imagined what a catastrophe it would have been for our Albania had there not been the Communist Party and a leader of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s stature to cope with the historic revolutionary moments created in our country at the beginning of the Second World War and thereafter.
The fascist occupation of April 7, 1939 created the most tragic situation for Albania in this century, bringing the complete loss of our national independence, as well as the threat of our extinction as a nation. Only such a man as Enver Hoxha, with a solid patriotic and revolutionary formation, could have fully appreciated the historic importance of the moment, could have understood what the people were really seeking and what had to be done to fulfill their aspirations. Only such a man could have determined how to save the Homeland. It is his merit that, precisely in this grave situation, relying on the people’s patriotism and love of freedom, making skillful use of the circumstances, together with and at the head of the Albanian communists, he founded the Party, raised the people’s army and led the country towards the final victory, liberation from the fascist occupiers and the heavy yoke of feudal and bourgeois oppression.
Enver Hoxha was not only an active participant in the great turning-points of the most recent history of our people but also exercised a direct influence on their course as an inspirer, ideologist, organizer and leader. In his person he embodied the most precious virtues of our ancient people, that militant and noble character, that generous and rebellious spirit, those brilliant traditions which have been forged and tempered through centuries of striving for freedom and independence, for light and knowledge, for bread and land.
Neither November 8, 1941 nor any of the culminating moments of our recent history can be separated from the decisive activity and contribution of Enver Hoxha. And if this history shows that, at certain times, decisions vital to the future of the Homeland and the people were taken, the credit for this belongs to him first of all. He was able to analyse the gravest, most complicated and most unfavorable situations correctly and with a critical eye, to turn them to the advantage of the people’s war and work, and make them serve the Homeland and progress. In the maelstrom of the war, it was no light matter to turn the rifle against the Balli Kombëtar or to force the British troops to withdraw when they landed at Saranda. It was no light matter for a young party at the head of a small people, like our Party, to take the decision to denounce Titoite, Khrushchevite or Chinese modern revisionism, to expel the Soviet fleet from the Vlora base or to denounce the Warsaw Treaty. But when faced with such complicated situations and dangers, Enver Hoxha had no doubts or vacillations and never hesitated.
In Enver Hoxha, courage and caution always went hand in hand, in full accord and harmony. This is what made him cool-headed even at moments when he could very easily have lost his temper, even when enemies were looking for “trouble” and stepped up their provocations. At such times, at moments of danger, he reacted with all the force of his wisdom and coinage.
Dedication to the cause of the people and the Homeland, loyalty to the Party and consistency towards Marxism-Leninism were the most important factors which engendered in Comrade Enver his profound thought and sound judgement, his foresight, his wisdom and patience in general, his boldness and courage where required, as well as his severity when severity was needed.
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s whole conscious life was a life of struggle — struggle for the freedom of the Homeland, struggle for the construction of socialism, struggle for the emancipation of the people and struggle against external and internal enemies who sought to take us back to the slavery of the past.
Enver Hoxha was both a revolutionary leader and military commander, an outstanding statesman, a great diplomat and an accomplished organizer, an ideologist with the spirit of a revolutionary innovator and a shrewd politician, a reformer of social life and an architect of our socialist construction. But there is one quality especially which characterized his whole being: his love for the people. Enver Hoxha was not born a statesman — his love for the people and the Homeland made him that. He went through no school of diplomacy — his obligation to Albania made him a diplomat. He was not an ideologist and thinker from the halls of universities — his dedication to the cause of the revolution armed him with these qualities. He gained his schooling as a communist organizer in the actions of the partisan war for the freedom and independence of the Homeland and in the great battles of the work for the new people’s Albania.
The socialist construction in Albania is a revolutionary process with not a few solutions which are new, original, and indeed, unique. The major acts of our revolution — from the nationalizations and expropriations to the establishment of the socialist relations of production in the city and the countryside — are not a simple, mechanical transplantation of Marxist-Leninist principles to Albanian soil, but are vividly creative. In all these innovative processes, Comrade Enver Hoxha’s ideas have been decisive. Every task he set before the Party and the people, every idea he advocated for the emancipation and revolutionization of society, and every transformation he mapped out for the beautification and prosperity of the Homeland responded to the concrete requirements and conditions of our country.
The strength of Enver Hoxha’s mind is brilliantly displayed in the fact that he was able to determine the main directions and to make the major moves which ensured and strengthened the freedom and independence of the Homeland and gave a powerful impetus to the all-round development and progress of the country.
We have caught up centuries in just four decades. The socialist industrialization has been carried out and agriculture collectivized; the exploitation of man by man has been eliminated and life expectancy doubled; culture, education and science have advanced at a rapid pace and our society has been emancipated in all directions. These transformations are due to our Marxist-Leninist Party, headed by Enver Hoxha.
Comrade Enver had the ability to find “the link that holds the entire chain together” and grasp it firmly. This enabled him to provide theoretical explanations and practical solutions to the problems of our socialist construction and to determine the strategy for future development with confidence. It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to advance so successfully on the road of socialism, to achieve all these victories which we enjoy today, with no infringement of our national freedom and sovereignty, had we not applied the principle of self-reliance on Enver’s insistence. But this principle would have remained a worthless slogan had it not been for his courageous ideas about giving priority to the development of the energy supply, without which there would have been no advance of the productive forces; about paying special attention to the modernization of agriculture, without which we would have been dependent on others even for our daily bread; and about focusing our attention on the training of specialists and cadres, without whom we would have been obliged to beg the aid of foreigners for every new project or design.
Our socialist society is a pure society with a high esteem for human values, which prizes the good things of life. Of course, we do not eat with golden spoons. Indeed, we are aware that our advance does not proceed without difficulties. Still we are proud that everything we have created is ours, that every project we have built is a result of the work, toil and sweat of our people. We know that we are not wallowing in plenty, but we feel happy, because we are free and owe nothing to anybody, because in the new Albania there is no poverty or unemployment, no drug-addiction, no anxiety or insecurity about the future. We are sure that the future will be better and the life of our people will improve and become more prosperous. The basis for this optimism is the work of Comrade Enver Hoxha and the innovative thinking of our Party.
Enver left us many blessings and great advances. In the radical changes and great achievements we see the work of the Party, the work of Enver. Throughout his life he dedicated himself to ensuring that he left us no troubles. The only sorrow, the only grief he brought us was his death.
Foresight was a fundamental characteristic of Enver Hoxha’s thinking. But he did not dream up his prognoses, did not base his forecasts simply on wishful thinking. No, his foresight had a profound content. He knew what the future would require of society, and made timely forecasts for transformations and programs, so that the coming years would not find our country unprepared. He knew how to prepare for the future, to rise above the interests of the moment and determine for what it was worth making sacrifices. The farsightedness of his thinking is shown by his ability to decide the order in which everything had to be built or created, so that we would not face our future unprepared or be obliged to turn back and correct things done wrongly; it is shown by his ability to work for and not merely dream about the future. He was amply endowed with that special acumen which is needed to find that optimal order in which everything should be done, so that nobody, not even the coming generations, can reproach us by saying: This should have been done long ago.
When, in the first years, Comrade Enver launched the meaningful slogan, “More bread and more culture for the people,” this may have seemed premature and mere propaganda to many. At that time, when the wounds of the war were still bleeding, when hunger and ignorance prevailed all over the country, even to dream about more knowledge and culture for the masses and, what is more, to put them on the same plane as bread, took courage.
Culture, science and art are weapons that Enver used in all their effectiveness, always evaluating them in connection with life and in the service of the progress of socialism. During the National Liberation War and thereafter, he applied a wise, patient and careful policy towards people of culture, scholars, writers, intellectuals and those engaged in creative activities in general. This stand and concern of his not only reflects his clear Marxist conception of the role of culture, but also expresses his own love for culture, his broad spiritual outlook and high level of education.
All our victories are based on and inspired by Enver Hoxha’s Marxist-Leninist ideas. They are ideas which guide us towards new, higher developments; they are ideas that make us look to the future and help us advance towards it confidently.
Comrade Enver Hoxha did not learn scientific communism from books alone. The centuries of struggles of the Albanian people to emerge in the light of freedom gave birth to and developed him as a revolutionary communist; the class battles of the world proletariat for social justice and progress moulded him. Communism and Marxist-Leninist science found in him a man prepared and endowed with the necessary qualities and virtues to propagate them, defend them, and apply them with consistency in the Albanian reality.
Enver Hoxha had a special ability to sum things up, and he drew very important conclusions from even a simple action of the revolutionary practice of the masses. He knew how to combine defence of principles with the revolutionary courage to take a new course and to find the solutions most appropriate to the existing conditions. He was an enemy of formulas, stereotyped practices and methods which life has overtaken and which hinder its advance.
His mind was always in motion. While observing and studying the development of the contemporary revolutionary movement, the international situation and the dialectical process of the advance of Albanian society, he dealt with a series of capital problems of the world revolution and the socialist construction in Albania with complete scientific competence. His Marxist thinking is the keystone of the line and theoretical views of our Party on questions of philosophy and politics, ideology and the economy, culture and art, military and international problems.
Socialist Albania, with its revolutionary policy, is an inspiring example for the peoples struggling to defend their freedom and national independence. Enver Hoxha is the founder of this policy of the Party and our socialist state. All the courageous stands of principle by socialist Albania on international events and problems, its determined struggle against imperialism and reaction, its irreconcilable opposition to revisionism and political and ideological opportunism in general, and its unreserved support for the peoples fighting for freedom and independence have their source in the teachings of this ardent patriot and consistent internationalist, in the ideas of this outstanding Marxist-Leninist thinker.
The versatility of Enver Hoxha is known to all. He was a theoretician of socialism with a penetrating mind, a consistent, loyal and indomitable fighter for the implementation of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. As a master of materialist dialectics, he developed and further enriched the Marxist-Leninist theory and implemented it in a creative manner in the concrete conditions of Albania and the complicated international circumstances that were created after the Second World War.
Enver Hoxha distinguished himself, as nobody else did, for his courageous, principled struggle against today’s extremely dangerous falsifiers of Marxism-Leninism, the modern revisionists. He was a politician of the new type, the true proletarian type. His qualities as a Marxist-Leninist theoretician and a proletarian politician were combined into one in his ceaseless revolutionary activities, in his harmonized and unified activity in the field of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice.
Enver Hoxha was an ardent patriot. He was imbued with the outstanding patriotic traditions of our small, long-suffering country. With unmatched heroism he fought with weapons, with knowledge, and with all his being to defend our socialist Homeland, its independence and sovereignty, its national rights, the dignity of our people and socialist state against any kind of enemy, no matter how great or powerful, that sought to encroach upon them. And he always waged this struggle for the good of Albania from the positions of an exemplary and consistent internationalist.
These outstanding features made him a true tribune of the people, a man linked with and ardently loved by the entire Albanian people. His links with the masses were indissoluble links of comradeship. Just as he advised the cadres, intellectuals and creative artists, he set the example of how one should communicate with the people, how one should sit and talk with them directly, how one should share their joys and sorrows.
Enver Hoxha’s word went deep into the minds and hearts of the people. He was an orator of rare ability and a brilliant publicist. His writings and speeches are the clearest evidence of this. In fact, many of them signalled and prompted the start of great revolutionary movements, indeed, of changes of historic importance on the road of our socialist development.
Enver Hoxha had the gift to adapt himself to the people with whom he dealt. He could converse with scholars and scientists with profound competence, just as he could chat quite freely with old highlanders. He communicated easily both with elderly women and with school pupils, pioneers and younger children. As a sensitive psychologist, he delved into the social psychology of different social strata and groups, studied and got to know not only their feelings and aspirations, but also their state of mind. He had a profound knowledge of the national psychology of the Albanians.
Enver Hoxha was an intellectual with wide-ranging knowledge, a man with a passion for study, a true Marxist scientist. His interest in learning was immense and his knowledge like an inexhaustible spring, being continually renewed and enriched. He had a very extensive knowledge of the humanities, but he was also competent in the natural sciences. He was very well acquainted not only with our national culture, but also with the fundamental values of world culture. He was very well versed in and kept himself up to date both on the culture of the past and on that of the present, on classic literature and on the “modern” and modernist trends of contemporary art, on the cultural heritage of the Illyrians and early Albanians and on the present-day development of our literature and art of socialist realism. His good memory helped him to use all the enormous wealth of culture he possessed with full effectiveness and precisely where it was needed.
Enver Hoxha’s capacity for work and his output were truly astounding. To prove this, we need only to refer to his activity in the last decade of his life, when he was no longer young and had begun to be afflicted by successive grave illnesses. Suffice it to recall his writings of this period: a series of theoretical works of a high scientific level about today’s complicated international developments, books of exceptional value about the history of our Party and the National Liberation War, numerous reminiscences, the many volumes from his Political Diary, not to mention many other speeches and articles, from the hand of a man who, at the same time, was actively engaged, day by day, in the most diverse affairs of an operative character of the Party and the state.
We, his contemporaries, remember many things about Enver Hoxha. However, we cannot fail to single out his human aspect, which is so astonishingly rich.
His figure represents an organic blend of human virtues. In him the nobility of the ideas for which he fought was combined to perfection with his sensitive feelings and spiritual beauty. His heart and the whole of his being responded with profound humanity to all the sentiments and worries of the life of the people. He rejoiced and was happy both over the commissioning of a giant combine and over the birth of a new citizen of the Republic, both over the production of the first batch of superphosphate and over the performance of a new song. He thought, planned and worked for the future of the Homeland, just as he was concerned about the living conditions of a pensioner or in an orphanage. He worried about any shortcoming, weakness or carelessness that hindered the work, but might spend a sleepless night worrying about the health of a comrade. His major preoccupations about the fate of the Homeland and socialism and his humane concern about the problems of the ordinary working people were merged into one in his person.
Enver Hoxha became a great popular leader because he loved the people from whom he emerged with all the strength of his spirit, because he put all his revolutionary activity in the service of the happiness of the masses and the progress of Albania. He had boundless faith in the strength of the masses of the people. He attached special importance to consultation with workers and peasants, intellectuals, women, the youth and soldiers; he dedicated himself unreservedly to the struggle for their well-being and their happy future.
He left no district or zone of the country unvisited. It is a fine and very significant thing that today the anniversaries of these visits are commemorated and celebrated everywhere as “Enver’s days.” On these occasions, meetings and talks are organized to pay homage to his life and work, but they are also proclaimed days of intensive action to fulfill and overfulfill the planned objectives. Although many years may have elapsed since the time of these visits, the people say naturally:
“We are struggling to carry out the instructions Comrade Enver left when he visited us.”
Time does not make his instructions outdated…
His very rich correspondence provides a brilliant example of Enver Hoxha’s spiritual links with the people. Not only did he receive thousands of letters, but he also sent replies, acknowledgements and greetings to many people inside and outside the country. His letters are a great school for the cadres of the Party.
Like all letters, those he dispatched have a concrete address, with the name of the collective or citizen to whom they are addressed. In most cases, however, in essence they are not sent just to one person. Behind the name of the addressee there is, almost always, a whole category of working people. In this sense, his letters have served as messages of the Party to the people, an open dialogue between them. It is not by chance that many of these letters have also been published in the press. The signature “Yours, Enver,” so dear to the people, aroused their hearts, alleviated their grief and stirred their emotions. It expressed his total dedication to the people.
As I said earlier, Comrade Enver had an exceptional memory. He remembered the names of many working people after meeting them only once. And often when he met them again after many years had elapsed, he addressed them by name, even though they might have changed in appearance, grown to manhood or grown old. This came about because his wholehearted love for people added to his memory.
Enver Hoxha drew great strength from contacts with the people and was inspired by people’s advanced opinions which, in most cases, comprised the essence of the important ideas which he formulated about the socialist transformation of the country. There was nothing formal, official or ceremonial about his conversations, only communist preoccupation and a comradely attitude. These conversations were the continuation of his work as a leader. With him, politeness was not something artificial, a means to communicate with people, but a natural gift; it was not just a product of education but, first of all, an expression of his liking and respect for people. Everything about him was in order. He stood out above the others even in simple matters.
Regardless of how long may have elapsed, many of those who have met and talked with Comrade Enver remember his smiling face, his ardent, penetrating eyes expressive of a great wealth of feelings and emotions, his lofty noble brow, his warmth and concern, his valuable advice and instructions, as well as his outward appearance, always dignified, neat and in good taste. In those minutes when he was talking with the worker or the young man, the patriot or the cooperativist, the specialist or the leader, he placed himself, body and soul, at their disposal. At those moments his mind worked at maximum intensity in order to gain and learn as much as possible from these contacts and, especially, to give the persons he was talking to the most valuable assistance he could.
His meetings with the people were something thrilling and festive for Enver. He went to people not just for the sake of some principle, but because he became very uneasy in the full sense of the term if a long time went by without meeting them. Not infrequently, especially in the last years of his life, many comrades heard him complain that his many tasks and advanced age did not allow him to go out to talk with the workers and peasants, to see for himself the economic growth and all-round development of the country and to enjoy the beauties of the Homeland.
Everybody knows Enver’s great love for Gjirokastra, not only because he was born there, but also because he knew and admired the cultural and architectural values of the city. He loved it especially because he had many friends of his childhood there with whom he maintained close friendship and was linked with indelible memories. Just imagine how he longed to go there.
“Many a time I have wanted to come back to our beloved city,” he told a meeting of his fellow citizens in 1978. “And why have you not come, you ask. Well, you see…”
Enver did not go into explanations. Perhaps neither his age, his failing health, nor his ever-increasing work seemed convincing reasons to him.
With special pleasure and great nostalgia, we see him now in May Day chronicles on the TV screen. There we see how warmly he greets the veterans or miners, how happily he waves to the youth and the pioneers, the dancers and the soldiers. It seems as if Enver Hoxha is in the parade, together with the people and among them. He communicated with the people with his whole being: with his words, his eyes and his hands.
Everybody remembers the celebration of the inauguration of the water supply system at Postriba of Mbishkodra in 1974, in which Comrade Enver took part. Indeed, the people have composed a song about this. But no sooner do you recall the celebration than the details of everything Enver did on that occasion come to mind: he approached the new fountain with his calm, firm step, rolled up his sleeves like a traveller weary and hot after a long journey, dashed a handful of water over his eyes and face and proposed a quite original toast, a toast with fresh water. How simple, how beautiful, how human! Not only Enver’s ideas, but even his ordinary actions were unique.
In every man’s life there are, of course, major and minor events as well as ordinary moments. With Enver, however, the most commonplace things assumed special importance and great meaning, and became moving. What can one do, let us say, before a monument? One can give the clenched-fist salute, lay a bunch of flowers, pay homage or do something else of the sort. But Enver’s emotions prompted him to original actions on such occasions.
I will never forget the moment when, during his visit to Gjirokastra, he laid a wreath on the monument to the fighters at Mashkullora. There was nothing ceremonial in his actions, although to stand before a monument in itself has something to do with ceremony. How moving those moments were! Enver Hoxha reached out to touch the heads of the fighters gently, as though they were alive, caressed them fondly and slowly withdrew with his clenched fist raised in salute.
Enver’s inner world was bursting with feelings and thoughts. He lived events with his whole being, was optimistic, rejoiced and enthused over achievements and victories, just as he became angry and stern when the interests of socialism were damaged.
His concern was always to make things better. He was not dissatisfied with what Albania had attained in forty years of socialism and freedom. On the contrary, he was happy at the progress made, and the completely transformed appearance of the Homeland was pleasing to his eyes. But while feeling satisfaction at what had been done, he was a relentless fighter against self-satisfaction. Always seeking and struggling for more rational solutions, giving his all for the people and socialism — that was Enver Hoxha.
When any disaster occurred, Enver Hoxha was greatly disturbed, was tormented and could not sleep. He went personally to visit the people of Dibra in their homes in mid-winter 1967, when the earthquake caused heavy damage and casualties in that district.
In April 1979 another earthquake struck Shkodra, Lezha and other zones of North Albania, and many people were killed or injured. Less than five minutes had gone by since we learned of this catastrophe when he summoned me and instructed me to go immediately to Shkodra and other places to meet the people, to convey condolences on behalf of the Party and to assure them that quickly, very quickly, all the measures would be taken to build new homes for the afflicted and re-establish normal life. When I came back from Shkodra, I reported to him in detail about everything. He listened to me attentively.
“Now not a second must be lost,” he said. “We must take comprehensive measures, organize a great action involving all districts, so that everything will be completed within 5-6 months. Winter must find the people in their new homes.”
It was clear that he had considered this matter at length and thought out every detail of the action.
“We have done things badly with some new settlements,” he said. “Therefore the sites where the new villages will be built should be chosen carefully, so that they have water, shelter from the wind and sunshine in the houses. Special attention must be paid to Bahçallëk which is at the entrance to Shkodra. The architects should think about it and find the best possible solutions.”
I was aware of the urgent need to undertake a national-scale action to overcome the consequences of the earthquake. But at those moments when the immediate problem was to find shelter for tens and tens of thousands of homeless people, it took a mind like Enver’s, a concern like his, to think about the aesthetic values of the new houses as well.
“All the houses must be well built, not makeshift shelters,” he said. “The new homes should look better and be more comfortable than those damaged by the earthquake.”
In October of that same year, Comrade Enver, who attended the celebration organized in Shkodra on the occasion of the completion of the action for the liquidation of the consequences of the earthquake, was pleased with what had been done and wholeheartedly congratulated the builders of the new houses, who, despite the short time, had done a fine, praiseworthy job.
Enver Hoxha was a man of great intellectual and physical energies. With his ability as an accomplished psychologist, he knew how to penetrate into people’s souls, to free them from any kind of shyness and to create the conditions which are necessary to encourage those he talked with to express their opinions. He repeated, over and over again, that to open the way to people’s rational ideas, you must first of all respect their opinions. It was his custom, immediately after meetings he had with specialists and cadres, to sit and jot down on paper impressions, considerations, ideas and recommendations.
Unity of profound thinking with simplicity of expression is characteristic of all Enver Hoxha’s work. This is a quality of great importance, not only because it enables working people of all categories to assimilate his work, not only because it reflects his well-known modesty in all his relations with people, but also because it shows clearly that his erudition had a solid basis. He never wrote to display culture and erudition as an aim in itself. On the contrary, he placed his all-sided culture in the service of the people, in order to solve the problems of society.
He dealt competently with every problem, every issue, in whatever field, although not as a narrow specialist. He ceaselessly studied both history and philosophy, economics and technology. He was always informed about the latest achievements in different sciences. Every good new book made him happy. Had he participated in a competition for the title “Friend of Books” he would certainly have taken first place.
Enver had one great passion which, we can say, dominated him: reading. He read many kinds of literature, from various sources, in different languages. He read always with a critical mind. He had the ability to determine the essential connections between the different items of knowledge he acquired. His knowledge was profound, not shallow and superficial. He used specialized terminology sparingly, and not as an aim in itself, or in order to pose as an expert in the given field. Even in his last years, when failing eyesight troubled him greatly, he did not give up books. The members of his family patiently read him the new books and he listened with the greatest attention.
In our free meetings it was his habit to tell us about what he had read recently. In this way, he not only informed us about particular problems, but also encouraged us to read. Today he would speak about history, tomorrow about geology; one day about ethnography and another day about ancient medicine; sometimes about the Hussites, at other times about the history of the Bible or Islam; on one occasion about radioactivity, on another about the birth of different alphabets; at one meeting about the nutritional value of vegetables, or the need for macro-economic studies, and at another about currency and exchange rate problems.
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s method of study and his special passion for reading are a great and impelling example for all our people. Study, knowledge of technical and technological progress, and continuous following up of different events and new developments in science are permanent requirements without which we cannot cope with the tasks to which socialist construction gives rise in all fields. Marxist-Leninist philosophy and ideology cannot advance and explain the revolutionary processes of the time if they do not follow the new developments, on both the internal and the external planes. Any theory which does not keep pace with, indeed, does not keep ahead of the time, becomes powerless to respond to problems that arise. The socialist construction and defence of the Homeland cannot be ensured if the phenomena which they display are not studied and interpreted correctly, if various types of information, knowledge and culture are not constantly enriched.
With his revolutionary work, with everything he has done for the people and the Homeland, Enver Hoxha has won the love and respect of the whole Albanian people — workers and peasants, women and youth, intellectuals and militarymen. This love has grown out of the friendship born in the struggle for the great cause of socialism. It is the expression of a pure feeling created in the course of the work, full of self-denial and sacrifice, for the construction of the new life. It is not, and cannot be, the product of a personality cult, as the enemies of Albania and socialism slanderously allege. No, Enver Hoxha detested the idea of such a cult and never fostered it. The love of the people and the communists for him is an expression of the gratitude which every Albanian feels for the man who dedicated the whole of his life to the happiness and well-being of his people. To every Albanian, Enver Hoxha is a comrade and a brother, because each of them sees his life, his joys, his present and future closely linked with the name of the Party and its great founder and leader.
Our road and Enver’s road are one and indivisible. We follow this road not to do honour to his name or for sentimental reasons. We follow this road, and will continue to do so, because it responds to the interests of the people and the socialist development of the country, because it shows us how to work better for the defence of the freedom and independence of the Homeland, for the successful construction of socialism and the prosperous future of the people. If the road he foresaw is the tested and most correct road for us today, that is the merit of Enver Hoxha.
The words and thinking of Comrade Enver Hoxha and the directives and programs he formulated represent the synthesis of the collective thinking of the Party. In his speeches and contributions to discussions he simply restated to the Party and the people their own ideas, which had been sought and expressed in the most democratic and direct ways, and which he brought together in generalized form. The unity in thought and action of the Party around its leader, Comrade Enver Hoxha, stemmed from this permanent connection, which was part of his method of work. Just as the people and the Party listened attentively to what he said and went on the offensive and into action to put it into practice, so he persistently sought the ideas and opinions of his comrades at working meetings and in casual contacts.
The communists, cadres and all our people must learn not only from Enver Hoxha’s theoretical work, but also from his practical activity as a leader, and from his life and figure as a man. They must learn how to love the people and live with them, and how to understand and solve their problems. They must learn how to love and defend the Homeland, how to struggle for its happiness and progress, and how to safeguard and constantly develop the revolutionary and internationalist spirit.
All of us must learn to be fearless in the face of any difficulty, just as Enver Hoxha was; to find our bearings correctly and unerringly in any situation, just as he did; to organize and guide affairs with knowledge and culture, just as he did; to be progressive and always fight for the new, just as he did; to be innovative, vigilant and always on the offensive against class enemies. Our hearts must beat for the Homeland and communism all through our lives, just as Enver’s did.