The Meeting of 81 communist and workers’ parties was held in Moscow from November 10 to December 1, 1960. It was held in a very complicated situation of the international communist movement as a result of the spread of modern revisionism and especially the schismatic anti-Marxist activity of the Soviet leadership with Khrushchev at the head. The delegation of the Party of Labour of Albania was led by Comrade Enver Hoxha who spoke on behalf of the CC of the Party of Labour of Albania.
The Party of Labour of Albania tried in every way to avoid publicizing its differences with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, lest it would put weapons into the hands of the enemies of communism. On the other hand, it was not yet cognizant of Khrushchev’s real intentions, therefore it tried to settle the differences through talks and consultations in a comradely spirit. While maintaining a principled stand, it strove and hoped to make the Soviet leaders realize their mistakes and take the right path. Thus, Comrade Enver Hoxha’s speech bears the seal of the time and circumstances it came into being.
As time went on, real treacherous features of the Soviet revisionists became more and more evident to the Party of Labour of Albania. The more their treachery was revealed, the harsher and more irreconcilable became the battle the PLA waged against Khrushchevite revisionism in order to expose and crush it completely.
At the meeting, our Party openly attacked the disruptive activity of the Soviet revisionist leadership, with Nikita Khrushchev at the head; this heroic revolutionary act of our Party will remain one of the most brilliant pages in the history not only of our Party but also of the international communist and workers’ movement. The speech Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered at the Moscow Meeting in November 1960 will remain a glorious monument in the history of the international communist and workers’ movement forever. It is an extremely important contribution by the Party of Labour of Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha to the exposure of the Khrushchev revisionist clique and to the defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism on a world scale.
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s speech at the meeting of 81 parties, which has great and ever lasting relevance, reflects the line of struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania against Khrushchevite revisionism. It makes a devasting criticism of the opportunist views of the Soviet leaders in all their most essential manifestations and presents the stand of the Party of Labour of Albania on the most important problems of world development, strategy and tactics, and relations between the communist parties and the socialist countries. In Moscow, Comrade Enver Hoxha hit right on the mark. He proved that the source of evil which had gripped the communist movement should be sought in the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in its decisions. By means of indisputable arguments, he rejected the revisionist theses and anti-Marxist actions of the Soviet leaders, one by one laying bare their reactionary aims. The speech which Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania at the Meeting of 81 communist and workers’ parties in Moscow on November 16, 1960 follows, without modification:
Dear comrades,
This Meeting of the communist and workers’ parties is of historic importance to the international communist movement, for it is making a detailed analysis of the international political situation, drawing up a balance of the successes and of the mistakes that may have been verified along our course, helping us see more clearly the line we should pursue henceforth in order to score further successes to the benefit of socialism, communism and peace.
The existence of the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union, is already an accomplished fact in the world. The communist movement in general has been enlarged, strengthened and tempered. The communist and workers’ parties throughout the world have become a colossal force which is leading mankind forward towards socialism, towards peace.
As the draft statement which has been prepared emphasizes, our socialist camp is very much stronger than that of the imperialists. Socialism is growing stronger and attaining new heights day by day while imperialism is growing weaker and decaying. We should make use of all our means and forces to speed up this process. This will come about if we remain unwaveringly loyal to Marxism-Leninism and apply it correctly. Otherwise, we shall retard this process, for we are faced with a ruthless enemy, imperialism, headed by U.S. imperialism, which we must defeat and destroy.
We want peace, while imperialism does not want peace and is preparing for a third world war. We must fight with all our might to avert a world war and to bring about the triumph of a just and democratic peace in the world. This will be achieved when we have forced imperialism to disarm. Imperialism will not give up its arms of its own free will. To believe anything of the kind is merely to deceive oneself and others. Therefore we should confront imperialism with the colossal economic, military, moral, political and ideological strength of the socialist camp, as well as with the combined strength of the peoples throughout the world, to sabotage, in every way, the war which the imperialists are preparing.
The Party of Labour of Albania has never hidden this situation and the threat with which imperialism is menacing peace-loving mankind from its own people, nor will it ever do so. We can assure you that the Albanian people, who detest war, have not been intimidated by this correct action of their Party: they have not become pessimistic, nor have they been marking time as far as socialist construction is concerned. They have a clear vision of their future and have set to work with full confidence, always vigilant, keeping the pick in one hand and the rifle in the other.
Our view is that imperialism, headed by American imperialism, should be mercilessly exposed, politically and ideologically, and at no time should we permit flattery, prettification, or currying favour with imperialism. No concessions of principle should be made to it. The tactics and compromises which are permissible on our part should help our cause, not that of the enemy.
Facing a ruthless enemy, the guarantee for the triumph of our cause lies in our complete unity, which will be secured by eliminating the deep ideological differences which have been manifested, and by building this unity on the foundations of Marxism-Leninism, on equality, on brotherhood, on the spirit of comradeship and proletarian internationalism. Our Party is of the opinion that not only should we not have any ideological split but we should maintain a unified political stand on all issues. Our tactics and strategy towards the enemy should be worked out by all our parties, based on Marxist-Leninist principles, on correct political criteria complying with the concrete existing situation.
Our socialist camp, headed by the glorious Soviet Union, has become a colossal force from all points of view, both as to its economic and cultural as well as to its military potential. At the centre of the successes, at the centre of the strength of our camp lies the colossal moral and political, economic, cultural and military strength of the Soviet Union. The Soviet successes in industry, agriculture, education and culture, in science and in military are exceptionally great. At the same time they are of immeasurable assistance to the achievement of major successes in the other countries of the socialist camp.
It is rightly pointed out in the draft statement that the great and inexhaustible strength of the socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union is the decisive factor in the triumph of peace in the world, it is the moral, political and ideological force which inspires the peoples of the world who are fighting to free themselves from the yoke of the bloodsucking colonialists, from the clutches of imperialism and capitalism, it is its force of example and its economic aid which helps and inspires other peoples to win the battle for complete liberation from the exploiting capitalists.
It is for this major reason that the Soviet Union and the socialist camp have become the centre and hope of the peoples of the world, their moral, political and economic prop, their firm and loyal champions against the threats of the warmongering U.S., British, French aggressors and their allies.
All the peoples of the world aspire to and fight for freedom, independence, sovereignty, social justice, culture and peace. These sacred aspirations of theirs have been and are being suppressed by the capitalists, the feudal lords and imperialists, and thus it is natural that the struggle of these peoples should be waged with great severity against the capitalists, feudal lords and imperialists. It is also natural for the peoples of the world to seek allies in this battle for life which they are waging against their executioners. It is only the Soviet Union and the socialist camp that are their great, powerful and faithful allies.
Therefore, in the struggle for peace, disarmament, and social progress in the world, the socialist camp is not alone facing the imperialist camp but is in close alliance with all the progressive peoples of the world, while the imperialists remain alone facing the socialist camp.
We are living at a time when we are witnessing the total destruction of colonialism, the elimination of this plague that has wiped peoples from the face of the earth. New states are springing up in Africa and Asia. The states where capital, the scourge and the bullet reigned supreme are putting an end to the yoke of bondage, and the people are taking their destiny into their own hands. This has been and is being achieved thanks to the struggle of these peoples and the moral support given to them by the Soviet Union, People’s China and the other countries of the socialist camp.
Traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism and intriguers, like Josip Broz Tito, are trying in a thousand ways, by hatching up diabolical schemes, to mislead the peoples and the newly set up states, to detach them from their natural allies, to link them directly with U.S. imperialism. We should exert all our strength to defeat the schemes of these lackeys of imperialism.
We are witnessing the disintegration of imperialism, its decomposition, its agony. We are living and fighting in the epoch which is characterized by the irresistible transition from capitalism to socialism. All the brilliant teachings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, which have never become outdated, as the revisionists claim, are being confirmed in practice.
World imperialism is being dealt heavy blows, which clearly shows that it is no longer in its “golden age” when it made the law as and when it wanted. The initiative has slipped from its hands, and this was not because of its own wish or desire. The initiative was wrested from it, not by mere words and discourses, but after a long process of bloody battles and revolutions which capitalism itself provoked against the proletariat, against the strength of the peoples who were rising to smash the world of hunger and misery, the world of slavery. This glorious page was opened by the Great October Socialist Revolution, by the great Soviet Union, by the great Lenin.
Even now, when it sees its approaching doom, when it has strong and determined opponents such as the socialist camp and its great alliance with all the peoples of the world, world imperialism, headed by U.S. imperialism, is mustering, organizing, and arming its assault forces. It is preparing for war. He who fails to see this is blind. He who sees it but covers it up is a traitor in the service of imperialism.
The Party of Labour of Albania is of the opinion that in spite of the major difficulties we encounter on our way to establish peace in the world, to bring about disarmament and settle the other international problems there is no reason to be pessimistic. Only our enemies, who are suffering losses, are and must be pessimistic. We have won, we are winning and shall continue to win. That is why we have been and are optimistic and convinced that our efforts will be crowned with success.
But we think that exaggerated, unrealistic optimism is not only not good, but is even harmful. He who denies, belittles, who has no faith in our great economic, political, military and moral strength is a defeatist and does not deserve to be called a communist. On the other hand, he who, intoxicated by our potential, disregards the strength of the opponents, thinking that the enemy has lost all hope, has become harmless and is entirely at our mercy, he is not a realist. He bluffs, lulls mankind to sleep in the face of all these complicated and very dangerous situations which demand very great vigilance from us all, which demand the heightening of the revolutionary drive of the masses, not its slackening, disintegration, decomposition and relaxation. “Waters sleep, but not the enemy,” is a wise saying of our long-suffering people.
Let us look facts straight in the eye. World imperialism, headed by its most aggressive detachment, U.S. imperialism, is directing the course of its economy towards preparations for war. It is arming itself to the teeth. U.S. imperialism is arming Bonn’s Germany, Japan and all its allies and satellites with all kinds of weapons. It has set up and perfected aggressive military organizations, it has established and continues to establish military bases all around the socialist camp. It is accumulating stocks of nuclear weapons and refuses to disarm, to stop testing nuclear weapons, and is feverishly engaged in inventing new means of mass extermination. Why is it doing all this? To go to a wedding party? No, to go to war against us, to do away with socialism and communism, to enslave the peoples.
The Party of Labour of Albania is of the opinion that if we say and think otherwise we are deceiving ourselves and others. We would not call ourselves communists if we were afraid of the vicissitudes of life. We communists detest war. We communists will fight to the end to smash the diabolical plans for war which the U.S. imperialists are preparing, but if they declare war on us, we should deal them a mortal blow that will wipe imperialism from the face of the earth, once and for all.
Faced with threats of atomic war from world imperialism, headed by American imperialism, we should be fully prepared economically, politically, morally, as well as militarily to cope with any eventuality.
We must prevent a world war. It is not decreed by fate to be inevitable. But no one will ever excuse us if we live in a dream and let the enemy catch us unaware, for it has never happened that the enemy is to be trusted, otherwise he would not be called an enemy. The enemy is and remains an enemy, and a perfidious one at that. He who puts his trust in the enemy will sooner or later lose his case.
In order to prevent war, we should do everything possible, striving with all our means. The policy of the Soviet Union and of our socialist camp has been and remains a policy of peace. All the Soviet proposals and those of the governments of our countries of the people’s democracy made in the international arena have aimed at easing tensions among nations, at solving unsettled issues through negotiations and not through war.
The peaceful policy of the countries of the socialist camp has exerted a major influence in exposing the aggressive aims of imperialism, in mobilizing the peoples against the warmongers, in promoting their glorious struggle against the imperialist oppressors and their tools. The examples of heroic Cuba, the struggle of the Japanese people and the events in south Korea and Turkey are the best proof of this.
But despite this, many concrete problems which have been laid on the table, like the proposals for disarmament, the summit conference, etc., have not yet been resolved and are being systematically sabotaged by the U.S. imperialists.[1]
What conclusion should we draw from all this? The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that imperialism and, first and foremost, U.S. imperialism, has not changed its hide, its hair or its nature. It is aggressive, it may plunge the world into a war. Therefore, as we emphasized at the meeting of the Editorial Committee, we continue to insist that it should be brought home clearly to all the people that there is no absolute guarantee against world war until socialism has triumphed throughout the world or at least in the majority of countries. The U.S. imperialists make no secret of their refusal to disarm. They are increasing their armaments, preparing for war, therefore we should be on our guard.
We should make no concessions of principle to the enemy. We should entertain no illusions about imperialism because despite our good intentions we would make things infinitely worse. In addition to arming and preparing war against us, the enemy is carrying on unbridled propaganda to poison the spirit and benumb the minds of the people. They spend millions of dollars to recruit agents and spies, millions of dollars to organize espionage, sabotage and assassinations in our countries. U.S. imperialism has given and is giving thousands of millions of dollars to its loyal agents, the treacherous Tito gang. It is doing all this to weaken our internal front, to split us, to weaken and disorganize our rear areas.
There is a great deal of discussion about peaceful coexistence. Some even go so far as to assert such absurdities as that People’s China and Albania are allegedly opposed to peaceful coexistence. Obviously, such harmful and erroneous views should be refuted once and for all. There can be no socialist state, there can be no communist, who is opposed to peaceful coexistence, who is a warmonger. The great Lenin was the first to put forward the principle of peaceful coexistence among states of different social orders as an objective necessity as long as socialist and capitalist states exist side by side in the world. Standing loyal to this great principle of Lenin’s, our Party of Labour has always held, and still holds, that the policy of peaceful coexistence responds to the fundamental interests of all the peoples, responds to the purpose of further strengthening of the positions of socialism; therefore this principle of Lenin’s is the basis of the foreign policy of our people’s state.
Peaceful coexistence between two opposing systems does not imply, as the modern revisionists claim, that we should give up the class struggle. On the contrary, the class struggle must continue, the political and ideological struggle against imperialism against bourgeois and revisionist ideology should become ever more intense. While struggling consistently to establish Leninist peaceful coexistence, while making no concessions at all to imperialism over principles, the class struggle in the capitalist countries, as well as the national liberation movement of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries should be developed.
In our view, the communist and workers’ parties in the capitalist countries should strive to establish peaceful coexistence between their countries, which are still under the capitalist system, and our socialist countries. This strengthens the positions of peace and weakens the positions of capitalism in those countries and, in general, helps the class struggle. But their task does not end there. In these countries, the class struggle must be developed, intensified and strengthened and the working masses, led by the proletariat of the particular country headed by the Communist Party, and in alliance with the whole world proletariat, should make life impossible for imperialism, should smash its war bases and its hold on the economy, seize economic and political power from its hands and proceed to the destruction of the old state power and the establishment of the new state power of the people. Will they do this by violence or in the peaceful parliamentary way?
This question has been clear, and it was not necessary for Comrade Khrushchev to confuse it at the 20th Congress, and do so in such a way as to please the opportunists. Why was it necessary to make all those parodies of the clear theses of Lenin and of the October Socialist Revolution? The Party of Labour of Albania is quite clear about and does not shift from Lenin’s teachings on this matter. So far no people, no proletariat and no communist and workers’ party has seized state power without bloodshed and without violence.
Our Party thinks that, in this matter, we should be prepared for both eventualities, and we should be well prepared, especially, for taking power by violence, for if we are well prepared tor this, the other possibility has more chance of success. The bourgeoisie may allow you to sing psalms, but then it deals you a fascist blow to the head and crushes you because you have not trained the necessary cadres to attack, nor done illegal work, you have not prepared a place where you can protect yourself and still work nor the means with which to fight. We should forestall this tragic eventuality.
The Party of Labour of Albania has been, is and will be for peace and peaceful coexistence and will fight for them in the Marxist-Leninist way, as Lenin taught us, and on the basis of the Moscow Declaration. It has been, is, and will be striving actively for general disarmament. On no occasion, not for one moment, will the Party of Labour of Albania cease waging a political and ideological struggle against the activities of the imperialists and capitalists, and against bourgeois ideology. It will not cease waging a stern, uninterrupted and uncompromising struggle against modern revisionism and, in particular, against Yugoslav Titoite revisionism. There may be comrades who reproach us Albanians with being stubborn, hotheaded, sectarian, dogmatic, and whatever you like, but we reject all these false accusations and tell them that we do not deviate from these positions, for they are Marxist-Leninist positions.
They say that we are in favour of war and against coexistence. Comrade Kozlov has even put to us Albanians this alternative: either coexistence, as he conceives it, or an atomic bomb from the imperialists which would turn Albania to ashes and leave no Albanian alive. Until now, no representative of U.S. imperialism has made such an atomic threat against the Albanian people. But here it is, from a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and to whom? To a small, heroic people, to a people who have fought through centuries against countless savage enemies and who have never bent the knee, to a small people and to a people who have fought with unprecedented heroism against the Hitlerites and Italian fascists, to a Party which stands loyal and consistent to the end to Marxism-Leninism. But, Comrade Frol Kozlov, you have got the wrong address. You cannot frighten us into submitting to your mistaken wishes, and we never confuse the glorious Party of Lenin with you, who behave so badly, so disgracefully, towards the Albanian people and towards the Party of Labour of Albania. The Party of Labour of Albania will strive for, and support, all the correct and peaceful proposals of the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist camp, as well as those of other peace-loving countries.
The Party of Labour of Albania will exert all its strength, use all its rights and carry out all its obligations to strengthen the unity of the socialist camp, a Marxist-Leninist unity. It is absurd to think that small socialist Albania wants to break away and live outside the socialist camp, outside our fraternity of socialist peoples. Albania is indebted to no one for its presence within the ranks of the socialist camp. Our people themselves and the Party of Labour of Albania have placed it there with their blood and sweat, their work, their sacrifices, with the system of government which they have established and with the Marxist-Leninist line they pursue. But let no one even think that because Albania is a small country, because the Party of Labour of Albania is a small Party, it should do what someone else says when it is convinced that that someone is mistaken.
As I said earlier, the Party of Labour of Albania thinks that our socialist camp, which has one common aim, which is guided by Marxism-Leninism, should also have its own strategy and tactics, and these should be worked out together by our parties and states of the socialist camp. Within the ranks of our camp, we have set up certain forms of organization of work, but the truth is that these have remained somewhat formal, or to put it better, they do not function in a collective way, for instance, the organs of the Warsaw Treaty and the Council for Mutual Economic Aid.[2] Let me make it quite clear. This is not a question of whether we, too, should be consulted or not. Of course, no one denies us the right to be consulted, but we should hold meetings for consultation. We raise the problem on principle and say that these forms of organization should function at regular intervals, problems should be taken up for discussion, decisions should be adopted, and there should be a check-up on the implementation of these decisions.
The development and further strengthening of the economies of the socialist countries has been and always is the main concern of our parties and governments, and constitutes one of the decisive factors of the unconquerable strength of the socialist camp.
The construction of socialism and communism is proceeding at a rapid rate in our countries. This is due to the great efforts of our peoples and to the reciprocal aid they render one another.
So far, the Peoples Republic of Albania has given economic aid to no one, first because we are poor, and second because no one stands in need of our economic aid. But within proper norms, we have made and are making every effort to give the countries which are our friends and brothers some help through our exports. We have been aided by our friends, first and foremost by the Soviet Union. We have been helped by credits and specialists without which it would have been very difficult for our country and our economy to develop at the rate they have developed.
The Party of Labour and the government of the People’s Republic of Albania have utilized this aid of the Soviet Union and the other people’s democracies as well as they could, to the best advantage of our people. Our people are forever grateful to the Soviet people and to the peoples of the people’s democracies for this aid. We have considered, consider and will consider this aid not as charity but as fraternal, internationalist aid.
Our people, who have been in dire poverty, who have fought with heroism, who have been murdered and burnt out, had the right to seek the aid of their friends and brothers bigger and economically better off than they. And it was and still is the internationalist duty of their friends to give this aid. Therefore, it is necessary to reject any sinister and anti-Marxist view that anyone may hold about the nature and purpose of this aid. Economic pressures on the Party of Labour of Albania, on the Albanian government and on our people will never be of any avail.
I wish to propose here that the aid of the economically stronger countries for the economically weaker ones, such as ours, should be greater. The Albanian people have no intention of folding their arms and opening their mouths to be fed by others. That is not their custom. Nor do our people expect the standard of living in our country to be raised at once to the standard of living in many other countries of people’s democracy, but greater aid should be given our country to further develop its productive forces. We think that the economically stronger countries of the socialist camp should accord credits also to neutral capitalist countries and to peoples recently liberated from colonialism, provided the leaders of these capitalist countries are opposed to imperialism, support the peaceful policy of the socialist camp and do not hinder or oppose the legitimate struggle of the revolutionary forces, but first of all, the needs of the countries of the socialist camp should be looked into more carefully and be fulfilled. Of course, India stands in need of iron and steel, but socialist Albania stands in greater and more urgent need of them. Egypt needs irrigation and electric power, but socialist Albania has greater and more urgent need for them.
On many political issues of first-rate importance, our socialist camp has held and holds identical views. But since collective consultations have not been held regularly, on many occasions it has been noted that states from our socialist camp take political initiatives (not that we are opposed in principle to taking initiatives), which very often affect other states of the socialist camp as well. Some of these initiatives are not correct, especially when they are not taken collectively by the members of the Warsaw Treaty.
An initiative of this kind is that of the Bulgarian government which, with total disregard for Albania, informed the Greek government that the Balkan countries of people’s democracy agree to disarm if the Greek government is prepared to do so too. From our point of view, this initiative was wrong, for even if Greece had endorsed it, the Albanian government would not have accepted it. Albania is in agreement with the Soviet proposal made by Nikita Khrushchev in May 1959,[3] but not with the Bulgarian proposal, which wants the Balkan countries to disarm, while leaving Italy unaffected. Or have the Bulgarian comrades forgotten that bourgeois and fascist Italy has attacked Albania a number of times during this century?
On the other hand, can it be permitted that, without any consultation at all with the Albanian government, with which they are bound by a defensive treaty, the Bulgarian comrades should propose a treaty of friendship and non-aggression to the Greek government, at a time when Greece maintains a state of war with Albania and is making territorial claims against our homeland? It seems to us that it is dangerous to take such unilateral actions.
From this correct and legitimate opposition of ours, perhaps the Bulgarian comrades may have arrived at the conclusion that we Albanians allegedly do not properly understand coexistence, that we want war, and so forth. These views are erroneous.
Similar gestures have been made also by the Polish comrades at the United Nations, when Comrade Gomulka stated in a unilateral way at the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization that Poland proposes that “the status quo on the stationing of military forces in the world should be preserved, and concretely, that no more military bases should be created, but those that have been set up already should remain, that no more missiles should be installed but the existing ones should remain, that those states that have the secret of the atomic bomb should keep it and not give it to other states.” In our opinion, such a proposal is contrary to the interests of our camp. No more missiles to be installed, but by whom and where? All the NATO members including Italy, West Germany and Greece have been equipped with missiles. Not to give the secret of the atomic bomb to whom? Britain, France, and West Germany have it. It is clear that a proposal of this kind will oblige us, the countries of people’s democracy, not to install missiles, and any other country of the socialist camp, except the Soviet Union, not to have the atomic bomb.
We pose the question: why should communist China not have the atomic bomb? We think that China should have it, and when it has the bomb and missiles, then we shall see in what terms U.S. imperialism will speak, we shall see whether they will continue to deny China its rights in the international arena, we shall see whether the U.S. imperialists will dare brandish their weapons as they are doing at present.
Someone may pose the question: will China win its rights over the United States of America by possessing and dropping the bomb? No, China will never use the bomb unless she is attacked by those who have aggression and war in their very blood. If the Soviet Union did not possess the bomb, imperialism would have been talking in a different tone with it. We will never attack with the bomb; we are opposed to war. We are ready to destroy the bomb, but we must keep it to defend ourselves. “It is fear that guards the vineyard,” our people say. The imperialists should be afraid of us, and terribly afraid at that.
Based on Marxism-Leninism and on the Moscow Declaration and the Manifesto on Peace, the Party of Labour of Albania has pursued a correct Marxist-Leninist line in matters of international policy and in the important problems of socialist construction. In international relations, the line of our Party has been in accord with the policy of the socialist camp.
The Party of Labour of Albania has considered, considers, and will consider the Soviet Union as the saviour of our people and its great experience as universal, very necessary and indispensable to all. The Party of Labour of Albania has followed, implemented and adopted this great experience unreservedly in all fields and has scored successes. We have scored successes in setting up and strengthening our industry, in collectivizing agriculture, in developing education and culture, making great progress, and in building our state and our Party. Our Party has now gained maturity and a rich experience by working in this direction.
Our Party has educated, educates, and will continue to educate our people with a great love and loyalty towards the peoples and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This love has been tempered and will be tempered each passing day, for it is kneaded with blood, for it has developed on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. We have loved, and still love the Soviet people from the bottom of our hearts and the Soviet people, on their part, have loved and love the people and the Party of Labour of Albania in the same way. This is friendship between peoples, friendship between Marxist-Leninist parties and, therefore, it will flourish through the ages and will never die. This is the unshakable conviction of the Albanian communists, a conviction they have deeply implanted and will continue to implant among our people. We have said and we it repeat now that, without this friendship, there could not have been freedom for our people. This is the fruit of Leninism.
The major problems of the time have concerned both the Party of Labour of Albania and our small people. Our People’s Republic has been and is surrounded geographically by capitalist states and the Yugoslav revisionists. We have had to be highly vigilant and tie down people and considerable funds to defend our borders, to defend the freedom and sovereignty of our country from the innumerable attempts of the imperialists and their satellites, their lackeys.
We are a small country and a small people who have suffered to an extraordinary degree, but who have also fought very hard. We are not indebted to anyone for the freedom we enjoy today, for we have won it with our own blood. We are continually aware, day and night, of our imperialist enemies, of their manoeuvres against the socialist camp and our country in particular, therefore we have never had, nor will we ever, entertain illusions about their changing their nature and their intentions towards peoples, our camp, and towards socialist Albania in particular. Our Party has been and is for peace, and will fight unceasingly, by the side of the Soviet Union, People’s China, the other countries of the socialist camp and all the progressive peoples of the world to defend peace. For this sacred purpose the Party of Labour of Albania and our government have supported with all their strength the peaceful policy of the Communist Party and government of the Soviet Union, and all the countries of the socialist camp. On every issue and on every proposal we have been in solidarity with them.
The U.S. and British imperialists have accused and accuse us Albanians of being “savage and war-like.” This is understandable, for the Albanian people have dealt telling blows at their repeated attempts to put us under bondage and have smashed the heads of their agents who have conspired against the Party of Labour of Albania and our regime of people’s democracy.
The Tito gang, the Greek monarcho-fascist chauvinists, the rulers in Rome and others have accused and accuse us of being “warmongers and disturbers of the peace in the Balkans” because, without hesitation, we have always and will always hit them hard, for their intentions have been, remain and will always be to chop up Albania among themselves, to enslave our people.
We do not think we need prove at this meeting that war is alien to the socialist countries, to our Marxist-Leninist parties, but the question remains: why do the imperialists and their agents accuse China and Albania of being war-like, and opposed to peaceful coexistence?
Let us take the question of Albania. Against whom would Albania make war and why? It would be ridiculous to waste our time in answering this question. But those who accuse us of this are trying to cover up their aggressive intentions towards Albania.
Ranković wants us to turn our borders into a roadhouse with two gates through which Yugoslav, Italian and Greek agents and weapons could go in and out freely, “without visas,” in order to bring us their “culture of cut-throats,” so that Tito may realize his dream of turning Albania into the 7th republic of Yugoslavia, so that the reactionary Italian bourgeoisie may put into action their predatory intentions towards Albania for the third time, or so that the Greek monarcho-fascists may realize their crazy dream of grabbing southern Albania. Because we have not permitted such a thing and never will permit it, we are “warmongers.” They know very well that if they violate our border they will have to fight us and the whole socialist camp.
Their aim, therefore, has been and is to isolate us from the camp and from our friends, to accuse us of being “warmongers and savage” because we do not open our borders for them to graze freely, to accuse us of being opposed to peaceful coexistence. But the irony of fate is that there are comrades who believe this ploy of the revisionists and these slanders against the Party of Labour of Albania. Of course, we are opposed to any coexistence for the sake of which we Albanians would have to make territorial and political concession to Sophocles Venizelos. No, the time has gone forever when the territory of Albania could be treated as a token to be bartered. We are opposed to such a coexistence with the Yugoslav state which implies that we would have to give up our ideological and political struggle against the Yugoslav revisionists, these agents of international imperialism, these traitors to Marxism-Leninism. We are opposed to such coexistence with the British or U.S. imperialists for the sake of which we would have to recognize, as they demand, the old political, diplomatic and trading concessions King Zog’s regime had granted them.
As a general conclusion, the Party of Labour of Albania is absolutely convinced that our great cause, that of the victory of socialism and peace, will triumph. Through determined action, the combined forces of the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union, of the international communist and workers’ movement, and of all the peace-loving peoples have the possibility of compelling the imperialists to accept peaceful coexistence, of averting a world war. But, at the same time, we will intensify our revolutionary vigilance more and more so that the enemy may never take us by surprise. We are convinced that victory will be ours in this noble struggle for world peace and the triumph of socialism. The Albanian people and the Party of Labour of Albania, just as heretofore, will spare nothing to assist the triumph of our common cause with all their might. As always, we shall march forward in steel-like unity with the whole socialist camp, with the Soviet Union, and with the whole international communist and workers’ movement.
The unity of the international communist and workers’ movement is the decisive factor in realizing the noble aims of the triumph of peace, democracy, national independence and socialism. This question is especially emphasized in the 1957 Moscow Declaration and the draft statement prepared for our meeting. In the 1957 Declaration, it is stressed that: “The communist and workers’ parties bear an exceptionally serious historic responsibility for the fate of the world socialist system and the international communist movement. The communist and workers’ parties taking part in the meeting declare that they will spare no effort to strengthen their unity and comradely collaboration in the interests of the further unity of the family of socialist states, in the interest of the international workers’ movement, in the interests of the cause of peace and socialism.”
It must be said that especially in recent times, in the international communist movement and in the relations among certain parties, profound ideological and political disagreements have arisen, the deepening of which can bring nothing but damage to our great cause. Therefore, the Party of Labour of Albania thinks that in order to go forward together towards fresh victories it is necessary to condemn the mistakes and negative manifestations which have appeared so far and to correct them.
We want to refer here to the Bucharest Meeting at which our Party, as you know, refrained from expressing its opinion concerning the differences which have arisen between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China, but reserved the right to do so at this meeting of the representatives of the communist and workers’ parties. At that time, the Party of Labour of Albania was accused by the Soviet comrades, and by some comrades of the other fraternal parties, of everything imaginable, but no one took the trouble to think for a moment why this Party maintained such a stand against the whole current, why this Party, which has stood loyal to the end to Marxism-Leninism and the Moscow Declaration, is suddenly accused of allegedly “opposing Marxism-Leninism and the Moscow Declaration,” why this Party so closely bound to the Soviet Union and to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, all at once comes out in opposition to the leadership of the Soviet Union.
Now that all the comrades have in their hands both the Soviet information material as well as that of the Communist Party of China, let them reflect on it themselves. We have read and studied both the Soviet and the Chinese materials, we have discussed them carefully with the Party activists, and come to this meeting with the unanimous view of our whole Party.
As we all know, on June 24 this year, on the occasion of the 3rd Congress of the Romanian Workers’ Party, the Bucharest Meeting was organized unexpectedly, and without any previous warning, at least as far as our Party was concerned, on the initiative of the comrades of leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Instead of “exchanging opinions” and setting the date for this meeting we are holding today, which was agreed upon through the letters of June 2 and 7, it took up another topic, namely the ideological and political accusation against the Communist Party of China on the basis of the “Soviet information” material. On the basis of this material, entirely unknown up to a few hours before the meeting, the delegates of the fraternal communist and workers’ parties were supposed to pronounce themselves in favour of the views of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at a time when they had come to Bucharest for another purpose and had no mandate (at least as regards the delegation of our Party) from their parties to discuss, let alone decide, such an important issue of international communism. Nor could a serious discussion be thought of about this material, which contained such gross accusations against another Marxist-Leninist Party, when not only the delegates but especially the leaderships of the communist and workers’ parties were not allowed to study it from all angles, and without allowing the necessary time to the accused Party to submit its views in all the forms which the accusing Party had used. The fact is that the overriding concern of the Soviet leadership was to have its accusations against the Communist Party of China passed over quickly, and to have the Communist Party of China condemned at all cost.
This was the concern of Comrade Khrushchev and other Soviet comrades in Bucharest, and not at all the international political issues worrying our camp and the world as a whole after the failure of the summit conference in Paris.
Our Party would have been in full agreement with an international meeting of communist and workers’ parties, with whatever other meeting, of whatever agenda that might be set, provided that these meetings were in order, had the approval of all the parties, had a clear agenda set in advance, provided the communists and workers’ parties were given the necessary materials and allowed enough time to study these materials so that they could prepare themselves and if necessary so that the Political Bureau could receive the approval of the Plenum of the Central Committees on the decisions that might eventually be taken at this conference. Hence meetings should be conducted according to the norms governing the relations among the communist and workers’ parties, in a comradely communist and internationalist spirit, and with lofty communist morality.
The Bucharest Meeting did not comply with these norms, therefore although it took part in it, our Party denounced and denounces that meeting as out of order and in violation of the Leninist norms.
We think that the Bucharest Meeting did a great disservice to the cause of the international communist movement, to the cause of the international solidarity of the workers, to the cause of strengthening the unity of the socialist camp, to the cause of setting a Marxist-Leninist example in settling ideological, political and organizational disputes that may arise within the ranks of the communist and workers’ parties and which damage Marxism-Leninism. The blame for this falls on the comrades of the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who organized this meeting, who conceived those forms, and who applied those non-Marxist norms in this matter.
The aim was to have the Communist Party of China condemned by the international communist movement on baseless charges of faults and mistakes which do not exist. The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania is fully convinced of this on the basis of the study of the facts and the Soviet and Chinese materials which the Party of Labour of Albania now has at its disposal, on the basis of a detailed analysis which the Party of Labour of Albania has made of the international situation and of the official stands of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China.
The entire Party of Labour of Albania holds the unanimous view that the Soviet comrades made a grave mistake in Bucharest. They condemned the Communist Party of China unjustly of having allegedly deviated from Marxism-Leninism, of having allegedly violated and abandoned the 1957 Moscow Declaration. They have accused the Communist Party of China of being, “dogmatic,” “sectarian,” of being “in favour of war,” of being “opposed to peaceful coexistence,” of “wanting a privileged position in the camp and in the international communist movement,” etc.
The Soviet comrades made a grave mistake also when, taking advantage of the great love and trust which the communists have for the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, they tried to impose their incorrect views about the Communist Party of China on the other communist and workers’ parties.
Right from the start, when the Soviet comrades began their feverish and impermissible work of inveigling the comrades of our delegation in Bucharest, it became clear to the Party of Labour of Albania that the Soviet comrades, resorting to groundless arguments and pressure, wished to lead the delegation of the Party of Labour of Albania into the trap they had prepared, to bring it into line with the distorted views of the Soviet comrades.
What was of importance to Comrade Khrushchev (and Comrade Andropov said as much to Comrade Hysni Kapo) was whether we would “line up with the Soviet side or not.” Comrade Khrushchev expressed this opinion in another way also in his interjections against our Party at the Bucharest Meeting. This was corroborated as well by many unjust and unfriendly gestures of the Soviet leadership and the employees of the Soviet embassy in Tirana after the Bucharest Meeting, to which I shall refer later. What was important for the comrades of the Soviet leadership was not the views of a Marxist-Leninist Party such as ours, but only that we should maintain the same attitude as that maintained by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Bucharest Meeting.
No warning was given to the Party of Labour of Albania by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which organized the Bucharest Meeting, that, on the occasion of the Congress of the Romanian Workers’ Party, accusations would be brought against the Communist Party of China for alleged grave mistakes of line. For the Party of Labour of Albania, this was quite unexpected. While now we hear that with the exception of the Party of Labour of Albania, the Communist Party of China, the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Workers’ Party of Vietnam, the other parties of our camp were cognizant of the fact that a meeting would be organized in Bucharest to accuse China. If this is so, then it is very clear that the question becomes very much more serious and assumes the form of a faction of an international character.
Nevertheless, our Party was not taken unaware and it did not lack vigilance, and this was because it always observes the Leninist norms in relations with the other parties, because it has great Marxist respect for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of China, and all the other communist and workers’ parties, because it respects the feeling of equality among parties, an equality which the other parties should respect towards the Party of Labour of Albania, regardless of it being small in numbers.
Right from the beginning, our Party saw that these norms were being violated at the Bucharest Meeting, and that is why it took the stand you all know, a stand which it considered and still considers as the only correct one to maintain towards the events as they developed.
Some leaders of fraternal parties dubbed us as “neutralists,” some others reproached us with “departing from the correct Marxist-Leninist line,” and these leaders went so far as to try to discredit our Party before their own parties. We scornfully reject all these things because they are slanders, they are dishonest, and they are incompatible with communist morality.
We pose the questions to those who undertook such despicable actions against the Party of Labour of Albania: has a Party the right to express its opinions freely on how it sees matters? What opinion did the Party of Labour of Albania express in Bucharest? We expressed our loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, and this is corroborated by the entire life and struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania. We expressed our loyalty to the decisions of the 1957 Moscow Declaration and the Manifesto on Peace, and this is corroborated by the line consistently pursued by the Party of Labour of Albania. We expressed our loyalty to and defended the unity of the socialist camp, and this is corroborated by the whole struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania. We expressed our affection for and loyalty to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and to the Soviet peoples, and this is corroborated by the whole life of the Party of Labour of Albania. We did not agree “to pass judgement” on the “mistakes” of the Communist Party of China and, even less, “to condemn” the Communist Party of China without taking into account the views of the Communist Party of China on the charges raised against it in such a distorted, hasty, and anti-Marxist way. We counselled caution, cool-headedness and a comradely spirit in treating this matter so vital and exceptionally serious for international communism. This was the whole “crime” for which stones were thrown at us. But we think that the stones which were picked up to strike us fell back on the heads of those who threw them. The passage of time is confirming the correctness of the stand maintained by the Party of Labour of Albania.
Why were Comrade Khrushchev and the other Soviet comrades in such a great hurry to accuse the Communist Party of China groundlessly and without facts? Is it permissible for communists, and especially for the principal leaders of so great a Party as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to perpetrate such an ugly act? Let them answer this question themselves, but the Party of Labour of Albania also has the full right to express its opinion on the matter.
The Party of Labour of Albania is of the opinion that the Bucharest Meeting was not only a great mistake but also a mistake which was deliberately aggravated. In no way should the Bucharest Meeting be left in oblivion but it should be severely condemned as a black stain in the international communist movement.
There is not the least doubt that the ideological differences have been and are grave, and that these have arisen and have been developed between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China. These should have been settled in due time and in a Marxist-Leninist way between the two parties concerned.
According to the Chinese document, the Communist Party of China says that these differences of principle were raised by the Chinese comrades immediately following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Some of these matters have been taken into consideration by the Soviet comrades, while others have been rejected.
The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that if these differences could not be settled between the two parties concerned, a meeting should have been sought of the communist and workers’ parties at which these matters could have been brought up, discussed and a stand taken towards them. It is not right that these matters should have been left unsettled, and the blame for this must fall on the Soviet comrades who had knowledge of these differences but disregarded them because they were dead certain of their line and its “inviolability,” and this, we think, is an idealist and metaphysical approach.
If the Soviet comrades were convinced of the correctness of their line and their tactics, why did they not organize such a meeting in due time and have these differences settled? Were the matters raised so trivial, for example, the condemnation of J.V. Stalin, the major question of the Hungarian counter-revolution, that of the forms of the seizure of power, not to speak of many other very important problems that emerged later? No, they were not trivial at all. We all have our own views on these problems, because as communists we are all interested in them, because all our parties are responsible to our own peoples, but they are responsible to international communism, as well.
In order to condemn the Communist Party of China for imaginary faults and sins, Comrade Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders were very concerned to present the case as if the differences existed between China and the whole international communist movement, but, when it came to problems like those I just mentioned, judgement on them has been passed by Khrushchev and the comrades around him alone, thinking that there was no need for them to be discussed collectively, at a meeting of the representatives of all the parties, although these were major problems of an international character.
The Hungarian counter-revolution occurred but matters were hushed up. Why this tactic of hushing things up when they are not to their advantage, while for things which are to their advantage the Soviet comrades not only call meetings like that of Bucharest, but do their utmost to force on others the view that China “is in opposition to the line of all the communist and workers’ parties of the world”?
The Soviet comrades made a similar attempt towards us also. In August this year, the Soviet leadership sent a letter to our Party in which it proposed that, “with a view to preventing the spark of differences from flaring up,” the representatives of our two parties should meet so that our Party would align itself with the Soviet Union against the Communist Party of China, and that our two parties should present a united front at this present meeting. Of course, the Central Committee of our Party refused such a thing, and in its official reply described this as something quite un-Marxist, a factional act directed against a third fraternal Party, against the Communist Party of China. Of course, this correct, principled stand of our Party was not to the liking of the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
There is no doubt that these matters are of first-rate importance. There is no doubt that they concern us all, but neither is there any doubt for the Party of Labour of Albania that the matters, as they were raised in Bucharest against China, were tendentious and aimed at condemning the Communist Party of China and isolating it from the whole international communist movement.
For the Party of Labour of Albania this was dreadful and unacceptable, not only because it was not convinced of the truth of these allegations, but also because it rightly suspected that a non-Marxist action was being organized against a great and glorious fraternal Party like the Communist Party of China, that under the guise of an accusation of dogmatism against China, an attack was being launched against Marxism-Leninism.
At the meeting, the Communist Party of China was accused of many faults. This should have figured in the communique. Why was it not done? If the accusations were well founded, why all this hesitation and why issue a communique which did not correspond to the purpose for which the meeting was called? Why was there no reference in it to the “great danger of dogmatism” allegedly threatening international communism?
No, comrades, the Bucharest Meeting cannot be justified. It was not based on principles. It was a biased one to achieve certain objectives, of which the main one in the opinion of the Party of Labour of Albania was by accusing the Communist Party of China of dogmatism to cover up some grave mistakes of line which the Soviet leading comrades have allowed themselves to make.
The Soviet comrades stood in need of the support of the other parties on this matter. Therefore, they blatantly tried to take them by surprise. That is how the Soviet comrades achieved half their aim and won the right to put forward the condemnation of China in these parties as the outcome of an “international conference of communism.” In the communist and workers’ parties, with the exception of the Party of Labour of Albania and certain other communist and workers’ parties, the question was raised of the “grave errors of policy committed by the Communist Party of China” and the “unanimous” condemnation of China in Bucharest was reported, in an effort to create opinion in the parties and among the people in this direction. The Party of Labour of Albania was also condemned at some of these party meetings.
After the Bucharest Meeting, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania decided, and decided rightly, to discuss in the Party only the communique, to tell the Party that there existed divergencies of principle between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China which should be taken up and settled at the coming meeting which would be held in Moscow in November. And this was what was done.
But this stand of our Party did not please the leading comrades of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and we were very soon made aware of this. Immediately following the Bucharest Meeting, an unexpected, unprincipled attack was launched, and brutal intervention and all-round pressure was undertaken against our Party and its Central Committee. The attack was begun by Comrade Khrushchev in Bucharest and was continued by Comrade Kozlov in Moscow. The comrades of our Political Bureau who happened to pass through Moscow were worked upon with a view to turning them against the leadership of our Party, putting forward that “the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania had betrayed the friendship with the Soviet Union,” that “the line pursued by the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania is characterized by ‘zigzags’,” that “Albania must decide to go either with the 200 million (with the Soviet Union) or with the 650 million (with People’s China),” and finally that “an isolated Albania is in danger for it would take only one atomic bomb dropped by the Americans to wipe out Albania and all its population completely,” and other threats of the kind. It is absolutely clear that the aim was to sow discord in the leadership of our Party, to remove from the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania those elements who the Soviet leaders thought stood in the way of their crooked and dishonest undertaking.
What came out of this divisive work was that Liri Belishova, former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, capitulated to the cajolery of the Soviet leaders, to their blackmail and intimidation and took a stand in open opposition to the line of the Party.
The attempt of the Soviet comrades in their letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to present this question as if the friends of the Soviet Union in Albania are being persecuted is a falsehood. The million and a half Albanians and the Party of Labour of Albania, which has forged and steeled this friendship tempered in blood are lifelong friends of the Soviet people, and not the various capitulators, splitters and deviationists.
But the attempts to arouse doubts about the correct stand of our Party in Bucharest were not confined just to Moscow. They were made with great fervour in Tirana, too, by the employees of the Soviet embassy headed by the Soviet ambassador to Tirana himself.
As I said before, prior to the Bucharest Meeting, one could not imagine closer, more sincere, more fraternal relations, than those between us and the Soviet comrades. We kept nothing hidden from the Soviet comrades, neither Party nor state secrets. This was the decision of our Central Committee. These relations reflected the great love and loyalty which our Party had tempered in blood between the peoples of Albania and the Soviet Union.
Over these sacred sentiments of the Party of Labour of Albania and our people, certain sickly elements, with the Soviet ambassador at the head, trampled roughshod. Taking advantage of our friendly relations, taking advantage of the good faith of our cadres, they began feverish and intensive attempts to attack the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party of Labour of Albania, to split the Party, to create panic and confusion in its ranks, and to alienate the leadership from the Party. The Soviet ambassador to Tirana went so far as to attempt to incite the generals of our army to raise the people’s army against the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian state. But the saw struck a nail because the unity of our Party is steel-like. Our cadres, tempered in the national liberation war and in the bitter life and death struggle with the Yugoslav revisionists, defended their heroic Party in a Marxist way. They know very well how to draw the line between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of Lenin and the splitters, and in fact they put these denigrators in their place.
Nevertheless, the employees of the Soviet embassy to Tirana, headed by the ambassador, through impermissible anti-Marxist methods, managed to make the Chairman of the Audit Commission of the Party of Labour of Albania, who 15 days earlier had expressed his solidarity with the line pursued by the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania in Bucharest, embroil himself in these intrigues and go completely off the rails of Marxism-Leninism, so that he came out in flagrant opposition to the line of the Party. It is clear that these despicable efforts of these Soviet comrades were aimed at splitting the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania, at alienating it from the mass of the Party. And this as a punishment for the “crime” we had committed in Bucharest, by having the courage to express our views freely as we saw fit.
The functionaries of the Soviet embassy to Tirana went even further. They turned to the Albanians who had studied in the Soviet Union with a view to inciting them against the Albanian leadership, thinking that they would be a contingent suitable to their crooked aims. But the Albanians, whether those who had completed their studies in the Soviet Union, or those who had not done so, know that base methods such as those used by the employees of the Soviet embassy to Tirana are altogether alien to Marxism-Leninism. The Albanians are the sons and daughters of their own people, of their own Party. They are Marxist-Leninists and internationalists.
We could list many other examples, but to avoid taking up a great deal of time at this important meeting I shall mention only two other typical cases. The pressure on our Party continued even during the days when the Commission was meeting, here in Moscow, to draw up the draft statement which has been submitted to us, when the Soviet comrades told us that we should look ahead and not back. During those days in Moscow, the member of the Central Committee and Minister of the Soviet Union, Marshal Malinovsky, launched an open attack on the Albanian people, on the Party of Labour of Albania, on the Albanian government and on our leadership, at an enlarged meeting of the Chiefs of Staff of the Warsaw Treaty countries. This unfriendly and public attack has much in common with the diversionist attack of the Soviet ambassador to Tirana, who tried to incite our people’s army against the leadership of our Party and our state. But, like the Soviet ambassador, Marshal Malinovsky, too, is making a grave mistake. No one can achieve this aim, and even less that of breaking up the friendship of our people with the peoples of the Soviet Union. The just struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania against these subversive acts strengthens the sincere friendship of our people with the peoples of the Soviet Union. Nor can this friendship be broken up by the astonishing statements of Marshal Grechko, Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Treaty, who not only told our military delegation that it was difficult for him to meet the requirements of our army for some very essential armaments, for the supply of which contracts have been signed, but said bluntly: “You are in the Warsaw Treaty only for the time being,” implying that Marshal Grechko seems to have decided to throw us out. But fortunately, it is not up to the Comrade Marshal to take such a decision.
In October this year, Comrade Khrushchev declared in all seriousness to the Chinese comrades, “We shall treat Albania like Yugoslavia.” We say this at this meeting of international communism so that all may see how far things have gone and what attitude is being maintained towards a small socialist country. What “crime” has the Party of Labour of Albania committed for our country to be treated like Tito’s Yugoslavia? Can it be said we have betrayed Marxism-Leninism as the Tito clique has done? No, and all the international communist movement, all the concrete political, ideological and economic activity of our Party and our state during the whole period of the national liberation war, and during these 16 years since the liberation of the country, bear witness to this. This is borne out even by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself, which in its letter of August 13, 1960 to the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania stressed: “The relations between the Party of Labour of Albania and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, based on the principles of proletarian internationalism, have always been truly fraternal. The friendship between our parties and peoples has never, at any time, been clouded by any misunderstanding or deviation. The positions of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on all the most important issues of the international communist and workers’ movement and of foreign policy have been identical.” Of what then are we guilty? Our only “crime” is that in Bucharest we did not agree that a fraternal communist party like the Communist Party of China should be unjustly condemned; our only “crime” is that we had the courage to oppose openly, at an international communist meeting (and not in the marketplace), the unjust action of Comrade Khrushchev; our only “crime” is that we are a small Party of a small and poor people, which according to Comrade Khrushchev, should merely applaud and approve but express no opinion of its own. But this is neither Marxist nor acceptable. Marxism-Leninism has granted us the right to have our say, and no one can take this from us either by means of political and economic pressure, or by means of threats and the names they might call us. On this occasion we would like to ask Comrade Khrushchev why he did not make such a statement to us instead of to a representative of a third party. Or does Comrade Khrushchev think that the Party of Labour of Albania has no views of its own, but has made common cause with the Communist Party of China in an unprincipled manner, and therefore, on matters pertaining to our Party, one can talk with the Chinese comrades? No, Comrade Khrushchev, you continue to blunder and hold very wrong opinions about our Party. The Party of Labour of Albania has its own views and will answer for them both to its own people as well as to the international communist and workers’ movement.
We are obliged to inform this meeting that the Soviet leaders have, in fact, passed from threats of treating Albania in the same way as Titoite Yugoslavia to concrete acts. This year our country has suffered many natural calamities. There was a big earthquake, the flood in October, and especially the drought which was terrible, with not a drop of rain for 120 days in succession. Nearly all the grain was lost. The people were threatened with starvation. The very limited reserves were consumed. Our government urgently sought to buy grain from the Soviet Union, explaining the very critical situation we were faced with. This happened after the Bucharest Meeting. We waited 45 days for a reply from the Soviet government while we had only 15 days bread for the people. After 45 days and after repeated official requests, instead of 50,000 tons, the Soviet government accorded us only 10,000 tons, that is, enough to last us 15 days, and this grain was to be delivered during the months of September and October. This was open pressure on our Party to submit to the wishes of the Soviet comrades.
During those critical days we got wise to many things. Did the Soviet Union, which sells grain to the whole world, not have 50,000 tons to give the Albanian people, who are loyal brothers of the Soviet people, loyal to Marxism-Leninism and to the socialist camp, at a time when, through no fault of their own, they were threatened with starvation? Comrade Khrushchev had once said to us, “Don’t worry about grain, for all that you consume in a whole year is eaten by mice in our country.” The mice in the Soviet Union might eat, but the Albanian people could be left to die of starvation until the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania submits to the will of the Soviet leaders. This is terrible comrades, but it is true. If they hear about it, the Soviet people will never forgive them, for it is neither Marxist, internationalist, nor comradely. Nor is it a friendly act not to accept our clearing for buying grain from the Soviet Union, but to oblige us to draw the limited gold reserve from our national bank in order to buy corn for the people’s bread from the Soviet Union.
These acts are linked with one another, they are not just accidental. Particularly in recent days, Comrade Khrushchev’s attacks on our Party of Labour have reached their climax. Comrade Khrushchev, on November 6, you declared that “The Albanians behave towards us just like Tito.” You said to the Chinese comrades, “We lost an Albania and you Chinese won an Albania,” and finally, you declared that “The Party of Labour of Albania is our weak link.”
What are all these monstrous accusations, this behaving like a “dealer” towards our Party, our people and a socialist country, which was allegedly lost and won as a gamble? What appraisal is this of a fraternal party, which according to you, is allegedly the weak link in the international communist movement? For us it is clear, and we understand only too well, that our correct and principled Marxist-Leninist stand, that our courage to disagree with you and condemn those acts of yours which are wrong, impel you to attack our Party, to resort to all kinds of pressure against it, to pronounce the most extreme monstrosities against our Party. But there is nothing comradely, nothing communist in this. You liken us to the Yugoslav revisionists. But everybody knows how our Party has fought and continues to fight the Yugoslav revisionists. It is not we who behave like the Yugoslavs but you, Comrade Khrushchev, who are using methods alien to Marxism-Leninism against our Party. You consider Albania as a market commodity which can be gained by one or lost by another. There was a time when Albania was considered a medium of exchange, when others thought it depended on them whether Albania should or should not exist, but that time came to an end with the triumph of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism in our country. You are repeating the same thing when you arrive at the conclusion that you have “lost” Albania, or that someone else has “won” it, or that Albania is no longer a socialist country, as it turns out from the letter you handed to us on November 8, in which our country is not mentioned as a socialist country.
The fact that Albania is marching on the road of socialism and that it is a member of the socialist camp is not determined by you, Comrade Khrushchev. It does not depend on your wishes. The Albanian people, headed by their Party of Labour, decided this through their struggle, and there is no force capable of turning them from that course.
As regards your claim that our Party of Labour is the weakest link in the socialist camp and the international communist movement, we say that the twenty-year history of our Party, the heroic struggle of our people and our Party against the fascist invaders, and the sixteen years that have elapsed from the liberation of the country to this day, during which our Party and our people have faced up to all the storms, demonstrate the opposite. Surrounded by enemies like an island amidst the waves, the People’s Republic of Albania has courageously withstood all the assaults and provocations of the imperialists and their lackeys. Like a granite rock, it has kept and continues to keep aloft the banner of socialism behind the enemy lines. You, Comrade Khrushchev, raised your hand against our small people and their Party. But we are convinced that the Soviet people, who shed their blood for the freedom of our people, and the great Party of Lenin will not be in agreement with this activity of yours. We have complete faith in Marxism-Leninism. We are certain that the fraternal parties which have sent their delegates to this meeting will examine and pass judgement on this issue with Marxist-Leninist justice.
Our Party has always called the Communist Party of the Soviet Union a mother party, and it has said this because it is the oldest party, the glorious Party of the Bolsheviks, because of its universal experience, of its great maturity. But our Party has never accepted and will never accept that some Soviet leader may impose on it his views which it considers erroneous.
The Soviet leadership viewed this matter of principled importance utterly wrong, in an idealistic and metaphysical way. It has become swellheaded over the colossal successes attained by the Soviet peoples and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and is violating Marxist-Leninist principles, it considers itself infallible, considers every decision, every action, every word and gesture it makes, infallible and irrevocable. Others may err, others may be condemned, while it is above such reproach. “Our decisions are sacred, they are inviolable.” “We can make no concession to, no compromise with the Communist Party of China,” the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union told our people. Then why did they call us together in Bucharest? Of course, to vote with our eyes closed for the views of the Soviet leaders. Is this Marxist? Is this normal?
Is it permissible for one Party to engage in subversive acts against another Party, to cause a split, to overthrow the leadership of another Party or another state? Never. The Soviet leaders accused Comrade Stalin of allegedly interfering in other parties, of imposing the views of the Bolshevik Party upon others. We can testify that at no time did Comrade Stalin do such a thing towards us. He always behaved as a great Marxist, as an outstanding internationalist, as a comrade towards the Albanian people and the Party of Labour of Albania, as a brother and sincere friend of the Albanian people. In 1945, when our people were threatened with starvation, Comrade Stalin diverted the ships loaded with grain destined for the Soviet people, who were also in a very bad food situation at that time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people. Whereas the present Soviet leaders permit themselves these ugly deeds.
Are such economic pressures permissible? Is it permissible to threaten the Albanian people, as the Soviet leaders did after the Bucharest Meeting? In no way whatsoever. We know that the aid which is given to our small people who, before the war experienced great suffering from every point of view, who during the Second World War went through devastation and destruction but were never brought to their knees, and who, under the glorious leadership of the Communist Party of Albania fought with enormous heroism until they liberated themselves, is internationalist aid.
But why did the Soviet leadership change its attitude towards us after the Bucharest Meeting to the point that it let the Albanian people suffer from hunger? The Romanian leadership did the same thing too when it refused to sell a single ear of wheat to the Albanian people on a clearing basis, at a time when Romania was trading in grain with the capitalist countries, while we were obliged to buy corn from the French farmers, paying in foreign currency.
Some months before the Bucharest Meeting, Comrade Dej[4] invited a delegation of our Party for the specific purpose of conducting talks on the future development of Albania. This was a laudable and Marxist concern on his part. Comrade Dej said to our Party: “We, the other countries of people’s democracy, should no longer discuss whether we should grant Albania this much or that much credit, but we should decide to build such and such factories in Albania, to raise the means of production to a higher level regardless of how many million rubles it will cost — that is of no importance.” Comrade Dej added, “We have talked this over with Comrade Khrushchev, too, and we were in agreement.”
But then came the Bucharest Meeting and our Party maintained the stand you all know. The Romanian comrades forgot what they had previously said and chose the course of leaving the Albanian people to suffer from hunger.
We have made these things officially known to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union before this. We have not discussed them publicly nor have whispered them from ear to ear, but we are revealing them here for the first time in a Party meeting, like this one here today. Why are we raising these matters? We do so proceeding from the desire to put an end to these negative manifestations which do not strengthen our unity but weaken it. We proceed from the desire to strengthen the relations and Marxist-Leninist bonds among communist and workers’ parties, among socialist states, rejecting any bad manifestation that has arisen up to date. We are optimistic and we have complete faith and unshaken confidence that the Soviet and other comrades will understand our criticisms in the proper way. They are severe, but they are frank and sincere, and aim at strengthening our relations. Not withstanding these unjust and harmful attitudes which are maintained towards us, but which we believe will be stopped in the future, our Party and our people will consolidate still further their unbounded love for and loyalty to the Soviet peoples, the CPSU, to the peoples and communist and workers’ parties of the socialist camp, always on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist teachings.
To our Party friendship means justice and mutual respect on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. This is what the 1957 Moscow Declaration says, and what is stressed in the draft statement which has been submitted to us. We declare in all earnestness that the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian people will be, as always, determined fighters for the strengthening of relations and unity in the socialist camp and the international communist movement.
The Albanian people will go through fire for their true friends. And these are not empty words of mine. Here I am expressing the sentiments of our people and of our Party, and let no one ever think that we love the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the sake of someone’s beautiful eyes or to please some individual.
In the 1957 Moscow Declaration as well as in the draft statement submitted to us, it is pointed out that revisionism constitutes the main danger in the international communist and worker’s movement today. In the 1957 Moscow Declaration it is rightly stressed that the existence of bourgeois influence is the internal source of revisionism, while capitulation to the pressure of imperialism is its external source. Experience has fully corroborated that disguised under pseudo-Marxist and pseudo-revolutionary slogans modern revisionism has tried with every means to discredit our great doctrine, Marxism-Leninism, as “outdated” and no longer responding to social development. Hiding behind the slogan of creative Marxism, of new conditions, the revisionists have striven, on the one hand, to deprive Marxism of its revolutionary spirit and to undermine the belief of the working class and the working people in socialism, and, on the other hand, to use all the means in their power to prettify imperialism, to present it as moderate and peaceful. During the three years that have elapsed since the Moscow Conference, it has been fully confirmed that the modern revisionists are nothing but splitters of the communist movement and the socialist camp, loyal lackeys of imperialism, avowed enemies of socialism and the working class.
Life itself has demonstrated that until now the standard-bearer of modern revisionism, its most aggressive and dangerous representatives are the Yugoslav revisionists, the traitor clique of Tito and Co. At the time when the Moscow Declaration was approved, this hostile group, agents of U.S. imperialism, were not publicly denounced, although in our opinion, there were enough facts and information to warrant such a thing. Not only that, but later on, when the danger it presented became more evident, the fight against Yugoslav revisionism, the consistent and ceaseless fight to smash it ideologically and politically, was not conducted with the proper intensity. On the contrary! And this has been and is the source of many evils and much damage to our international communist and workers’ movement. In the opinion of our Party, the reason for the failure to carry out the total exposure of the revisionist Tito group, for the raising of false “hopes” about an alleged “improvement” and positive “change” in this group of traitors, is the influence of the trend to conciliation, the mistaken views, and incorrect assessment of the danger of this group on the part of Comrade Khrushchev and certain other Soviet leaders.
It has been said that J.V. Stalin was mistaken in his assessment of the Yugoslav revisionists and in sharpening the attitude towards them. Our Party has never endorsed such a view because time and experience have proved the contrary. Stalin made a very correct assessment of the danger of the Yugoslav revisionists; he tried to settle this affair at the proper moment and in a Marxist way: the Information Bureau, as a collective organ, was called together at that time, and after the Titoite group was exposed, a merciless struggle was waged against it. Time has proved over and over again that such a thing was necessary and correct.
The Party of Labour of Albania has always held the opinion and is convinced that the Tito group are traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism, dangerous enemies of the socialist camp and the entire international communist and workers’ movement, therefore a merciless struggle should be waged against them. On our part, we have waged and continue to wage this struggle as internationalist communists, and also because we have felt and continue to feel on our backs the burden of the hostile activity of the revisionist Tito clique against our Party and our country. But this stand of our Party has never been to the liking of Comrade Khrushchev and certain other comrades.
The Titoite group have been a group of Trotskyites and renegades for a very long time. For the Party of Labour of Albania at least, they have been such since 1942, that is, since 18 years ago.
As far back as 1942, when there was a great upsurge in the struggle of the Albanian people, the Belgrade Trotskyite group, disguising themselves as friends and abusing our trust in them, tried their utmost to hinder the development of our armed struggle, to hamper the creation of powerful Albanian partisan fighting detachments, and since it was impossible to stop them, they sought to take direct political and military control of these detachments. They attempted to make everything dependent on Belgrade and to make our Party and our partisan army a mere appendage of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav national liberation army.
While preserving its friendship with the Yugoslav partisans, our Party successfully resisted these diabolical aims. It was at that time that the Titoite group tried to lay the foundations of the Balkan Federation under the direction of Belgrade Titoites, to hitch the communist parties to the chariot of the Yugoslav Communist Party, to place the partisan armies of the Balkan peoples under the Titoite Yugoslav staff. It was to this end that, in agreement with the British, they tried to set up the Balkan staff and to place it, that is to say, to place the Balkan armies, under the direction of the Anglo-Americans. Our Party successfully resisted these diabolical schemes. And when the banner of liberation was hoisted in Tirana, the Titoite gang in Belgrade ordered their agents in Albania to discredit the success of the Communist Party of Albania and to organize a putsch to overthrow the leadership of our Party, the leadership which had organized the Party, guided the national liberation war and led the Albanian people to victory. The first putsch was organized by Tito together with his secret agents within our Party.[5]
The Belgrade conspirators did not lay down their arms, and together with their arch-agent in our Party, the traitor Koçi Xoxe, continued the reorganization of their plot against the new Albania in other forms, new forms. Their intention was to turn Albania into the 7th republic of Yugoslavia.
At a time when our country had been devastated and laid waste and needed to be completely rebuilt, when our peoplewere without food and shelter, but with high morale, when our people and army, weapons in hand, kept vigilant watch against the plots of reaction, organized by the Anglo-American military missions which were threatening the new Albania with new invasions, when a large part of the Albanian partisan army had crossed the border and gone to the aid of the Yugoslav brothers fighting shoulder to shoulder with them and together liberating Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosova and Macedonia, the Belgrade conspirators were hatching up schemes to enslave Albania.
But our Party heroically resisted these secret agents who posed as communists. When the Belgrade Trotskyites realized that the game was nearly up, that our Party was smashing their plots, they tried their last card, namely, to invade Albania with their army, to overwhelm all resistance, to arrest the leaders of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian state and to proclaim Albania the 7th republic of Yugoslavia. Our Party smashed this diabolical plan of theirs too. The aid and intervention of J.V. Stalin at these moments was decisive for our Party and for the freedom of the Albanian people.
Precisely at this time the Information Bureau exposed the Tito clique. The Information Bureau brought about the defeat of the conspiracies of the Tito clique, not only in Albania, but also in the other people’s democracies. Posing as communists, the renegade and agent of imperialism, Tito, as well as his gang, tried to alienate the people’s democracies in the Balkans and Central Europe from the wartime friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union, to destroy the communist and workers’ parties of our countries and to turn our states into reserves of Anglo-American imperialism.
Who was there who did not know about and see in action the hostile schemes of imperialism and its loyal servant Tito? Everybody knew, everybody learned and all unanimously approved the correct decisions of the Information Bureau. Everyone, without exception, approved the resolutions of the Information Bureau, which without exception, were and still are correct, in our opinion.
To those who did not want to see and understand these acts of this gang, it was proved for the second time in the Hungarian counter-revolution and in the unceasing plots against Albania that the wolf may change his coat but he remains a wolf. Tito and his gang may resort to trickery, may try to disguise themselves, but they remain traitors and agents of imperialism, the murderers of the heroic Yugoslav internationalist communists, and this is what they will be, and how they will act until they are wiped out.
The Party of Labour of Albania considers the decisions taken against the renegade Tito group by the Information Bureau not as decisions taken by Comrade Stalin personally, but as decisions taken by all the parties that took part in the Information Bureau. And not only by these parties alone, but also by the communist and workers’ parties which did not take part in it. Since this was a matter that concerned all the communist and workers’ parties, it also concerned the Party of Labour of Albania, which, having received and studied a copy of the letter Comrades Stalin and Molotov had written to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, endorsed both the letter and the decisions of the Information Bureau in full.
Why then was the “change of attitude” towards the Yugoslav revisionists adopted by Comrade Khrushchev and the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1955 not made an issue for consultation in the normal way with the other communist and workers’ parties, but was conceived and carried out in such a hasty and unilateral way? This was a matter that concerned us all. Either the Yugoslav revisionists had undertaken a struggle against Marxism-Leninism and the communist and workers’ parties of the world, or they had not; either they were wrong, or we were wrong in regard to them, and not just Stalin. This could not be resolved by Comrade Khrushchev at his own discretion, and it is impermissible for him to try to do so. But in fact, that is what he did, and this change of attitude in the relations with the Yugoslav revisionists is connected with his visit to Belgrade. This was a bombshell to the Party of Labour of Albania which immediately opposed it categorically. Before Comrade Khrushchev set out for Belgrade in May 1955, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in which it expressed the opposition of our Party to his going to Belgrade, stressing that the Yugoslav issue could not be settled in an unilateral way, but that a meeting of the Information Bureau should be called to which it asked that the Party of Labour of Albania should also be invited. It is there that this matter should have been settled after a correct and lengthy discussion.
Of course, formally we had no right to decide whether Comrade Khrushchev should or should not go to Belgrade and we backed down in this, but in essence we were right, and time has confirmed that the Yugoslav issue should not have been settled in this precipitate way. The slogan of the “overriding interests” was launched, the 2nd resolution of the Information Bureau was speedily revoked, the “epoch of reconciliation” with the “Yugoslav comrades” began, the conspirators were re-examined and rehabilitated, it was a case of the Yugoslav comrades here and the Yugoslav comrades there, and “Yugoslav comrades” came off unscathed, strutted like peacocks, trumpeted abroad that their “just cause” had triumphed, that the “criminal Stalin” had trumped up all these things, and a situation was created in which whoever refused to take this course was dubbed a “Stalinist” who should be done away with.
Our Party refused to take such a conciliatory and opportunist course. It stood fast on the correct Marxist-Leninist ideological position, on the position of the ideological and political struggle against the Yugoslav revisionists. The Party of Labour of Albania remained unshaken in its views that the Titoite group were traitors, renegades, Trotskyites, subversionists and agents of the U.S. imperialists, that the Party of Labour of Albania has not been mistaken about them.
The Party of Labour of Albania remained unshaken in its view that Comrade Stalin had made no mistake in this matter, that, with their line of betrayal, the revisionists had attempted to enslave Albania, to destroy the Party of Labour of Albania, and through hatching up a number of international plots with the Anglo-American imperialists, they had tried to embroil Albania in international conflicts.
On the other hand, the Party of Labour of Albania was in favour of establishing state relations of good neighbourliness, trade and cultural relations with the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, provided that the norms of peaceful coexistence between states of different regimes were observed, because as far as the Party of Labour of Albania is concerned, Titoite Yugoslavia has not been, is not and never will be a socialist country as long as it is headed by a group of renegades and agents of imperialism.
No open or disguised attempt will make the Party of Labour of Albania waver from this correct stand. It was futile for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to try to persuade us, through Comrade Suslov, to eliminate the question of Koçi Xoxe from the report submitted to our 3rd Congress in May 1956, because that would mean negating our struggle and our principled stand.
In Albania, the Titoite saw struck a nail, or, as Tito says, “Albania was a thorn in his foot,” and, of course, the Titoite traitor group continued their struggle against the Party of Labour of Albania, thinking that they were exposing us by dubbing us “Stalinists.”
The Belgrade group did not confine their fight against us to propaganda alone, but they continued their espionage, subversion, plots and the dispatching of armed bands into our country, more intensively than before 1948. These are all facts. But the tragedy is that while the Party of Labour of Albania, on the one hand, was defending itself against the bitter and unceasing attacks by the Yugoslav revisionists, on the other hand, the unwavering, principled, Marxist-Leninist stand of our Party was in opposition to the conciliatory stand of the Soviet leaders and of certain other communist and workers’ parties towards the Yugoslav revisionists.
At that time it was loudly proclaimed and written that “Yugoslavia is a socialist country, and this is a fact,” that the “Yugoslav communists have great experience and great merits,” that “the Yugoslav experience is worthy of greater interest and more attentive study,” that “the period of disputes and misunderstandings had not been caused by Yugoslavia,” that “great injustice had been done to it,” and so on and so forth. This, of course, gave heart to the Tito clique, who thought, they had won everything, except that there still remained one “thorn in their foot,” which they intended to isolate and later, liquidate. However, not only could our Party not be isolated, much less liquidated, but on the contrary, time proved that the views of our Party were correct.
A great deal of pressure has been exerted on our Party over this stand. The Albanian leaders were described as “hot-blooded” and “stubborn,” “exaggerating” matters with Yugoslavia, “unjustly harassing” the Yugoslavs, etc. The attack against our Party in this direction has been led by Comrade Khrushchev.
So far, I have briefly mentioned what the Yugoslav revisionists did against our Party and our country during the war, after the war and after 1948, but I shall dwell a little also on the events prior to the Hungarian counter-revolution, which is the work of Yugoslav agents. The Belgrade traitor group began to organize a counter-revolution in Albania also. Had our Party made the mistake of joining in the “conciliation waltz” with the Yugoslav revisionists, as was preached after 1955, then people’s democracy in Albania would have gone down the drain. We, Albanians, would not have been here in this hall, but would have been still fighting in our mountains.
Firmly united by steel-like bonds, our Party and people remained extremely vigilant and discovered and unmasked Tito’s spies in our Central Committee who worked in collusion with the Yugoslav legation in Tirana. Tito sent word to these traitors, saying that they had precipitated things, that they should have waited for his orders. These spies and traitors also wrote to Comrade Khrushchev asking him to intervene against the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania. These are documented facts. Tito’s aim was that the counter-revolution in Albania should be coordinated with that of Hungary.
Our 3rd Congress was to be held following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Yugoslav agents thought that the time had come to overthrow the “obstinate and Stalinist” Albanian leadership, and organized a plot which was discovered and crushed at the Party Conference of the city of Tirana in April 1956. The plotters received the stern punishment they deserved.
Tito’s other dangerous agents in Albania, Dali Ndreu and Liri Gega, received orders from Tito to flee to Yugoslavia because “they were in danger” and because activities against the Party of Labour “had to be organized from Yugoslav territory.” Our Party was fully aware of Tito’s activity and secret orders. It was wide awake and caught the traitors right on the border when they were trying to flee. The traitors were brought to trial and were executed. All the Yugoslav agents who were preparing the counter-revolution in Albania were detected and wiped out. But to our amazement, Comrade Khrushchev came out against us in defence of these traitors and Yugoslav agents. He accused us of having shot the Yugoslav agent, the traitor Liri Gega, “when she was pregnant, a thing which had not happened even at the time of the Tsar, and this had made a bad impression on world opinion.” These were slanders trumped up by the Yugoslavs in whom Comrade Khrushchev had more faith than in us. We, of course, denied all these insinuations made by Comrade Khrushchev.
But Comrade Khrushchev’s incorrect, unprincipled, and hostile stand towards our Party and its leadership did not stop there. The other Yugoslav agent and traitor to the Party of Labour of Albania and to the Albanian people, Panajot Plaku, fled to Yugoslavia and placed himself in the service of the Yugoslavs. He organized the hostile broadcasts from the so-called “socialist Albania” radio station. This traitor wrote to the renegade Tito and to Comrade Khrushchev, asking the latter to use his authority to eliminate the leadership of Albania, headed by Enver Hoxha, under the pretext that we were “anti-Marxists and Stalinists.” Far from being indignant at this traitor’s letter, Comrade Khrushchev expressed the opinion that Panajot Plaku could return to Albania on condition that we do nothing to him, or he could find political asylum in the Soviet Union. We felt as if the walls of the Kremlin had dropped on our heads, for we could never imagine that the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union could go so far as to support the agents of Tito and traitors to our Party against our Party and people. But the culmination of our principled opposition over the Yugoslav issue with Comrade Khrushchev was reached when, faced with our principled insistence in the exposure of the Belgrade Titoite agency, he was so enraged that, during the official talks between the two delegations in April 1957, he said to us angrily: “We are breaking off the talks. We cannot come to terms with you. You are seeking to lead us to the road of Stalin.”
We were disgusted at such an unfriendly stand by Comrade Khrushchev who wanted to break off the talks, which would mean an aggravation of relations with the Albanian Party and state over the question of the betrayers of Marxism-Leninism, the Tito group. We could never have agreed on this matter, but we, who had been accused of being hot-blooded, maintained our aplomb for we were convinced that we were in the right, and not Comrade Khrushchev, that the line we were pursuing was the correct one, and not that of Comrade Khrushchev, that our line would be confirmed again by experience, as it has been confirmed many times over.
In our opinion, the counter-revolution in Hungary was mainly the work of the Titoites. In Tito and the Belgrade renegades, the U.S. imperialists had their best weapon to destroy the people’s democracy in Hungary.
After Comrade Khrushchev’s visit to Belgrade in 1955, no more was said about Tito’s subversive activity. The organization of the counter-revolution in Hungary did not burst out unexpectedly. We can tell you it was prepared, quite openly, and it would be impossible for anyone to convince us that this counter-revolution was prepared in the greatest secrecy. It was prepared by the agents of the Tito gang in collusion with the traitor Imre Nagy, in collusion with the Hungarian fascists, and all of them acted openly under the direction of America.
The scheme of the Titoites, who were the leaders, was for Hungary to be detached from our socialist camp, to be turned into a second Yugoslavia, to be linked with the NATO alliance through Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, to receive aid from the USA and, together with Yugoslavia and under the direction of the imperialists, to continue the struggle against the socialist camp.
The counter-revolutionaries worked openly in Hungary. But how is it that their activities attracted no attention? We cannot understand how it was possible for Tito and the Trotskyite bands to have worked so freely in a fraternal country of people’s democracy like Hungary where the Party was in power and the weapons of the dictatorship were in its hands, where the Soviet army was present. We think that the stand of Comrade Khrushchev and other Soviet comrades towards Hungary was not clear because the very wrong views which they held about the Belgrade gang did not allow them to see the situation correctly.
The Soviet comrades trusted Imre Nagy, Tito’s man. We do not say this for nothing or without good grounds. Before the counter-revolution took place and when things were boiling up at the “Petöfi Club,” I went through to Moscow and, in conversation with Comrade Suslov, told him what I had seen on my way in Budapest. I told him, too, that the revisionist Imre Nagy was raising his head and was organizing the counter-revolution at the “Petöfi Club.” Comrade Suslov categorically opposed my view and, in order to prove to me that Imre Nagy was a good man, pulled out of his drawer Imre Nagy’s fresh “self-criticism.” Nevertheless, I told Comrade Suslov that Imre Nagy was a traitor.
We wonder and pose the legitimate question: why did Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades go many times to Brioni to talk with the renegade Tito about the question of Hungary? If the Soviet comrades knew that the Titoites were preparing the counter-revolution in a country of our camp, is it permissible for the leaders of the Soviet Union to go and talk with an enemy who organizes plots and counter-revolutions in the socialist countries?
It is right, that, as a communist party, as a state of people’s democracy, as a member of the Warsaw Treaty and of the socialist camp, we should ask Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades to tell us why so many meetings were arranged with Tito at Brioni in 1956, with this traitor to Marxism-Leninism, and not a single meeting with our countries, not a single meeting of the members of the Warsaw Treaty?
Whether to intervene or not to intervene with arms in Hungary is, we think, not within the competence of one person alone, seeing that we have set up the Warsaw Treaty. We should decide jointly because otherwise it is of no use to speak of an alliance, of the collective spirit and collaboration among the parties. The Hungarian counter-revolution cost our camp blood, it cost Hungary and the Soviet Union blood.
Why was this bloodshed permitted and no steps taken to prevent it? We are of the opinion that no preliminary steps could be taken as long as Comrade Khrushchev placed his trust in the organizer of the Hungarian counter-revolution, the traitor Tito, and the Soviet comrade so seriously underestimated the absolutely necessary regular meetings with their friends and allies, so long as they considered their unilateral decisions on matters that concern us all as the only correct ones, and so long as they attached no importance whatsoever to collective work and collective decisions.
The Party of Labour of Albania is not at all clear about this matter; how things developed and how decisions were taken. At a time when the Titoites are conducting talks at Brioni with the Soviet comrades, on the one hand, and feverishly organizing counter-revolutions in Hungary and Albania, on the other, the Soviet comrades made not the slightest effort to inform our leadership, at least as a matter of form since we are allies, on what was happening or on what measures they intend to take.
But this is not a formal matter. The Soviet comrades know only too well what the Belgrade gang thought of Albania and what their aims were. In fact, not only is this stand of the Soviet comrades to be condemned, but it is also incomprehensible.
Hungary was a great lesson to us, in regard to what was done and in regard to the drama that was played on the stage and behind the scenes there. We believed that after the Hungarian counter-revolution, the treachery of Tito and his gang was more than clear. We know that many documents, documents that expose the barbarous activity of the Tito group in the Hungarian events, are kept locked away and are not brought to light. Why this should happen, we do not understand. What interests are hidden behind these documents which are not brought to light but are kept under lock and key? After the death of Stalin, the most trifling items were searched out to condemn him, while the documents that expose a vile traitor like Tito are locked away in a drawer.
But even after the Hungarian counter-revolution, the political and ideological fight against the Titoite gang, instead of reaching a crescendo, as Marxism-Leninism demands, was played down, leading to reconciliation, smiles, contacts, moderation and almost to kisses. In fact, thanks to this opportunist attitude, the Titoites got out of this predicament too.
The Party of Labour of Albania was opposed to the line followed by Comrade Khrushchev and the other comrades towards the Yugoslav revisionists. Our Party’s battle against the revisionists continued with even more fury. Since it was impossible to attack our correct line, many friends and comrades, particularly the Soviet and Bulgarian comrades, ridiculed us, had an ironic smile on their faces, and with their friendly contacts with the Titoites, isolated our people everywhere.
We have hoped that after the 7th Titoite Congress, even the blind, let alone the Marxists, would see with whom they were dealing and what they should do. Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way. Not long after the 7th Titoite Congress, the exposure of revisionism was toned down. The Soviet theoretical publications spoke of every kind of revisionism, even of revisionism in Honolulu, but had very little to say about Yugoslav revisionism. This is like saying “don’t see the wolf before your eyes but look for its tracks.” Slogans were put out: “don’t speak anymore of Tito and his group, for that will fan their vanity,” “don’t speak anymore of Tito and his group, for that would harm the Yugoslav peoples,” “don’t speak about the Titoite renegades, for Tito makes use of what we say to mobilize the Yugoslav peoples against our camp,” etc. Many parties adopted these slogans, but not our Party, and we think we acted correctly.
Such a situation was created that the press of friendly countries accepted articles from Albanian writers only provided they made no mention of the Yugoslav revisionists. Everywhere in the countries of people’s democracy in Europe, except in Czechoslovakia, where, in general, the Czechoslovak comrades assessed our activities correctly,[6] our ambassadors were isolated in a round-about way because the diplomats of friendly countries preferred to converse with the Titoite diplomats, while they hated our diplomats and did not want even to set eyes on them.
And matters went so far that Comrade Khrushchev made his coming to Albania in May 1959, at the head of the Soviet Party and government delegation, conditional on the Yugoslav issue. The first thing Comrade Khrushchev said, at the beginning of the talks in Tirana, was to inform everybody at the meeting that he would not talk against the Yugoslav revisionists, a thing which no one could compel him to do, but such a statement was intended to show quite openly that he disagreed with the Party of Labour of Albania on this issue.
We respected the wishes of our guest during the whole time he stayed in Albania regardless of the fact that the Titoite press was highly elated and did not fail to write that Khrushchev had shut the mouths of the Albanians. This, in fact, responded to reality, but Comrade Khrushchev was a very long way from convincing us on this matter, and the Titoites learned that quite clearly, because after our guest’s departure from our country, the Party of Labour of Albania no longer felt bound by the conditions put upon us by our guest and continued its own Marxist-Leninist course.
In his talks with Vukmanović-Tempo,[7] among other things, Comrade Khrushchev has equated our stand, as far as its tone is concerned, with that of the Yugoslavs, and has said that he did not agree with the tone of the Albanians. We consider that Comrade Khrushchev’s statement to Vukmanović-Tempo, to this enemy of Marxism-Leninism, the socialist camp and Albania is wrong and should be condemned. We hold that one should get what he deserves, and we, on our part, disagree with Comrade Khrushchev’s conciliatory tone towards the revisionists. Our people say that to your enemy you raise your voice, but to your loved one you speak in honeyed tones.
Some comrades have the mistaken idea that we maintain this attitude towards the Titoites because we allegedly want to be the banner-bearers of the fight against revisionism, or because we view this problem from a narrow angle, from a purely national angle, therefore, they claim, we have embarked if not on a “chauvinist course,” at least on that of “narrow nationalism.” The Party of Labour of Albania has always viewed the question of Yugoslav revisionism through the prism of Marxism-Leninism, it has always viewed and fought it as the main danger to the international communist movement, as a danger to the unity of the socialist camp.
But while being internationalists, we are, at the same time, communists of a specific country, of Albania. We Albanian communists would not be called communists if we failed to defend the freedom of our sacred country consistently and resolutely from the plots and diversionist attacks of the revisionist Tito clique that are aimed at the invasion of Albania, a fact which is already known to everyone. Could we Albanian communists possibly permit our country to become the prey of Tito, of the U.S. imperialists, of the Greeks or of the Italians? No, never.
Some others advise us not to speak against the Yugoslavs, saying: “Why are you afraid? You are defended by the Soviet Union.” We have told these comrades, and tell them again, that we are afraid neither of the Yugoslav Trotskyites nor of anyone else. We have said, and say it again, that as Marxist-Leninists, not for one moment should we diminish the struggle against the revisionists and the imperialists until we wipe them out. Because if the Soviet Union is to defend you, you must first defend yourself.
The Yugoslavs accuse us of allegedly “being chauvinists, of interfering in their internal affairs and of demanding a rectification of the Albanian-Yugoslav borders.” A number of our friends think and imply that we Albanian communists swim in such waters. We tell our friends who think thus that they are grossly mistaken. We are not chauvinists; we have not demanded nor do we demand rectification of the borders. But what we demand and will continually demand from the Titoites, and we will expose them to the end for this, is that they give up perpetrating the crime of genocide against the Albanian population in Kosova, that they give up the white terror against the Albanians of Kosova, that they give up driving the Albanians from their native soil and deporting them en masse to Turkey. We demand that the rights of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia should be recognized according to the constitution of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Is this chauvinist or Marxist?
This is our attitude on these matters. But if the Titoites speak of peaceful coexistence, of peace, of good neighbourly relations, and on the other hand, organize plots, an army of mercenaries and fascists in Yugoslavia for the purpose of attacking our borders and of chopping up socialist Albania together with the Greek monarcho-fascists, then you may be certain that not only the Albanians in the new Albania, but also the one million Albanians living under Titoite bondage will rise, arms in hand, to stay the hand of the criminals. This is Marxist, and if anything happens, this is what will be done. The Party of Labour of Albania does not permit anyone to trifle or play politics with the rights of the Albanian people.
We do not interfere in the internal affairs of others, but when, as a result of the slackening of the fight against Yugoslav revisionism, things go so far that in a friendly country like Bulgaria a map of the Balkans is printed in which Albania is included within the boundaries of Federal Yugoslavia, we cannot remain silent. We are told that this happened due to a technical error of an employee, but why had this not happened before?
However, this is not an isolated instance. At a meeting in Sremska Mitrovica, the bandit Ranković attacked Albania as usual, calling it “a hell where barbed wire and the boots of the frontier guards reign supreme,” and saying that the democracy of the Italian neo-fascists is more advanced than ours.
Ranković’s words would be of no significance to us except that the Soviet and Bulgarian ambassadors to Belgrade, who attended this meeting, listened to these words with the greatest serenity, without making the slightest protest. We protested in a comradely way over this to the Central Committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian Communist Party.
In his letter of reply to the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, Comrade Zhivkov dared to reject our protest and called the speech of the bandit Ranković a positive one. We could never have imagined that the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party could describe as positive the speech of a bandit like Ranković who so grossly insults socialist Albania, likening it to hell. We not only reject with contempt this impermissible insult by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, but we are dead certain that the Bulgarian Communist Party and the heroic Bulgarian people would be utterly revolted if they were to hear of this.
Things will not go too well if we allow such mistakes towards one another.
We can never agree with Comrade Khrushchev, and we protested to him at the time, over the talks he had with Sophocles Venizelos in connection with the Greek minority in Albania. Comrade Khrushchev is well aware that the borders of Albania are inviolable and sacred, and that anyone who touches them is an aggressor. The Albanian people will fight to the last drop of their blood if anyone touches their borders. Comrade Khrushchev was gravely mistaken when he told Venizelos that he had seen Greeks and Albanians working together as brothers in Korça. In Korça there is no Greek minority whatsoever, but for centuries the Greeks have coveted the Korça district as they do all Albania. There is a very small Greek minority in Gjirokastra. Comrade Khrushchev knows that they enjoy full rights, use their own language, have their own schools, in addition to all the rights the other Albanian citizens enjoy.
The claims of the Greeks, among them, those of Sophocles Venizelos, the son of Eleutherios Venizelos, who murdered the Albanians and put whole districts of southern Albania to the torch, the most rabid Greek chauvinist and father of the idea of Great Greece, of the partitioning of Albania and annexing it under the slogan of autonomy, are very well known. Comrade Khrushchev is well aware of the attitude of the Party of Labour of Albania, the Albanian government and people on this question. Then to fail to give Sophocles Venizelos the answer he deserved, to leave hopes and illusions and to say that he will transmit to the Albanian comrades the desires of a British agent, a chauvinist, an enemy of communism and Albania — this is unacceptable to us and deserves condemnation.
Comrade Khrushchev, we have given our reply to Sophocles Venizelos, and we believe you have learned of this through the press. We are not opposed to your politicizing with Sophocles Venizelos, but refrain from politicizing with our boundaries and our rights, for we have not allowed nor will we allow such a thing. And it is not as nationalists, but as internationalists that we do this.
Some may consider these things I am telling you as out of place, as statements inappropriate to the level of this meeting. It would not have been hard for me to have put together a speech in an allegedly theoretical tone, to have spoken in generalizations and quotations, to have submitted a report in general terms in order to please you and pass my turn. But to the Party of Labour of Albania it seems that this is not the occasion. What I have said may appear to some as attacks but these are criticisms which have followed their proper course, which have been made before, when and where necessary, within Leninist norms. But seeing that one error follows another, it would be a mistake to keep silent, because attitudes, deeds and practice confirm, enrich and create theory.
How quickly the Bucharest Meeting was organized and how quickly the Communist Party of China was condemned for “dogmatism.” But why has a conference to condemn revisionism not been organized at the same speed?
Has revisionism been totally exposed, as the Soviet comrades claim? No. In no way whatsoever. Revisionism has been and continues to be the main danger. Yugoslav revisionism has not been liquidated, and the way it is being dealt with is leaving it a clear field for all forms of action.
And can it be said that there are no disturbing manifestations of modern revisionism in other parties? Anyone who says “no” is closing his eyes to this danger and one fine day will wake to see that unexpected things have happened to us. We are Marxists, and should analyse our work just as Lenin did and taught us to do. He was not afraid of mistakes, he looked them in the eye and corrected them. This is the way the Bolshevik Party was tempered and this is the way our parties have been tempered.
But what is happening in the ranks of our parties? What is happening in our camp since the 20th Congress? Comrade Suslov may be very optimistic as he said in the October meeting of the Commission, while reproaching the delegation of the Party of Labour of Albania, Comrade Hysni Kapo, with pessimism in his view of events. We Albanian communists have not been pessimistic even at the blackest moments of the history of our Party and people, and we never shall be, but we shall always be realists.
Much has been said about our unity. This is essential and we should fight to strengthen and temper it. But the fact is that on many important issues of principle we have no unity.
The Party of Labour of Albania is of the opinion that things should be re-examined in the light of a Marxist-Leninist analysis and the errors should be corrected. Let us take the question of the criticism of Stalin and his work. Our Party, as a Marxist-Leninist party, is fully aware that the cult of the individual is an alien and dangerous manifestation for the parties and for the communist movement itself. Marxist parties should not only not permit the development of the cult of the individual, which hampers the activity of the masses, negates their role, is contrary to the development of the life of the Party and with laws that govern it, but should also fight with might and main to uproot it when it begins to appear or has already appeared in a specific country. Looking at it from this angle, we fully agree that the cult of the individual of Stalin should be criticized as a dangerous manifestation in the line of the Party. But in our opinion, the 20th Congress and especially Comrade Khrushchev’s secret report did not put the question of Comrade Stalin correctly, in an objective Marxist-Leninist way.
Stalin was severely and unjustly condemned on this question by Comrade Khrushchev and the 20th Congress. Comrade Stalin and his work does not belong to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people alone, but to us all. Just as Comrade Khrushchev said in Bucharest that the differences are not between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China, but between the Communist Party of China and international communism, just as it pleases him to say that the decisions of the 20th and 21st Congresses were adopted by all the communist and workers’ parties, in the same way he should also be magnanimous and consistent in passing judgement on Stalin’s work so that the communist and workers’ parties of the world could adopt it in all conscience.
There cannot be two yardsticks, nor two measures of weight on these questions. Then why was Comrade Stalin condemned at the 20th Congress without prior consultation with the other communist and workers’ parties of the world? Why was this “anathema” upon Stalin pronounced all of a sudden to the communist and workers’ parties of the world, and why did many fraternal parties learn of it only when the imperialist press published Comrade Khrushchev’s secret report far and wide?
The condemnation of Comrade Stalin was imposed on the communist and progressive world by Comrade Khrushchev. What could our parties do under these circumstances, when unexpectedly, using the great authority of the Soviet Union, such a matter was imposed en bloc?
The Party of Labour of Albania found itself in a great dilemma. It was not convinced, and will never be convinced, on the question of condemning Comrade Stalin in that way and in those forms that Comrade Khrushchev used. Our Party adopted, in general, the formulas of the 20th Congress on this matter, but nevertheless, it did not stick to the limitations set by the Congress, nor did it yield to the blackmail and intimidation from outside our country.
The Party of Labour of Albania maintained a realistic stand on the question of Stalin. It was just and grateful towards this glorious Marxist against whom, while he was alive, there was no one among us “brave enough” to come out and criticize, but when he was dead a great deal of mud was thrown. An intolerable situation was created in which the leading role of J.V. Stalin was negated in a whole glorious epoch of the Soviet Union, when the first socialist state in the world was set up, when the Soviet Union waxed strong, when the imperialist plots were successfully defeated, when the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and the class of kulaks were crushed, when the construction of heavy industry and collectivization triumphed, in a word, when the Soviet Union became a colossal power, which succeeded in building socialism, and which fought the Second World War with legendary heroism and defeated fascism, when a powerful socialist camp was set up, and so on and so forth.
The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that it is not right, normal or Marxist, to blot out Stalin’s name and great work from this entire epoch, as is being done at the present time. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward.
As a person, and as the leader of the Bolshevik Communist Party after Lenin’s death, Comrade Stalin was, at the same time, the most prominent leader of international communism, helping in a very positive way and with great authority in consolidating and promoting the victories of communism throughout the world. All of Comrade Stalin’s theoretical works are a fiery testimony to his loyalty to his teacher of genius, the great Lenin and Leninism.
Stalin fought for the rights of the working class and the working people in the whole world, he fought to the end, with great consistency, for the freedom of the peoples of our countries of people’s democracy.
Viewed from this angle alone, Stalin belongs to the entire communist world and not to the Soviet communists only. He belongs to all the workers of the world and not just to the Soviet workers.
Had Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades viewed this matter in this spirit, the gross mistakes that were made would have been avoided. But they viewed the question of Stalin very simply and only from the internal aspect of the Soviet Union. However, in the opinion of the Party of Labour of Albania, even from this aspect, they viewed it in a one-sided way, seeing only his mistakes, almost completely putting aside his great activity, his major contribution to the strengthening of the Soviet Union, to the tempering of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to the building of the economy of the Soviet Union, of its industry, its kolkhozian agriculture, in leading the Soviet people to their great victory over German fascism.
Did Stalin make mistakes? In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, not only Joseph Stalin personally, but also the leadership as a collective body, could not help making mistakes. Which is the Party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the present Soviet leadership is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead, they tell us to avoid polemics, but when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead but they turned right round, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak aspects in Stalin’s work.
The cult of the individual of Stalin must, of course, be overcome. But can it be said, as it has been claimed, that Stalin himself was the sponsor of this cult of the individual? The cult of the individual must be overcome without fail, but was it necessary and was it right to go to such lengths as to point the finger at anyone who mentioned Stalin’s name, to look askance at anyone who used a quotation from Stalin? With great speed and zeal certain persons smashed the statues of Stalin and changed the names of cities that had been named after him. But why go any further? At Bucharest, turning to the Chinese comrades, Comrade Khrushchev said: “You are clinging to a dead horse, come and get his bones if you wish!” These references were to Stalin.
The Party of Labour of Albania declares solemnly that it is opposed to these acts and to these assessments of the work and person of J.V. Stalin.
Soviet comrades, why were these questions raised in this manner and in such a distorted form, while the possibilities existed for both Stalin’s mistakes and those of the leadership to be pointed out properly, to be corrected, but without creating that great shock in the hearts of the communists of the whole world, which only the sense of discipline and the authority of the Soviet Union prevented from bursting out?
Comrade Mikoyan has said that we dared not criticize Comrade Stalin when he was alive because he would have cut off our heads. We are sure that Comrade Khrushchev will not cut off our heads if we criticize him correctly.
After the 20th Congress, the events we know of took place in Poland, the counter-revolution broke out in Hungary, attacks began on the Soviet system, upsets occurred in many communist and workers’ parties of the world, and finally this which is going on now.
We pose the question: Why did these things occur in the international communist movement, in the ranks of our camp, after the 20th Congress? Do these things happen because the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania is sectarian, dogmatic and pessimistic?
A thing of this kind should be of extraordinary concern to us, and we should look for the source of the malady and cure it. But certainly, this sickness cannot be cured by patting the renegade Tito on the back, nor by putting in the statement that modern revisionism has been completely defeated, as the Soviet comrades claim.
The authority of Leninism has been and is decisive. It should be established in such a way as to clean up erroneous views everywhere and in a radical way. There is no other way out for us communists. If there are things which can and should be said outright, just as they are, this should be done now, at this conference, before it is too late. Communists, we think, should sleep with a clear conscience. They should consolidate their Marxist unity, but without keeping back their reservation, without nurturing feelings of favouritism and hatred. A communist must speak out openly about what he feels in his heart, and matters should be judged correctly.
There may be people who are not pleased with what our small Party is saying. Our small Party can be isolated, our country may be subjected to economic pressure in order to prove, allegedly, to our people that their leadership is no good. Our Party may be and is being attacked. Mikhail Suslov equates the Party of Labour of Albania with the bourgeois parties and its leaders to Kerensky. But this does not intimidate us. We have learned some lessons. Ranković has not said worse things about the Party of Labour of Albania. Tito has called us Goebbels, but again, we are Leninists, and they are Trotskyites, traitors, lackeys and agents of imperialism.
I wish to emphasize that the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian people have shown in practice how much they love, how much they respect the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and that when the Party of Labour of Albania criticizes the wrongdoings of certain Soviet leaders, that does not mean that our views and our attitude have changed. We Albanians, as Marxists, have the courage to criticize these comrades with our Marxist severity, we tell them frankly what we think. Hypocrites we have never been nor will ever be.
In spite of the severity we show, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will hold us dear, regardless of errors we may make, but the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the other communist and workers’ parties of the world will not condemn us for our sincerity or because we do not talk behind people’s backs or swear allegiance to a hundred banners.
In conclusion, I wish to say a few words about the draft statement submitted to us by the Editorial Commission. Our delegation acquainted itself with this draft and scrutinized it carefully. In the new draft statement many amendments have been made to the first variant submitted by the Soviet delegation, which was taken as a basis for the work of the Editorial Commission. With the amendments made to it, the new draft statement has been considerably improved, many important ideas have been strengthened, a number of theses have been formulated more correctly and the overwhelming majority of the allusions against the Communist Party of China have been deleted.
At the meeting of the Editorial Commission, the delegation of our Party offered many suggestions, some of which were adopted. Although our delegation was not in agreement that certain important matters of principle should remain in the draft, it agreed that this document should be submitted to this meeting, reserving its right to express its views once again on all the issues on which it disagreed. Above all, we think that those five issues which remain uncoordinated should be settled so that we may draw up a document which has the unanimous approval of all.
We think that it is essential to make clear in the statement the idea of Lenin expressed recently by Comrade Maurice Thorez, as well as by Comrade Suslov in his speech at the meeting of the Editorial Commission, that there can be an absolute guarantee of the prohibition of war only when socialism has triumphed throughout the world or, at least, in a number of other major imperialist countries. At the same time, that paragraph which refers to factionalist or group activity in the international communist movement should be deleted, since, as we have pointed out at the meeting of the Commission, this too does not help consolidate unity, but on the contrary, undermines it. We are also in favour of deleting the words referring to the overcoming of the dangerous consequences of the cult of the individual, or else, of adding the phrase “which occurred in a number of parties,” a thing which corresponds better to reality.
I do not want to take the time of this meeting over these questions and other opinions which we have on the draft statement. Our delegation will make its concrete remarks when the draft statement itself is under discussion.
We shall do well and it will be salutary if we take the courage at this conference to look our mistakes in the face and treat the wounds, wherever they may be, because there is the danger they may be aggravated and become dangerous. We do not consider it an offence when comrades criticize us justly and on facts, but we never, never accept that without any facts they may call us “dogmatic,” “sectarian,” “narrow nationalists,” simply because we fight with persistence against modern revisionism and especially against Yugoslav revisionism. If anyone considers our struggle against revisionism as dogmatic or sectarian, we say to him, “take off your revisionist spectacles, and you will see more clearly.”
The Party of Labour of Albania thinks that this Conference will remain an historic one, for it will be a conference in the tradition of the Leninist conferences which the Bolshevik Party has organized in order to expose the distorted views and root them right out, in order to strengthen and steel the unity of our international communist and workers’ movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. Our Party of Labour will continue to strive with determination to strengthen our unity, our fraternal bonds, the joint activity of our communist and workers’ parties, for this is the guarantee of the triumph of the cause of peace and socialism. The unity of the socialist camp, with the Soviet Union at the head, the unity of the international communist and workers’ movement with the glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the centre, is the most sacred thing which our Party will guard as the apple of its eye and will strengthen more and more with each passing day.
[1] In December 1959, N. Khrushchev, the then head of the Soviet government, who was for the settlement of major international issues with the chiefs of imperialism by mere means of discussions, made arrangements through diplomatic channels for the calling of a summit conference with the participation of the heads of the governments of the USSR, USA, Britain and France. This conference was to have been held in May 1960, but it could not be held because of the sabotage of the U.S. imperialists and the vacillating adventurist stand of N. Khrushchev.
[2] Set up in January 1949. At the end of February of the same year the PR of Albania became one of its members. From an institution for reciprocal aid, with the coming to power of the Khrushchev revisionist clique in the Soviet Union, COMECON degenerated, too, becoming an instrument for the achievement of the social-imperialist aims of this clique.
[3] Through this proposal and the notes which the Soviet government addressed on May 25, 1959 to the governments of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Britain and the USA, it proposed the creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons and missiles in the Balkans and the Adriatic region.
[4] Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, First Secretary of the CC of the Romanian Workers’ Party.
[5] At the 2nd Plenum of the CC of the CPA held in Berat on November 23, 1944, the delegate of the CC of the CPY hatched up a plot behind the scenes against the CPA with the participation of the anti-Party elements Sejfulla Malëshova, Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo. The main objective of this conspiracy was to overthrow the leadership of the Party headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha and replace it with a pro-Yugoslav leadership. But the Communist Party of Albania smashed this plot of Tito’s.
[6] This stand was maintained only in the beginning.
[7] Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, one of the Yugoslav revisionist leaders who, as early as 1943, brought slanderous accusations against the CC of the Communist Party of Albania (later the Party of Labour of Albania).