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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 2-8-46
TITLE: New Light On The 1960 Conference: Albanians Break "Secrecy Pact"
BY: Kevin Devlin & lz
DATE: 1970-8-13
COUNTRY: Albania
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: Party
--- Begin ---
RADIO FREE EUROPE Research
COMMUNIST AREA
This material was prepared for the use of the
editors and policy staff of Radio Free Europe.
0698
INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNIST CONFERENCES
ALBANIA: PARTY
13 August 1970
NEW LIGHT ON THE 1960 CONFERENCE:
ALBANIANS BREAK "SECRECY PACT"
(Summary at end)
The 81-party Moscow Conference of 1960 was without
doubt a "watershed event" in the history of the international
Communist movement. It marked the clamorous collapse, after
four decades, of the Leninist-Stalinist monolith. Until
the secret "mini-conference" held in association with the
Rumanian party congress five months earlier, most of the
minor Communist parties had little or no idea of the rift
that had already opened up between the Soviet and Chinese
regimes; and now the ideological-political conflict between
the two giants of the Communist world was traumatically
revealed in frequently bitter debates.
Yet these debates took place behind firmly closed doors,
and the conference ended with an ostentatious demonstration
of unity. This did not, indeed, deceive many observers: a
[page 2]
cursory reading of the Moscow Statement of 1960 was enough to
show that it was an amalgam of divergent views and ambiguous
formulations. Within a few months the pattern of cyclical
deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations had manifested itself
again through indirect polemics, with the Russians using
Albania as a substitute target while the Chinese similarly
aimed at Moscow in attacking Belgrade.
Nevertheless, even when the private rift became a public
conflict, marked not only by polemics, the historic proceedings
of the 1960 conference remained veiled in secrecy to a remarkable
extent. Some early and fragmentary leaks" from European
Communist sources [1] were supplemented in time by the
very selective references made by both sides during the Sino-Soviet
polemics of 1963-64, [2] and by a statement which the Belgian CP
Politburo published on 22 February 1962, and which offered a
partisan version of "the main theses presented by the Chinese
CP" at the 81-party conference.
However, nine and a half years after the 1960 conference
the only contributions which had been made public were those
by Maurice Thorez of France [3] and Luigi Longo of Italy, [4]
together with the "major portion" of the speech given by the
U. S. delegate, James E. Jackson. [5] Strictly speaking, indeed,
-----------------
(1) The "leaks" were mainly communicated through Edward Crankshaw,
the British journalist and student of Communist affairs; see
his articles in The Observer (12 Feb. 1961, 6 May 1962 and
8 Sept. 1963) and Atlantic Monthly (May 1961 and May 1963) and
in his book The New Cold War (1963).
(2) The most important of these sources were: on the Chinese side,
the People's Daily - Red Flag editorials of 6 Sept. 1963 and
4 Feb. 1964; on the Soviet side, a Kommunist article of
October 1963 and the "Suslov Report" of February 1964
(Pravda, 3 April 1964).
(3) The texts of two conference speeches by Thorez and a declaration
by the French delegation (with some more recent documentation)
were published by the PCF Central Committee in January 1963
under the title Problemes du mouvement international; most of
this material had been issued a year earlier for internal
distribution only.
(4) Interventi della delegazione del Partito Comunista Italiano
alla conferenza degli 81 Partiti comunisti ed operai, Rome,
15 Jan. 1962. This booklet contained the texts of Longo's
two conference speeches, a memorandum from the Italian
delegation to the 26-party editorial commission and a letter
from the Italian delegation to Khrushchev.
(5) Political Affairs, December 1963; the previous (November 1963)
issue of the CPUSA monthly organ had carried an interesting
article entitled "Recollections of the 1960 Conferences"
(Bucharest and Moscow) by another member of the American
delegation, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
[page 3]
the Italian documentation was not published: it was contained
in a booklet issued for internal party use (although it soon
became available to interested outside observers). It could
be said, then, that of the more than 90 addresses delivered by
heads of delegations at the conference (some spoke more than
once), the only ones made public in full were the two speeches
by Maurice Thorez -- until June 1970, when the Albanians published
the text of the speech which Enver Hoxha delivered on 16 November
1960.
The text appears in the third volume of a series of Albanian
party documents,[6] covering the period between February 1957
and February 1961. During the past few years the Tirana regime
has made a point of publishing much documentation on the party
history; but this was obviously much more than a routine matter
of implementing an historical chronicle. Indeed, the Albanians
indicated as much by issuing the text in extense in the foreign
language services of Radio Tirana and the ATA news agency [7]
as well as in the August number of the party theoretical organ
Rruga e Partis� (The Way of the Party). It is equally obvious
that the historic importance of the Hoxha speech is incomparably
greater than that of the Thorez texts, with their ritual loyalty
to the Soviet line.
Possible Motives
Before examing the content of the speech, and the new light
that it sheds upon the 81-party conference, we may ask why
Albania has become the first regime to break the pact of secrecy,
after nearly a decade. [8] The question cannot be answered with
assurance, but some tentative suggestions may be offered. In
the first place, publication of the speech is clearly a
characteristic gesture of independence on the interparty level. This obvious
------------------
(6) V�llimi i 3-t�, PPSh-Dokumente Kryesore (Principal Documents
of the Albanian Workers' Party, Vol. 3), Tirana 1970; the
work was published by the Institute of Marxist-Leninist
Studies attached to the Central Committee of the Albanian
party.
(7) Radio Tirana, English service, 30 June, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
July 1970; ATA English service, 17 July 1970.
(8) It may be noted that the Chinese have never published the
speeches which Teng Hsiao-ping and Liu Shao-chi delivered
at the 1960 conference--and that they have so far apparently
ignored (as have other Communist leaderships) the Albanian
publication of Hoxha's speech.
[page 4]
fact does not, however, explain the timing of the gesture.
Here it is significant that publication comes at a time when
the Albanian regime has been displaying considerably more
flexibility in interstate relations with some socialist
countries--notably with regard to Rumania and Yugoslavia,
which differ from Albania in so many ways, but share with
Hoxha's regime one important attribute: resistance to Soviet
pressures. By placing on record his unswerving ideological
"rectitude" (in the context of 1960), Hoxha has in fact left
himself freer (in the context of 1970) to make cautious
advances to these fellow-rebels against Soviet hegemony.
Furthermore, the main thrust of the speech was an attack on, and rejection
of, Soviet authority in the international Communist movement;
and Hoxha evidently sees present profit in restressing this theme
now, against a background which includes the Moscow Conference
of June 1969, post-invasion "normalization" in Czechoslovakia
(and elsewhere), the orchestrated triumphalism of the Lenin
Centenary and, not least, the continued resistance of some
important Communist parties and regimes to these efforts to
reassert the hegemonial primacy of the CPSU. Finally, it is
clear that, on the domestic level, publication of the speech
serves to build up national pride and popular support.
The general outline and some of the details of Hoxha's
speech were already known from various sources, notably the
1968 (revised) edition of the official Albanian party history, [9]
which gave a summarized account containing some useful quotations.
But to read the full text is to appreciate the truly traumatic
impact that Hoxha's harangue must have had upon the loyalist
majority in St. George's Hall on that November day. China's
Teng Hsiao-ping, speaking two days earlier, had been equally
intransigent but not nearly so offensive. "If the Chinese
speech had shocked and disturbed the majority of delegates,"
the Italian Communist Giusseppe Boffa later observed, "that
of Hoxha disgusted them." [10]
-----------------
(9) Historia e Partis� s� Pun�s te Shqup�ris� (revised edition,
Tirana 1968), pp. 360-372. Until the text was published
the best "outside" account, pieced together from fragments
of evidence, was that given by William E. Griffith in his
Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge, Mass., 1963)
pp. 55-56.
(10) Giuseppe Boffa, Dopo Krusciov (Rome, 1965), p. 68.
[page 5]
"Traitors" Attacked
Thus, in the opening section of his speech Hoxha supported
the Chines and opposed Soviet positions with regard to
peaceful coexistence, East-West relations and ways of transition
to socialism. But he did so in unnecessarily offensive terms:
U.S.-led world 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 and covers it up is a traitor in the service of
imperialism. [11]
Similarly, in expounding the Chinese view that Communist
parties, including those in capitalist countries, should guard
against "peaceful way" delusions (" ...we should prepare ourselves...
especially for taking power by violence"), the Albanian leader
took the occasion to attack Khrushchev personally and reject
the line of the 20 the CPSU Congress in general:
This question has been clear, and it was not necessary
for Comrade Khrushchev to confuse it at the 20th Congress,
and to do so in such an way as to please the opportunists.
Why was it necessary to resort to so many parodies of
Lenin's clear theses and the October Socialist Revolution?
The Albanian Workers' Party is quite clear about, and does
not shift from, Lenin's teachings on this matter. So far,
no people, no proletariat and no Communist or workers
party has seized power without bloodshed and without
violence. [12]
This proclamation of ideological rectitude--which was
simultaneously a rejection of Soviet authority--was linked with
an almost melodramatic insistence on the determination of the
Albanians to resist all attempts to coerce them into submission.
Referring to the pre-conference meetings in Moscow between
Soviet and Albanian representatives, Hoxha gave a highly
colored account of one such attempt:
----------------
(11) Radio Tirana, 30 June 1970; JPRS Translations on Eastern
Europe (TEE) No. 239, 23 July 1970, p. 3. Emphasis supplied.
(12) Ibid., TEE No. 239, p. 5
[page 6]
There may be comrades who reproach us Albanians
with being stubborn, hotblooded, sectarian, dogmatic
and what not; but we reject all these false accusations
and tell them that we shall not deviate from these
positions, for they are Marxist-Leninist positions.
They say that we are in favor of war and against
coexistence. Comrade [Frol] Kozlov has even put to
us Albanians these alternatives: either coexistence, as
he conceives it, or an atomic bomb from the imperialists
which will turn Albanian into a heap of 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, and from a member of
the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union. And [addressed] to whom? To
a small, heroic country, to a people who have fought
through centuries against savage and innumerable enemies
and who have never bent the knee; to a small country
and a people who have fought with unprecedented
heroism against the Hitlerites and the Italian
Fascists...
But, Comrade Frol Kozlov, you have made a mistake
in the address. You cannot frighten us into yielding
to your wrongly-calculated wishes; and we never
confound the glorious Party of Lenin with you, who
behave so badly, with such shamelessness, toward the
Albanian people and ... party. [13]
----------------
(13) Radio Tirana, 1 July 1970; TEE No. 239, p. 6.
[page 7]
In stressing Albnaia's independence Hoxha also served
notice that, times having changed, his regime could not be
treated by Khrushcheve as Yugoslavia had bee treated by
Stalin--that is, it could, in any effective sense, be
expelled from the socialist camp:
It is absurd to imagine that little socialist
Albania may detach itself and live apart from
the socialist peoples. Albania is indebted to
no one for its presence within the ranks of
the socialist camp. The Albanian people
themselves and [their] party have placed
it there through their blood and sweat, their
work, their sacrifices, their system of
government and through the Marxist-Leninist line they
pursue. But let no one think that because
Albania is a small country, because the Albanian
Workers' Party is a small party, it should do
what someone else says when it is convinced that
that someone is mistaken. [14]
-----------------
(14) Radio Tirana, 1 July 1970; TEE No. 239, pp. 6-7;
emphasis added. Later in his speech Hoxha taunted
Khrushchev with the same argument: "The fact that
Albania proceeds along the path of socialism and
that it is a member of the socialist camp is not
determined by you, Nikita Khrushchev. It does
not depend on your wishes. This has been determined
by the Albanian people, headed by their workers
party..." (Radio Tirana, 3 July 1970: TEE No. 239,
p. 22)
[page 8]
Against Soviet Hegemony
For all the emotional rhetoric, however, it is clear that
Hoxha's attack upon Soviet positions was carefully constructed
and calculated. Thus, his criticism of Soviet hegemony over
Eastern Europe, as exercised through Comecon and the Warsaw
Pact, was both measured and reasonable in tone. His demand that
both institutions be reformed to provide for more regular
consultation and collective decision-making was a legitimate demand
--and one that did, in fact, anticipate future developments:
[The] Albanian Workers' Party is of the opinion
that our socialist camp, which has one goal, which
is guided by Marxism-Leninism, should also have its
own strategy and tactics, and that these should be
worked out collectively by our parties and states
of the socialist camp. Within the ranks of our
camp we have se 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 of
Mutual Economic Aid.
Le 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 [15] for
consultation. We raise this problem as [a matter of]
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. [16]
Implicit here--and made explicit later on--was the charge
that the Soviet leadership had been taking policy decisions without
consulting fraternal regimes which would be affected by them:
On may political issues of first-rate importance,
our socialist camp has held, and holds, identical
views. But since collective consultations have not
become a regular habit, on many occasions it has
been noted that states from our socialist camp take
[independent] political initiatives. Not that we
are opposed, in principle, to taking initiatives,
------------------
(15) In the context, Hoxha evidently means regular,
multilateral meetings--institutionalized consultation.
(16) Radio Tirana, 1 July 1970; TEE No. 239, p-7.
[page 9]
but these initiatives often affect other states
of the socialist camp as well. Some of these
initiatives are not correct, especially when they
should be taken collectively by the members of the
Warsaw Pact.
Bulgaria, Poland As Substitute Targets
It is interesting that at this early stage of his carefully
constructed philippic Hoxha chose to illustrate his argument by
criticism not of the Russians themselves but of the client regimes
in Bulgaria and Poland. By accepting the fiction that these
regimes had acted independently of the Soviet Union, he strengthened
his own claim to independent judgement. In both cases, of course,
the initiatives in question had been undertaken with Soviet consent:
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 agreed to disarm if the
Greek government was prepared to do so. From our
point of view, this initiative is an erroneous one,
for, even if the Greek government had endorsed it,
the Albanian government would not have accepted it.
Albanian is in agreement with the Soviet proposal made
by Nikita Khrushchev in May 1959, but not with the
Bulgarian proposal, which would mean disarming the
Balkan countries while leaving Italy unaffected.
Or had the Bulgarian comrades forgotten that bourgeois
and fascist Italy had attacked Albania a number of
times during this century? On the other hand, can the
Bulgarian comrades, without consulting in any way the
Albanian government, with which they are bound by a
defensive treaty, be allowed to propose a treaty of
friendship and non-aggression with the Greek
government, at a time when Greece maintains a state of war
with Albanian and makes territorial claims against our
country? It seems to us that it is dangerous to
take such unilateral action...
Similar gestures have also been made by the Polish
comrades at the United Nations, when Comrade Gomulka
stated in a unilateral way at the General Assembly...
that Poland proposes to preserve the status quo on
the stationing of military forces in the world, and,
concretely, that no more military bases should be
created, but those already set up should remain; that
no more missiles should be installed but 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 counter to the interests of our camp. No more
[page 10]
missiles to be installed--but by whom and where?
All the NATO allies... 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 would oblige us, the
countries of people's democracy, not to install
missiles [and forbid] any other country of the socialist
camp, except the Soviet Union, to have the atomic
bomb. [17]
This is a good example of the effective polemical techniques
which Hoxha used in his address. A passage nominally consisting
of attacks upon Bulgarian and Polish policies--the former being
even contrasted with a temporary Soviet position--ends by moving
in upon the real target. Yet the approach, though obvious, is
still indirect.
"We pose the question," Hoxha went on: "Why should Communist
China not have the atomic bomb? We think that China should have
it, and when she has the bomb and missiles, then we shall see in
what terms United States imperialism will speak." He did not need
to say more: the background to this declaration was clear to all
delegations. On arrival in Moscow for the conference, if not
earlier, they had been given the Chinese letter-manifesto of 10
September 1960, in which the latter set forth at length their
indictment of the Soviet leadership--including the revelation that in
June 1959 the USSR had unilaterally abrogated a secret agreement,
reached a year earlier, to help China produce a nuclear weapon.
Boldness and Subtlety
Here again, Hoxha combined boldness with considerable subtlety:
his attack upon the Russians was the more effective for being
indirect. Similarly, this defense of China's nuclear ambitions also
represented an implicit appeal to the regional loyalties of the
"pro-Chinese neutralist" parties in Asia [18] -- an appeal which
would have been weakened if it had been made explicit. One further,
important point may be made: this is one of the relatively rare
passages of his long speech in which Hoxha directly championed
Chinese positions. Indirectly, he did so throughout the speech,
of course; but, apart from the section on the Bucharest meeting of
June 1960, he made few explicit references to the Chinese--as a
matter of policy, and perhaps also of principle, he preferred to
put his case in Albanian terms, as the spokesman of an independent
regime.
------------------
(17) Radio Tirana, 1 July 1970; TEE No. 239, pp. 8-9.
(18) The most important of these were the North Korean, North
Vietnamese, Indonesian and Japanese arties.
[page 11]
This concern emerged clearly in his discussion of
economic relations and aid within the socialist camp. Albania,
he cheerfully acknowledge, had given economic aid on one
--"first, because we are poor and, second, because no one stands
in need of our aid." After expressing gratitude for help,
given "first and foremost by the Soviet Union," Hoxha firmly
laid down his own principles. Economic help given by one
socialist state to another should be considered " not as charity
but as fraternal, internationalist aid." More than that:
Albanians "have a duty to seek the aid of their friends and
brothers economically better off than they, and it was and
still is the internationalist duty of their friends to give
this aid." [19] In other words: Albania had the right to
ask for help, but other socialist states (primarily the USSR)
had not the right to deny it.
Hoxha went on to make the proposal that "the aid of the
economically stronger to the economically weaker [socialist]
countries, as is the case of our people, should be greater."
(This, of course, was also a Chinese argument, and one of
obvious interest to the Koreans and Vietnamese; yet, again,
Hoxha put it only in general terms.) He added that Albania
agreed that the economically stronger socialist states should
also aid "neutral capitalist" countries and ... peoples recently
liberated from colonialism"--provided they were anti-imperialist
and did not hinder or oppose revolutionary forces. But, he
stressed, "first of all, the needs of the countries of the
socialist camp should be looked into carefully and be fulfilled.
Of course, India stands in need of iron and steel, but socialist
Albania stands in more urgent need of them." This indirect
attack upon Soviet foreign policy priorities must have found some
resonance among more than the Asian regimes.
The Bucharest Confrontation
In this passage on economic relations between socialist
states there was one significant sentence: "Economic pressures
on the Albanian Workers' Party, on the Albanian government
and on our people will never be of any avail." This laconic
declaration in fact pointed forward to the most controversial
section of Hoxha's speech: his polemical discussion of the
secret meeting of Communist party delegations held in Bucharest
in June 1960, and of subsequent Soviet efforts to bring the
Albanians back into line.
---------------
(19) TEE, No. 239, p. 8.
[page 12]
We may recall briefly that the Soviet and Chinese leaderships
had agreed in early June to use the impending congress of the
Rumanian party for a discussion by fraternal delegations of the
question of holding an all-party conference, at which efforts
would be made to settle the ideological disputes which had
become evident with the Chinese publication of the
anti-revisionist manifesto, Long Live Leninism, in April 1960.
Khrushchev, however, decided to use the Bucharest meeting to
build up and anti-Chinese front in the international movement.
In the course of intensive lobbying before the secret
"mini-conference" took place (on 24-26 June), the Russians distributed
to other delegations an 80-page "Letter of Information" [20]
which was a cold indictment of the Chinese regime's ideological
deviations and factionalist activities. Their purpose
clearly was to indict the Chinese before what amounted to an
impromptu tribunal of the fraternal parties.
Shaken by this unexpected and scandalous revelation of
Sino-Soviet disunity, the overwhelming majority of the 50-odd
delegations present reacted predictably by supporting the Soviet
criticism. The front was, however, weakened by the reticence
of the Asian parties later to be classified as "neutralist
pro-Chinese"; and it was broken by the Albanian delegation's
explicit opposition to this collective indictment of the
fraternal Chinese party. [21]
In this Moscow speech Hoxha concentrated on the conspiratorial
aspect of Soviet behavior in Bucharest. "Right from the start,"
he declared, "when the Soviet comrades began their feverish and
impermissible work of inveigling the comrades of our delegation
in Bucharest, it became clear to the Albanian Workers' Party
that the Soviet comrades wanted, by means of groundless arguments
and pressure, to lure the Albanian Workers' Party into the ****
------------------
(20) The "Letter of Information," dated 21 June 1960, was nominally
a communication from the CPSU Central Committee to its Chinese counterpart.
(21) The putative reason for the Albanian decision to defy Soviet
authority at the Bucharest meeting cannot be discussed here.
Major factors evidently include the Tirana regime's traditional
hostility to Titoist Yugoslavia and its consequent dislike of
the Moscow-Belgrade rapprochement; its resentment of Khrushchev's
denunciation of Stalin; its militant line in international
affairs, arising from domestic circumstances; its geopolitical
position; and, above all, the fact that it now had an alternative patron--China--to turn to.
[page 13]
they had prepared, to bring it into line with the distorted
views of the Soviet comrades. [22]
Developing the idea of a shameful conspiracy, Hoxha
revealed that some but not all of the ruling parties [23]
were privy to the Soviet plan to mount an anti-Chinese
offensive in Bucharest. In fact, he said, "with the exception
of the Albanian Workers' Party, the Chinese Communist Party,
the Korean Workers' party and the Vietnamese Workers' Party,
the other parties of the camp"--that is, the loyalist regimes
of the Eastern Europe--"had been acquainted with the fact that a
conference would be organized in Bucharest to accuse China."
It followed that "the question becomes much more serious, and
assumes the form of a faction of an international character."
The delegations present in Bucharest had no mandate
from their parties to pass judgement on "the ideological and
political accusations directed against the Chinese CP" by
Khrushchev. But in any case the Russians were not interested
in having a genuine debate on those charges:
The fact is that the overriding concern of the Soviet
leadership was to have its accusations against the
Chinese Communist Party passed over quickly, and
to have the Chinese CP Condemned at all cost... The
aim was to have the Chinese CP condemned by the
international Communist movement for faults which do not
exist and are baseless.
The questions raised by the Sino-soviet dispute--"for example,
the condemnation of Joseph Stalin, the great problem of the Hungarian
counter-revolution, that of the ways of taking power"--were important
ones which concerned the whole international movement; but the
Soviet leaders had avoided a discussion of them because "they were
dead certain of their line and of its inviolability." Hoxha
went on:
In order to condemn the Chinese Communist Party for
imaginary insults and sins, Comrade Nikita Khrushchev and
other Soviet leaders were very concerned to present the
----------------
(22) This and subsequent quotations dealing with the Bucharest
meeting are taken from the Radio Tirana broadcast of 2 July
1970 (TEE No. 239, pp. 11-17).
(23) The non-ruling parties (which sent mostly second-rank delegations)
had no warning of the Soviet intention. See Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn, "Recollections of the 1960 Conferences," Political
Affairs (monthly organ of the CPUSA) November 1963, pp. 22-38.
[page 14]
case as if the divergences existed between China and
the whole international Communist movement. But when
it came to problems like those I have just mentioned,
judgement on them had been passed by Khrushchev and his
companions alone, in the belief that there was on need
for them to be discussed collectively at a meeting
of the representatives of all the parties, although these
were major international problems in character. The
Hungarian counter-revolution occurred, but matters
were hushed up. Why this tactic of hushing things
up when they are not to the advantage of the Soviet
comrades, while now, when it is to their advantage,
the Soviet comrades not only call meetings like that
at Bucharest but do their utmost to force on others
the view that China is in opposition to the line of
all the world's communist and workers' parties?
In short, perceiving that Soviet behavior at Bucharest was
"aimed at condemning the Chinese Communist Party and isolating
if from the whole international Communist movement," the Albanian
party rejected this attempt as "monstrous and unacceptable."
It did so "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 Chinese Communist Party,
that under the guise of an accusation of dogmatism against
China an attack was being launched against Marxism-Leninism
and the principles of the Moscow Declaration and peace manifesto
[of 1957.]"
For the record, but obviously with no hope of success,
Hoxha urged the assembled delegations to condemn the Bucharest
meeting:
The Albanian Workers' Party is of the opinion that the
Bucharest meeting was not only a gross mistake but also
a mistake which was deliberately aggravated. In no way
should the Bucharest meeting be cast into oblivion, but
it should be severely condemned as a black stain on
the international Communist movement.
Soviet Coercion
By taking this stand at the Bucharest meeting, the Albanians
had exposed themselves to the attacks of the loyalist majority,
Hoxha admitted. "Some leaders of fraternal parties called
us neutralists, while others reproached us with deviation
from the correct Marxist-Leninist line, and these leaders
went so far as to try to discredit us before their own parties.
We reject all these with scorn because they are slanders." And
the Russians did not confine themselves to merely verbal attacks:
[page 15]
Immediately following the Bucharest meeting, an
unexpected unprincipled attack was launched. Brutal
intervention and all-round pressure was undertaken against
the Albanian 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 Politburo who happened
to pass through Moscow were worked upon with a view
to turning them against the leadership of our party,
[the Soviets] declaring that the leadership of the
Albanian Worker's Party had betrayed the friendship
with the Soviet Union... 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 would be in danger,
since it would take only one atomic bomb dropped by
the Americans to wipe out completely Albania and all
its population, and other threats of the kind. [24]
Hoxha went on, in what may be considered the most sensational
passage of his explosive address, to outline an alleged Soviet
plot to overthrow the existing Albanian leadership and
substitute forces loyal to the CPSU:
It is absolutely clear that the aim was to sow
discord in the leadership of the Albanian Workers'
Party, to remove from the leadership...those elements
who, the Soviet leaders thought, stood in the way of
their crooked and dishonest undertaking. The result
of this divisive activity was that Comrade Liri Belishova,
member of the Politburo..., capitulated to the cajolery
of the Soviet leaders, to their blackmail and intimidation,
and took a stand in open opposition to the line of her
party.
The main burden of this work of factionalist intervention,
according to Hoxha's partisan account, was borne by "the employees
of the Soviet Embassy, with the Soviet Ambassador to Tirana
himself in the lead"; and their aim, he alleged, was nothing less
than a coup:
They began feverishly and intensively to attack the
Marxist-Leninist line of the Albanian Worker's Party, to split
the party, to create panic and confusion in its ranks,
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
------------
(24) This and subsequent quotations are taken from the Radio
Tirana broadcast of 3 July 1970; TEE No. 239, pp. 17-24.
[page 16]
Army against the leadership of the Albanian Workers'
Party and the Albanian state. But the saw struck a
nail, and this came to naught, for the unity of our
party is steel-like...
Nevertheless, the employees of the Soviet Embassy in
Tirana, with the Ambassador in the lead, succeeded
through impermissible, anti-Marxist methods in making
the chairman of the Control Commission of the
Albanian Workers' Party, who two weeks earlier had
been at one with the line pursued by the Central
Committee of the Albanian Workers' Party in Bucharest,
fall into the Clutches of these intriguers, deviate from
Marxism-Leninism and come out flagrantly against the
line of his party. [25]
It is clear that these contemptible acts of these
Soviet comrades were aimed at splitting the
leadership of the Albanian Workers' Party...and this as
punishment for the alleged crimes we had committed in Bucharest,
for having had the courage to express our views freely
as we saw fit.
Noting that the Soviet Embassy officials had also tired
in vain to subvert Albanians who had studied in the USSR, Hoxha
said that of "many other examples" of Soviet pressure which
he could list, he would mention only two.
In October, while the 26-party editorial commission
was in session in Moscow to debate the draft conference document,
an enlarged meeting of the Warsaw Pact chiefs of staff was held
in the Soviet capital. At this meeting "the member of the Central
Committee [of the CPSU] and minister of the Soviet Union, Marshal
Malinovsky, launched an open attack on the Albanian people,
on the Albanian Workers' Party, on the Albanian government
and on our leadership." His colleague Marshal Grechko, the
Warsaw Pack Commander-in-Chief, went further: he "not only told
our military delegation that it was difficult for him to meet
the requirements of our army for some very special equipment,
for the supply of which contracts had been signed, but said
bluntly, 'You are in the Warsaw Pact only for the time being'-
implying that Marshal Grechko seems to have decided to throw
us out. But fortunately," Hoxha added scornfully, "it is not
up to the Comrade Marshal to take such a decision." [26]
-------------
(25) The reference is to Koco Tashko who, together with
Liri Belishova, was purged early in September 1960.
(26) It may be noted that, even after the Soviet-Albanian
break, Albanian remained a formal though non-participating
member of the Warsaw Pact--until after the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968, when it formally withdrew.
[page 17]
Then at a meeting with the Chinese delegation, also in
October, "Nikita Khrushchev declared solemnly to the Chinese
comrades, 'We will treat Albania like Yugoslavia.'"[27]
This roused Hoxha to another flight of calculated outrage.
What crime had the Albanians committed, that they should be
treated like Tito's Yugoslavia? Had they betrayed
Marxism-Leninism, as the Titoist clique had done? had they, like
the Titoists, broken away from the camp to "hitch up with
U.S. imperialism?" No--
Our only crime is that in Bucharest we did not
agree that a fraternal Communist party like the
Chinese CP 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 market-place, the unjust action of Nikita Khrushchev.
Our only alleged crime is that we are a small party of
a small and poor country 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 we will not give up
this right for anyone, neither on account of political
and economic pressure, nor on account of the threats
and epithets that may be hurled at us.
Economic Blackmail
So far (except for his account of the Soviet Embassy's
subversive activities), Hoxha had dealt mainly with the "threats
and epithets"; now he turned to the "political and economic
pressure." He was "obliged to inform this meeting that the
Soviet leaders have in fact passed from threats to treating
Albania in the same way as Titoist Yugoslavia, to concrete
acts." The revelation which followed was presented in dramatic
terms:
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.
Nearly all the grain was lost. The people were
threatened with starvation. The very limited
reserve was consumed.
---------------
(27) A little later in his speech Hoxha, addressing Khrushchev
directly, said that on 6 November the Soviet leader had
told the Chinese delegates, "We [Soviets] lost in Albania,
and you, Chinese, won in Albania," Adding contemptuously
that the Albanian party was his "were link." Hoxha
waxed indignant over this attitude of treating socialist
Albania as "something to be bought and sold or lost and
won as in a card game."
[page 18]
Our government urgently sought to buy grain from the
Soviet Union, explaining the very critical situation
that 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, the Soviet government, instead of
50,000 tons, granted 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 to 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: "Do not 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. This is terrible, comrades, but it is true... [28]
After noting that the Russians had even obliged the Albanians
to dip into its limited gold reserves to buy this inadequate
supply of grain, refusing to make it a credit transaction,
Hoxha went on to reveal that the then-loyalist Rumanian
regime had joined in the Soviet attempts at coercion:
The Rumanian leadership did the same thing when it
refused to sell a single ear of corn to the Albanian
people on a credit basis at a time when Rumania
was trading in corn with the capitalist countries,
while we were obliged to buy maize from French farmers,
paying in foreign currency.
Some months before the Bucharest meeting, Comrade
[Gheorghiu-] Dej invited a delegation of our party
for the specific purpose of conducting talks on the
future development of Albania...[He] said to our party:
"We, the other countries of people's democracy, should
no longer discuss how much credit should be granted to
Albania, but we should decide to build Albania such
--------------
(28) In a later passage Hoxha contrasted Khrushchev's behavior
with that of Stalin (who "always behaved as a great Marxist,
as an outstanding internationalist, as a comrade, brother
and sincere friend of the Albanian people"): "In 1945,
when our people were threatened with starvation, Comrade
Stalin ordered ships loaded with grain destined for the
Soviet people, who were also in dire need of food at that
time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people,
whereas the present Soviet leaders permitted themselves
these ugly deeds!"
[page 19]
and such factories to raise the level of production...
regardless of how many million roubles they would
cost. That is of no importance." Comrade Dej added:
"We have talked this over with Comrade Khrushchev
too, and we have been in agreement." But then came
the Bucharest meeting, and our party maintained the
stand you all know. The Rumanian comrades shook
off what they had previously said, and chose the
course of leaving the Albanian people to suffer
from hunger.
Emphasis on Independence
What Hoxha did not say about the Soviet and satellite
attempts to exert economic pressure on his regime is also
significant. Thus, he did not say that the Chinese had come
to the Albanians' aid in their hour of need, by buying a
consignment of French grain and having it shipped to Tirana. [29]
Nor did he mention that during the same period the Soviets
were bringing a similar type of economic pressure to bear upon
China, by withdrawing their technicians and unilaterally abrogating
hundreds of individual aid agreements and contracts. Once more,
it seems, Hoxha was concerned to downplay the new Tirana-Peking
alliance, and to present his challenge to Soviet authority as far
as possible in Albanian terms. It is relevant to note that the
publication of the speech comes at a time when the Tirana regime
is again concerned, as often in the past to reaffirm the
independent, principled character of the Albanian struggle
against Khrushchevian and neo-Khrushchevian revisionism.
Repeatedly during his long speech Hoxha returned to this
sensitive and central theme of Albania's principled independence,
as when he protested against Khrushchev's alleged belief that the
Albanian party "has no views of its own, but has made common
cause with the Communist Party of China in an unprincipled
manner, and therefore that on matters pertaining to our party
one can talk with the Chinese comrades." Or again, when he
addressed Khrushchev directly: "You consider Albania as a market
commodity which can be gained by one or lost by another... You
were repeating the same thing...when you decided that Albania
is no longer a socialist country, as transpires from the letter
-------------
(29) See William E. Griffith, Albania and the Sino-Soviet
Rift (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p. 47.
[page 20]
you handed to us on 8 November, in which our country is not
mentioned as a socialist country." [30]
This prickly insistence on the independence of little
Albanian was coupled with an irate rejection of the
"swollen-headed" Soviet leadership's pretensions to hegemonic authority:
Our party has always considered the CPSU as a mother party.
It has done this because it is the oldest party... It
has spoken of its universal experience, of its great
maturity. But our party has never accepted, nor will
it ever accept, that some Soviet leaders may impose
on it their views which it considers erroneous.
The Soviet leaders...have become swollen-headed over
the colossal successes attained by the Soviet people
and the CPSU, and violate Marxist-Leninist principles,
regarding themselves as infallible; they consider every
decision, every act, every word they say and every
gesture they make infallible and irrevocable. Others
may err, others may be condemned, while they are above
reproach. "Our decisions are sacred; they are inviolable.
We can make no concessions to, no compromise with, the
Chinese Communist Party," the leaders of the CPSU said
to our people.
The ironical thing was that, as a Communist schooled in
the Leninist-Stalinist myths, Hoxha himself had to demonstrate
the inerrancy which he denied to the Soviet leaders. There were
therefore some inherent contradictions in the Albanian positions
which, after all, had developed rapidly within a few months after
a decade and a half of satellite loyalty. One, already noted,
arose from the need to adopt the Chinese line while at the same
time stressing Albanian independence. Luigi Longo of the PCI
pointed to another in his first conference speech [31] On the
one hand, Hoxha sought to blame Soviet actions at and after
-------------
(30) The reference is to a 127-page Soviet letter dated 5 November
1960. Ostensibly a reply to a Chinese letter of 10 September,
it was (according to a Zeri i Popullit editorial of 25 March
1962) distributed to all conference delegations on 8-9
November. Publicly, the Soviets have never denied that
Albania is a socialist country, though one under deviant
leadership.
(31) Interventi della delegazione del P.C.I. alla Conferenza
degli 81 Partiti Comunisti e operai (Rome, 1962), p. 49.
[page 21]
the Bucharest meeting for the rift between their parties. On
the other hand, in order to legitimize his rebellion and give
it historical foundation, he sought to show that Albanian
disagreement with the Soviet line on such issues as Stalin,
Yugoslavia and East-West relations went back to 1956 and the
20th Congress.
The Yugoslav Issue
Like the Chinese, he made effective use of the denunciation
of modern revisionism contained in the Moscow Declaration of
1957, contrasting this with the intermittent Soviet efforts to reach
a rapprochement with Tito (although the e1957 Declaration, unlike
the Moscow State of 1960 then in process of preparation, made
no specific reference to Yugoslavia--a mistake, Hoxha noted
in passing).
Since 1957, Hoxha complained, "the consistent and ceaseless
fight to smash [Yugoslav revisionism] ideologically and politically
was not conducted with the proper intensity." And, in the opinion
of the Albanian party, "the reason why Tito's revisionist group
has not been totally exposed, why false hopes have arisen from
an alleged improvement and positive turn of this group, is that
Comrade Khrushchev and some other Soviet leaders maintain a
conciliatory attitude toward, erroneous views about, and an
incorrect assessment of, this dangerous Titoist revisionist
group." [32]
The Soviet-Yugoslav rapprochement begun in 1955 was based
on the argument that Stalin's condemnation of Tito in 1948 was
unjustified. "Our party has never endorsed such a view because
time and experience have proved the contrary," Hoxha declared.
"Stalin made a very correct assessment of the dangers of
Yugoslav revisionism."
What was wrong, in fact, was not Stalin's condemnation
but Khrushchev's revocation of it. In the first place, Hoxha
argued, the USSR had not had the right to initiate a rapprochement
with Yugoslavia in 1955:
The Albanian Workers' Party considers the decisions taken
against Tito's renegade group by the Cominform not as
decisions taken by Comrade Stalin personally, but as
decisions taken by all the parties that made up the
Cominform, [33] and not only by these parties alone,
-------------
(32) This and subsequent quotations are taken from the Radio
Tirana broadcast of 4 July 1970 (TEE No. 239, pp. 23-28).
(33) Albania, like China and the other Asian regimes, did not
participate in the Cominform.
[page 22]
but also by the Communist and workers' parties which
did not take part in the Cominform...
Why then was the change of attitude toward 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 other...parties
[instead of being] conceived and carried out so hastily
and in a unilateral way? This was a matter that concerned
us all... It was not up to Comrade Khrushchev to settle
this affair at his own discretion. Yet that is what he
did!
Hoxha went on to reveal (or claim) that when the Albanian
party leaned of Khrushchev's intention to visit Belgrade in 1955--
a visit which signalled the zigzag process of rapprochement--it
"immediately opposed it categorically." His account of this
"opposition is vague, and we have unfortunately no Soviet version
of what occurred; but it does seem that the Albanians made some
cautious attempt to hinder the rapprochement, without success:
Before Comrade Khrushchev set out for Belgrade in May
1955 the Central Committee of the Albanian Workers'
Party sent a letter to the Central Committee of the
CPSU, in which it expressed the opposition of our
party to his going to Belgrade, stressing that the
Yugoslav issue could not be settled in a unilateral
way, but that a meeting of the Cominform should be
called, to which it asked that the Albanian Workers'
Party should also be invited...
Of course, formally, we had no right to decide whether
Comrade Khrushchev should or should not go to Belgrade,
and we backed down on this. But in essence we were
right, and time has confirmed that the Yugoslav issue
should not be settled in this precipitate way.
Even after the rapprochement had got under way, the 1949.
Cominform resolution denouncing Tito as an agent of imperialism
had been revoked, and other Communist parties had followed the
Soviet lead with regard to Yugoslavia--even then, Hoxha continued
"Our party refused to take such a conciliatory and opportunistic
course... The Albanian Workers' Party remained unshaken in its
views that the Titoite group were traitors...that Comrade Stalin
had not erred in this matter, that by pursuing their treacherous
line the revisionists had attempted to enslave Albania, to
destroy the Albanian Workers' Party and....plunge Albania into
international conflicts...the tragedy is that its unshaken,
principled Marxist-Leninist stand was in opposition to the
conciliatory stand of the Soviet leaders and of certain other
Communist and workers' parties toward the Yugoslav revisionists."
[page 23]
Hoxha went on to discuss some of the events of the crucial
year, 1956, the year of the 20th CPSU Congress, the denunciation
of Stalin, the Polish October and the Hungarian rising. It was
also, according to Hoxha, the year of a Yugoslav plot to
overthrow his regime. His partisan account did not dissipate the
veil of mystery that still shrouds the purge of anti-Hoxha
elements after the Tirana party conference in April 1956. It
seems probable that the anti-Stalinist impact of the 20th Congress
had much to do with the emergence of these elements, although
the likelihood of Yugoslav intervention need not be discounted.
Hoxha's simplistic version was that the Albanian party
"unmasked Tito's spies in our Central Committee who worked in
collusion with the Yugoslav legation in Tirana... These spies
and traitors also wrote to Comrade Khrushchev to intervene against
the Central Committee of the Albanian Workers Party." [34] He
referred to the "Titoite agents" Dali Ndreu and Liri Gega, who,
he said, were caught trying to escape to Yugoslavia--and who
were later executed. [35] He went into more controversial detail
on the case of the Albanian general, Panajot Plaku, who did
manager to escape to Yugoslavia:
Agent Plaku wrote letters to Tito and Khrushchev, asking
from the latter that... he should liquidate the
leadership of Albania with Enver Hoxha at its head, on the
ground that it was allegedly anti-Marxist and Stalinist.
Nikita Khrushchev not only was not filled with
indignation by the letter of this traitor, but he was of the
opinion that [Plaku] could return to Albania provided
no measure whatever was taken against him; otherwise he
could find political asylum in the Soviet Union. [36]
We felt as if the Kremlin walls had tumbled down upon our
heads, for we could never have imagined that the First
Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU could go
so far as to support Tito's agents and traitors to our
party and our people.
--------------
(34) This and subsequent quotations are taken from a section of
the text carried by the ATA dispatch of
but omitted from the Radio Tirana broadcasts; it would
have come between the broadcast of 4 July 1970 and the
of 5 July.
(35) Referring to Liri Gega in his reply to Hoxha's conference
speech, Khrushchev accused the Albanians of having
executed a pregnant woman.
(36] In a brief reference to this affair in an anniversary speech
of early November 1961, Hoxha said that it was in 1957--
the year after the defection-- that Khrushchev offered asylum
to "the traitor Panajot Plaku" (Zeri i Popullit, 8 November
1961)
[page 24]
In April 1957, according to Hoxha, Soviet-Albanian talks
almost broke down over the Yugoslav issue. He quoted Khrushchev
as having "angrily told us: 'We give up the talks. We cannot
come to terms with you. You are seeking to lead us to Stalin's
road.'" At this, it seems, the "cool-headed" Albanians retreated
--"convinced that we were right, and not Khrushchev, that our
line would again be confirmed by life."
Hungary, 1956
Hoxha went on to deal with the Hungarian drama of 1956. In
his Manichean version: "The counterrevolution was prepared by
the agents of the Yugoslav revisionists in cooperation with the
traitor Imre Nagy, in cooperation with the Hungarian fascists.
They were all openly acting under the direction of the Americans.
The Yugoslav revisionists had planned that Hungary should detach
herself from the camp of socialism, that she should turn into a
second Yugoslavia and be converted into a force against the
socialist camp." Hoxha went on to suggest that their infatuation
with Tito prevented the Soviets from discerning the advance of
"counterrevolution" in Hungary:
The counter-revolutionaries in Hungary were acting
openly. But how could their activity fail to be
noticed? We cannot understand. How is it possible
that in a fraternal people's democracy, where the
party was in power and held in its hands the weapons
of the dictatorship, and where the Soviet Army was
stationed, Tito and the Horthyite bands could act
as freely as they did? We think that the stands
of Comrade Khrushchev and of the other Soviet
comrades toward Hungary have not been clear because the
very erroneous views they were holding about the
Yugoslav revisionists were preventing them from
viewing these questions correctly.
There followed another minor revelation. Hoxha had, he said,
warned the Soviets of the danger of counter-revolution in
Hungary, but in vain:
Before the counter-revolution broke out, and when
things were boiling up at the Pet�fi Club, I happened
to pass through Moscow, and in conversation with
Mikhail Suslov told him what I had seen on my way
through Budapest. I told him, too, that Imre Nagy
was deserting and was organizing a counter-revolution
at the Pet�fi Club. Comrade Suslov categorically
[page 25]
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.
Despite this warning, Hoxha went on, no steps could be taken
to guard against counter-revolution in Hungary "so long as
Khrushchev and his comrades placed their trust in the Yugoslav
revisionists... so long as they set so little value on 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 whatever to collective
work and collective decisions." Even after the "great lesson"
of Hungary, he alleged, the Soviet leaders kept documentary
evidence of Yugoslav intervention in Hungary under lock and key,
and resumed a policy of "reconciliation, smiles, contacts,
moderation and almost kisses" toward Tito.
Because the Albanian party refused to accept this line,
"many friends and comrades, particularly the Soviet and Bulgarian
comrades, being unable to attack our correct line, ridiculed us,
smiled and, with their friendly contacts with the Titoites, isolated
our people everywhere." Interestingly, Hoxha singled out Novotny's
dogmatist but unswervingly loyalist regime in Czechoslovakia as
an alleged exception to this tendency:
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,
except in Czechoslovakia, where, in general, the
Czechoslovak comrades assessed our activities correctly,
our ambassadors were isolated in a roundabout 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. [37]
When Khrushchev led a CPSU delegation to Tirana in May 1959
for interparty talks, the first thing he said (Hoxha reported)
was that "he would not talk against the Yugoslav revisionists."
His hosts respected this wish--but "after our guests' departure
...the Albanian Workers' Party felt no longer bound by the
conditions imposed upon us by our guest, and continued on its
Marxist-Leninist way."
--------------
(37) Emphasis added.
[page 26]
In the closing section of his speech Hoxha tackled what
had been a "gut issue" among Communists throughout the world
for four years -- the question of Stalin. Many militants,
particularly in Asian and Latin American parties, still resented
the traumatic and unexpected way in which Khrushchev shattered
their idol with his "secret speech" at the 20th CPSU Congress.
Here was another subject on which Hoxha could expect a
considerable amount of resonance, overt or covert.
The basic argument was one that he had already used
effectively in other contexts -- that the Soviet leaders had
no right to take important decisions affecting the interests
of other Communist parties without consulting those parties:
Stalin was severely and unjustly condemned on this
question [of the personality cult] by Comrade
Khrushchev and the 20th Congress. Comrade Stalin
and his work do not belong to the CPSU and the
Soviet people alone, but to us all...
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 pronounced upon Stalin all of a sudden...
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 Khrushchev. [38]
The Albanian party found itself in "a great dilemma," Hoxha
explained. It "adopted in general the formula 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 the country." It maintained a
"correct and grateful [attitude] toward this glorious Marxist.--
against whom, while he was alive, there was no one among us brave
enough to come out and direct criticism." [39] Stalin had made
-------------
(38) This and subsequent quotations are taken from the Radio
Tirana broadcast of 5 July 1970 (TEE, No. 239, pp. 29-34).
(39) Gomulka of Poland turned this taunt against its author in
a later speech at the Conference. According to the Italian
Communist Giuseppe Boffa (Dopo Krusciov, p. 68) and the
American delegate Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (op. cit., p. 31)
he told Hoxha that the latter praised Stalin now, but that
if the dictator were alive he would not have dared to criticize
the Soviet party in this way -- for it he had done so, he
would not have left Moscow alive and in freedom.
[page 27]
mistakes, but it was not right, normal or Marxist to blot out
his name and great work, as had been done. "We should all
defend the good and immortal work of Stain. He who does not
defend it is an opportunist and a coward."
His opponents -- and that meant the great majority of
delegates at the 1960 conference -- might have described Hoxha
himself as an opportunist; but they could hardly accuse him
of cowardice. Nevertheless, as this analysis suggests, his
anti-Soviet bravado was a calculated performance, his indictment
carefully constructed. His rebellion would not have been
possible if he had not been able to turn away from Moscow to
the alternative patron in Peking.
Yet, as we have seen, he was at pains to minimize this
dependent relationship; and with some reason. The text not
made public after nearly a decade show that in his historic
intervention Hoxha presented himself as an ally of China, not
a satellite--a junior partner, let us say. The fact that
he and Shehu left the conference for Tirana after hearing
Khrushchev's polemical reply to Hoxha's speech, [40] whereas
the Chinese delegates stayed until the end, is more than symbolic.
The importance of this anti-Soviet rebellion, providing
Mao Tse-tung with his first dependable ally, lies in the fact
that it came not from one of the Asian regimes and parties
already subject to the geopolitical influence of China but
from the smallest and weakest of the East European countries.
This fact gave a global dimension to the Sino-Soviet conflict.
In the decade that has passed since then this basic conflict
has continued, and the Communist world has undergone further
---------------
(40) Khrushchev's speech has not, of course, been published,
but it is known from various sources (notably Edward
Crankshaw in The New Cold War) that he turned Hoxha's
championship of Stalin against him by identifying him
with the methods of the Soviet dictator, picturing
Albania as a backward regime ruled by terror, in which
a clique of power-hungry leaders used mock trials,
firing squads and concentration camps to crush pro-Soviet
sentiment, and where almost all of the original leadership
had been purged.
[page 28]
radical transformations, with the polycentric assertion of local
interests. But Albanian rejection of Soviet authority has
remained a constant factor. Publication of Hoxha's speech
at this juncture represents, among other things, a commitment
that this stand will be maintained. [41]
Summary: After nearly a decade, Albanian has
published the full text of the speech which Enver
Hoxha delivered at the 81-party Moscow Conference
in November 1960 -- thus becoming the only regime
to break the "pact of secrecy." The text shows
that Hoxha's rejection of Soviet authority was
couched in extremely offensive terms, with strong
personal attacks against Khrushchev. It contains
interesting revelations on the secret interparty
meeting held in Bucharest in June 1960, when
Khrushchev tried to drum up an anti-Chinese
consensus, and on subsequent Soviet efforts to
coerce the Albanians into submission. While
supporting Chinese positions at the 1960 Conference,
Hoxha in fact played down the new Peking-Tirana
alliance, arguing his "principled "case largely
in Albanian terms. The paper discusses the
probable reasons for the publication of the historic
text at this time, concluding that if represents,
inter alia, a reaffirmation of Albanian independence
and a pledge that the struggle against Soviet
authority will continue.
Kevin Devlin & lz
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(41) Reviewing the volume in which the text appeared, the Albanian
theorist Vangjel Moisiu wrote in Zeri i Popullit of 1
August 1970 that the decade of the sixties had demonstrated
the correctness of Hoxha's "principled viewpoints, analyses
and predictions" and "the great historic and international
significance" of the Albanian party's struggle against
Khrushchevian revisionism.
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